As we travel through the annals of history with our children, we marvel at the redundancy evident in the pages of our world’s past. Sure there are different leaders, different countries, different battle names, but the general prevailing incidents that have resulted in the people’s loss or willing surrender of their freedoms are eerily similar. The parallels continue in our own country today.

As Americans we live in an era where the true remaining heroes of our nation’s independence are few. Americans have grown spoiled, partly due to the relatively small impact wars have had on the personal lifestyles of most of us. Too many of us have an entitlement mentality, believing it is our right to have a nice house, a nice car or three, food on the table whether we earn it or not, and the rest of the privileges that our forefathers worked hard to achieve. Many Americans, at least the most vocal set, feel that we are also entitled to freedom without sacrifice.

Friends, freedom does not come without sacrifice. We did not talk our way out from under the thumb of King George. We did not apologize our way out of potential Nazi control. We did not grin our way through the Cold War with no military at our feet.  We fought, and we fought hard. Time and again a united America has stood behind her leaders and her troops, most of them men who had more patriotism and manliness in their big toes than the average man of today has in his entire body.

Americans today are giving up what our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for. The character of today’s average grumbling American is revealed when a person surrenders personal liberties and responsibility in hopes that the government will take up the slack.  All I have to say is be a man! Work while you can work, fight hard, pray harder, help your neighbor, take care of your parents, raise your own children!  Don’t leave these duties in the hands of the government.  Be a man!

Freedom does not come by giving up personal liberties, whether handing them over to the national government or to global control. Giving up our individual freedoms during times of economic trial, personal fear, or when our national security is being challenged is no more sensible than giving them up during times of national prosperity. Freedom is fought for, lived for, and died for. It is not something to throw away.

Has America forgotten what makes us great? Has America forgotten the men and women who lived or died for the freedom we so casually toss aside? Has America been so busy getting rid of any evidence of God and morality that we have lost sight of the amazing strength and resilience of a nation built on those principles we now denounce?  Has America become so enamored with a pretty face and political correctness that we are unwilling to call a spade a spade, a sin a sin, or an enemy an enemy?  Has America become so cowardly that we are ashamed to call on our God ‘lest we offend the ungodly?

America, where are you going? Study up on your history and you’ll see exactly where America is going.

“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.”

~ Ronald Reagan

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