Liberty Fading

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

With time things wither away.  We lose our youth, our friends, and our things.  As with life, liberty has grown old, and is at risk of being forgotten and tossed aside.

Thus, is the reality of the cycles of time.  In history we can see that systems of liberty always begin with courage and virtue, only to wither away under the assault of tyrants and complacency.  The Roman Republic became an empire, and the Saxons gave way to King George and the Fabians.

Tyranny is not something people wish for, nor do they desire it.  Tyranny creeps in incrementally, guided by a mask of progress, encouraged by hopes of change.  Darkness is behind the tyranny, but it never originally reveals its true form.  Darkness would never be accepted if we knew it was darkness, so it reveals itself as an angel of light, a wonderful thing that is for the common good and the good of the community.

We adjust as our freedoms are taken away, not even aware that it is happening.  The government says it is benevolent, it is taking control of certain aspects of our lives for our own good, because among us exists greedy and malevolent individuals.  Individualism cannot be trusted, we are convinced, so the collective community must be our priority.  We are willing to sacrifice just a little freedom to keep our children safe.

Speech becomes limited not by government, but by a changing culture.  Then, as violence escalates, the right to protect oneself against tyranny is confiscated.  Opinions are fine, the faithful are told, as long as you keep them inside four walls. . . and until the government decides those four walls are a part of its dominion as well.  Dissent is hate, and hate is unpatriotic.  But, don't worry, majority rules, as the majority seeks to vote away the rights of the minority.  Mob-rule becomes mob-violence.  They may not wear brown shirts, but they sure act like it.

Armored vehicles and a federalized police become necessary to protect us from the rage of manufactured crises.  As Benjamin Franklin warned, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

By the blaze of fire, and invisible chains we don't even know we wear, liberty becomes a distant memory because we abandoned the eternal vigilance necessary to stave off the assault, not recognizing it as tyranny because we were told it was for the good of the community.  It was fair.  It was moral and not hateful.

God-given rights have become government defined.  We lie within prison walls without realizing the bricks were ever placed.  Our clergy hid, our patriots were silenced, and tyranny told us that their chains are a new form of liberty.  To be free we must be forced to achieve it through governmental means.  Man must be forced to be free by the guiding wisdom of a ruling elite.

We have withered.  We have lost our will.  We have allowed our complacency to place our liberty at risk.  Therefore, our liberty is fading.

As William Cullen Bryant wrote in his piece, The Antiquity of Freedom, "O Freedom! close thy lids in slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, and thou must watch and combat till the day of the new earth and heaven."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary