securities for liberty

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

Last night I attended a Veteran's Day presentation at my daughter's high school.  Many times the word 'freedom' was mentioned and I couldn't help but feel saddened each time the word was spoken.  I wonder if folks truly understand the freedom that we have and the freedom that we are loosing and have lost as a nation.  I wonder if twenty years from now, if people will still be singing about America's freedom, but not noticing that they have been stripped of it all together.

I am deeply concerned for my country.  I am not an old man, but this isn't the place I once knew.  What will America be a decade from now?  I want my children to truly know freedom - to have what we had.  I don't want them to grow up wards of the state.

True our freedom is from God.  It is true a multitude of troops have sacrificed to pay a terrible price to preserve our freedoms.  It is true that freedom isn't free...so why do we trade it so easily?

I am thinking of the story about Jacob and Esau, how Esau was so willing to swap his birthright for a bowl of lintel soup.  I feel like that's what the American people are allowing our government to do - swap liberties for securities.  Esau was foolish to give away something so precious as his birthright just to sate his belly for a few hours.  The more we let a government is allowed to do for the people, the less people are allowed to do for themselves.  Eventually we will be left without any choice but what a bureaucracy deems best for us.  Government wants the people to think the idea of entitlement as a good thing, but it's just a link in a chain to bondage.  We do not need to feel entitled, we should need to be FREE!

A powerful and overreaching government leads to totalitarianism, and that is where we are quickly heading. We must demand LIMITED GOVERNMENT for our nation to survive.  No way did our founding father's intend for government to turn into what it has become today.  Our founding documents were made not to restrain the people, but rather to restrain government!

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity."
-Thomas Jefferson

I have been deeply troubled these days about the state of our nation and her people.  I turn on the television and see a president trying to seduce the people with a bowl of soup.  I see too many of us clamoring for it.  All we have to do is give up a little liberty here and there and we'll be safe, warm, and fed.  I see America's young people angry in the streets protesting - demanding that they are entitled to something.  I hear the term freedom spoken so freely, but do we all know of that of which we speak?  I think of all the blood that has been spilled down through the years to preserve that freedom.  And I see too many American's too willing to trade away what was paid for so dearly.

"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."
-Ronald Reagan

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!