The End of the Dream

What is it about free societies that make them want to implode? At what point do they seem to decide, subconsciously, that they are no longer viable and must give up on freedom? What is it about great societies that seems to make them lose their interest in, not only protecting the freedom's of others, but in even caring about their own liberties?

I don't have the answers but I am asking the questions. I have to wonder why we, as the greatest, freedom loving society the world has ever seen, are willingly giving up on liberty as the most valuable thing that we possess.

Don't believe me? Think about this, what are the things you learned in school 30 years ago? Reading, writing, math and history correct? Go into an elementary classroom today and the curriculum is somewhat different. Now they teach kids about stranger danger, sexual diseases and bad touches from Uncle Carl. Things that used to be our jobs as parents. When did we give the government our power over our own children's upbringing? Today they give children physical exams in school looking for things like physical and sexual abuse.

We have been conditioned to believe that government can solve all of our problems for the last 40 years or so. Think about it for a minute, if you have a neighbor that has run into a slump in their lives and needs some assistance, where do we direct them? To the church? No. We tell them to go to the nearest government public assistance office and apply for food stamps and childcare. Since when do we not take care of our own? Our neighbor's barn burns down and instead of getting all of the neighbors together and having a barn raising, we say "That's too bad, I hope they had insurance." We see someone on the side of the road with a broken down vehicle and we pass right on by never even considering stopping to offer assistance. When did we learn to not trust each other?

30 years ago you could walk down main street USA and be said "hello" to many times. Now we ignore each other and don't dare to even make eye contact. Used to be that we would hold open a door for a stranger and say "Afternoon" with a smile, now we let the door shut in their face. I have lived in my neighborhood for over 3 years now and I know exactly one of my neighbors. Just one. Everyone else keeps to themselves and I only see them coming or going to their cars. I go out to mow my lawn and I notice that I don't see anyone. No one is outside, no one is walking by and no kids are playing in the street. I live in a small town where you'd expect to such things too. What has happened to the trust? What has happened to make us feel unsafe on our own streets?

The government has used the TV news to instill fear into us. They decry things like terrorists and sex offenders telling us that they are behind every tree and we must stay on top of the problem to protect ourselves. We must be informed at all times about where they are and what their doing or else. Or else what? What is a pedophile going to do in the middle of a lunch time crowd in McDonald's that makes us so afraid of them? Are pedophiles so prevalent that we must surrender our own liberties to protect our children? Is the stranger danger so great that we can't raise our children ourselves without the governments help? Are we really willing to follow in Germany's footsteps and surrender our freedoms to feel a bit safer? Study Germany's history from the 1920's and 30's and see if you don't see the parallels for yourself. Or talk to a history professor about the political situation during Hitler's rise to power. Ask them how Hitler was able to convince a free society to surrender all of their liberties to him in just a few short years. Germany turned from a free society to one in which millions were murdered by its government in under 15 years. Now THAT'S what I call scary! Sexual offenders and terrorists don't scare me, the odds of being targeted by either one is lower than dying by lightening strike, but the loss of freedom is what I shudder and get cold sweats just thinking about. I mourn for my child's loss of freedom.

I will end with a quote from one of our founding fathers.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Benjamin Franklin