No, Not Today

There are many people saying that the end is nigh: we can begin with the adherents to the Mayan calendar, move through all the people who advocate hoarding gold, add those who can present a cogent discussion of the rise and fall of the ‘American empire’ and ‘imperial overreach,’ throw in the reasoned arguments of those who point out the growing size of our national debt and the massive unfunded, government mandated annuities that en toto are 9 times larger than that national debt, and finish with the academics who, with an almost childish glee, talk about the decay of America, and the realignment of international power to a multi-polar world where the US would be just one among many nations.  Some suggest that there may even be a darker future, one in which the very nature of democracy in the US is replaced by a ‘savior’ who will seize power and set himself up as dictator.

All of these futures are possible.  But all require a choice.  All require that we acquiesce in the drift of events, that we let the debt overtake us, we let weak-kneed politicians in Congress and the White House continue to spend our future and that of our children and children’s children for current votes, that we let a lack of leadership in the White House fritter away our position in the world, that we let a demagogue arise and usurp the powers of the Constitution.

Perhaps.  But Not Today.  That is what we must repeat every day: Not today.

None of these events is inevitable, none is driven by dark, mysterious forces, none simply appears on the scene with all of mankind watching in amazement.  Nations rise and fall not because of ‘forces or history’ or ‘accidents of geography’ or the presence of some virus.  Nations rise and fall because of the force of will of the individuals in that nation.  Augustus did not simply emerge, Augustus made choices, he took advantage of those around him and those around him let him so act.  The United States is not an accident, not a serendipitous sequence of events, but a result of the choices of our citizens and the product of a series of decisions – among them the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

 

Every day we have to push back.   We need to struggle to fix our problems before they present an opportunity to new Caesars.  Perhaps we need to consider amending the Constitution, further defining and narrowing the powers of government.  But we need to act; each one of us must choose to act.  Chesterton once observed that every generation is potentially the last, that every generation, every man stands on the precipice.  It is only through our choices that we can prevent doom.  It is also only through our choices that we can continue to shape the future of this great nation, that we can build a nation better and greater, freer and more productive, than any that has come before it.  It is our choice: we can decide to decline or we can decide to rise.  It is through our choices that we forge the future.  As it is with man, it is also with our Republic.  It is through our choices and our actions that we can prevent the gloom from overtaking us – as individuals and as a nation, that we can continue to lead the world forward, to be that ‘City on a Hill’ as John Winthrop said nearly four centuries ago.

There are those who wish to change the nation, to make it less then exceptional, to make us simply one among many, to even reduce our liberties, makes us all dependent on the government, to teach us to turn to the government first for a solution, rather than to ourselves.  In the name of freedom they actually wish to quietly usurp our freedom, to control our fortunes and our futures, to dictate to our children, and make our nation subject to the whims of unnamed regulators in Washington, or at UN Headquarters in New York, or worse, in Brussels.  They would not only sell our freedom and our nation’s birthright, they would sell our future.  To these we must answer: Not Today.

Loss of freedom always begins slowly and begins with people agreeing to small steps, to small accommodations that usually involve some increase in security or care at the cost of a seemingly insignificant loss in personal freedom.  This is not new; it has always been so.  Over time, the accommodations grow until the citizens, like the frog dropped into the pot of cool water on a hot stove, find that they are now surrounded by true dangers to their freedoms and even their lives.  But at any time the citizens might have stood up and said ‘No, not today.’  Government, the organs of power, the huge bureaucracies, must always be viewed as our servants, not our masters.  We – the People – must remember that we have the power, not them.  And when they seek more power, when they seek to reach beyond the boundaries we have established, it is our duty, on the peril of our very lives, to say ‘No, Not Today.’