By: Ben Goss
Jorge “George” Santayana, a writer and philosopher whose life spanned the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century (b.1863-d.1952) was a contemporary of some of the worst atrocities known to man. He is credited with having written “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This has been popularly rewritten as “those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them” or some derivation thereof.
I take pen in hand, metaphorically speaking, because I am afraid that the American light of freedom is fading from that torch emblazoned above the statue of Liberty. It is fading to just the flicker of a candle. Who knows but it may yet blow out in my lifetime? Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, famously said:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
The Bill of Rights, which is our popular name for the 1st Ten Amendments to our United States Constitution are a list of prohibitive rights. Prohibitive in that it designs a box which government, whether state or federal, may not intrude upon. To my knowledge, it is the only such document that exists in such a pure and protective form on this Earth.
The Problem We Face Today …
The Democratic Party explicitly, and elitist-statist members of the Republican (GOP) Party, have declared war on freedom and Americans who choose to exercise our hard-won, blood-secured freedoms. Anyone who refuses to acknowledge this fact is no better than an ostrich burying its head in the sand. Ignoring truth and fact does not then eradicate or mitigate that truth.
Historical Lessons We Fail to Apply
Beginning in 1831, the American Government enforced the Indian Removal Act of 1830. A law that forced the relocation of multiple civilized Indian nations from their ancestral lands. They were moved to Oklahoma, and then even this zone was opened for settlement as American westward expansion continued. Why was this done? Simple. Money. Moving the Indian Nations made these areas open for settlement.
In February of 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) issued Executive Order 9066. This order displaced between 115,000 and 127,000 Japanese Americans, the majority of whom were American citizens without any due process. Decades later President Reagan signed a bill which paid reparations totaling more than $3 Billion dollars to reimburse these patriots whose only crime was to be of Japanese descent. Why did this happen in our freedom loving nation? Fear. Panic. Stupidity. Racism. Take your pick. All were factors.
What do these two well-documented historically repugnant facts tell us about government? The bald-faced and disturbing facts are that when men believe that they are either entitled or “right” they will trample upon the rights and existence of those who cannot defend themselves. These repulsive and wholly unsettling events should bring us pause before we rush headlong to deny someone their rights to live their lives unencumbered and in pursuit of their own beliefs.
The Founding Fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Yet, we find that our individual liberties are assaulted on every side. The words of John Locke, an intellectual forefather of the American Revolution, described our divine right to pursue “life, liberty and property,” but these rights are now in a forced retreat.
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THE TRUTH IS AT LAUNCH LIBERTY!
