The First Day

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Yours too. And it is very difficult to tell just what direction those lives will follow. Our government has turned against us. It has been more than 230 years since the agency which governed us was utterly against us. King George believed, perhaps rightfully so, that he owned us. That he could take whatever we had and put it to his own use and purposes. The Kind exercised that right fully and frequently until we became so sick of it that we told him to stop. We not only declared our independence but by armed force we pushed him and his government out of the country and claimed it as our own.

Since that time we have had our ups and downs. Through good governments and bad, through times of peace and times of war we have survived, even when one of those wars was between states of our own country. Americans fighting Americans. We have fought in other ways as well. Economically, socially and politically we have competed with one another peacefully for the most part. We have respected our government throughout the good times and the bad because we all believed in common principles of freedom, self-reliance, private ownership of property and the freedom to worship or not as we pleased.

As long as the people of the United States have acted on their own, allowing the government only so much of our wealth as we deemed necessary and appropriate, permitting the government the power to act for us only as far as is provided by our Constitution and holding the government in check we have prospered, grown in power and remained free. But now our government has turned against us. The people who now occupy the seats of power have thrown away the restraints of the electorate in favor of their private agenda. At the helm of our nation we now see those who firmly believe that we are incapable of managing our own affairs and that the government must manage them for us. Our leaders have chosen to destroy the capitalist system which made our country rich beyond the imagination of most in the world. They have decided that collectivism is the only course to follow in order to insure justice.

Never mind that socialism brings injustice to most and only a base equality for all, an equality which puts us all at the poorest level of life. A system tried by communists the world over which enriched only those in power and impoverished the rest. An economic system the likes of which have failed time and time again and will surely fail here as well. But we are well instructed to remember that it took the Russians seventy years to throw off the yoke of their communist dictators. Are we to live the same lives of deprivation, brutality and further warfare to get back to the way we were?

What are you doing about it today? Are you concerned? Do you care? Do you believe that there are men who are infallible? Do you believe that in spite of so many mistakes already made in the past two months that somehow or other, things will work themselves out okay without your effort? Do you ask for others to avoid sending political e-mail to you? Do you complain about those of us who discuss politics? Are you ashamed to admit what you believe, how you think, how you voted?

It is time for everyone to stand up for America. To those who say we need to take care of the rest of the world, give the rest of the world a chance, surrender to a world government I warn you, be careful of what you think you want or need. What you will get is sure to surprise and disappoint you. So as you begin this first day, think about where you really want to go with this life. Compare it with where you are being taken.