A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Before you sigh and mutter to yourself: "Oh, no! Another tome by Longstreet opining how we Americans have lost our freedom," consider the words of Eric Peters at http://www.ericpetersautos.com/Mr. Peters says: "Our slavery is ingenious because it’s so very subtle. Most people not only don’t see (much less feel) their shackles – they get angry when someone calls attention to them. Most people, in other words, still imagine themselves to be free. This despite the obvious fact that they must first beg – and obtain – permission before they may exercise any of their former natural rights."
Struck a nerve, did it? If you love freedom, as I do, I am SURE it got your attention.
Mr. Peters goes on to say: "Even the elemental right to choose your spouse, for instance, is no longer a natural right; the state demands the couple seek its permission to marry. Exactly as feudal lords once demanded of their serfs. And serfs we have become."
Mr. Peters continues: "Thus, people beg the state’s permission. Much worse, they have accepted this as normal and reasonable. They do not take umbrage – or even become mildly annoyed. Many – all too many – take pride in having begged for (and received) their permission slips. In having acquired a birth certificate (of ownership) for their children. A driver’s license, a Social Security number…. and so on."
Mr. Peters commentary continues to cut to the nub of the American experience today.
We Americans are NO LONGER FREE! We haven't been for a very long time. "Land of the free" ought to be scrubbed from our National Anthem because it is NOT TRUE!
In a recent commentary, I endeavored to point out a few of the freedoms lost to Americans. You may find it interesting. Read it here: http://flashpoint2016.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-shining-city-goes-dark-forever-j-d-longstreet/
America is now an oligarchy. Our government is run by a small group of very powerful people. Where did they get that power? We, you and I, gave it to them.
America';s Founding Fathers were fearful that this day would eventually come. Ben Franklin, upon being asked by a female by-stander what kind of government they had given us, is said to have replied: "A republic, Madam -- if you can keep it!"
Well, the plain truth is -- we DIDN'T keep it!
Freedom requires eternal vigilance. You have heard that phrase time and time again -- and it is very true. Once freedom is gained it is hard work to maintain it. Apparently, it is work only a few citizens are willing to undertake.
And they LIE! How they lie! They will look America directly in the eye and -- with all the sincerity they can muster -- tell you a bald-faced lie. We Americans have just undergone months of disingenuousness in the most recent presidential campaign. And he won!
America spurned its last hope of recovering its freedom and its self respect. That is why hundreds of thousands of Americans are petitioning the White House to allow their states to leave the so-called United States of America and create their own country ruled by the old, the original, Constitution. (For those of you educated in America's public schools you may have to Google "constitution.")
Those rights granted by God, and God alone, are now restricted, or forbidden, by the centralized authority of the US government.
Americans must now live in fear and dread, very much as the citizens of the old Soviet Union did, of the bureaucratic despotism of Obama's nameless, faceless, Czars, and despotic agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (a domestic version of KGB), the Environmental Protection Agency, and a myriad of alphabet soup agencies that have locked our freedom away -- and -- from whom we must beg permission to exercise rights that Providence granted us at birth.
As Mr. Peters says: "Free men do not beg permission. They insist that their rights be respected. Come what may.But before anyone can insist that his rights be respected, he must understand that his rights exist because he exists. Not because his rights were written on a document. Not because the state acknowledges them formally. Rights just are. And once he has such understanding, he will resent like hell ever having to ask permission to exercise them."
There is a plethora of wisdom in Mr. Peter's article entitled: "Permission Slips Instead of Rights." We recommend you read it in its entirety. You will find it at: http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/11/27/permission-slips-instead-of-rights/
Someone once said: "Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush, mustache, and swastika armband -- it creeps up insidiously... step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone."
Certainly there was SOME of that in old America. (There is ALWAYS that ten percent who do not get the word.) But that excuse REALLY doesn't fly when applied to modern America. Americans were warned -- loud and long -- that they were giving their freedom away for ONLY the promise of security.
Americans today are jobless, homeless and broke -- ripe for the picking. President Franklin Roosevelt once said: "People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."
To see the wisdom of Roosevelt's words we have only to look to the Oval Office in the White House today.
There will remain a few who refuse to be silenced. A few who will continue to point to the obvious, that America is now a Marxist state. They are few now. They will be fewer later as the fist of the dictator begins to crush them into eternal silence.
Some will endeavor to keep the fires of freedom kindled and the spark alive. As one of our Founding Fathers, Samuel Adams (a veritable thorn-in-the-flesh to King George) once said: "It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men."
Pass the matches, please.
© J. D. Longstreet
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