America Lost
by Steve McCann
AmericanThinker.com
In the 1970s, there was an evocative public service advertisement on television. It showed an old and grizzled Native American Chief with a tear rolling down his cheek as he surveyed the pollution scaring the landscape of the once-pristine land.
As the House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform, many of us who were blessed to immigrate to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity (and were welcomed with open arms) found ourselves looking across the panorama of our adopted land with a tear rolling down our cheek.
Many of us who came to the United States did so to escape the brutal hand of government or as survivors of the consequences of tyranny run amok.
It has become difficult to watch, as our adopted land appears to have chosen a path that will lead to a nation we dare not imagine: a nation beginning to resemble what we left behind.
We see in Washington, D.C. the spectacle of a Congress whose members are no longer responsive to the people or the Constitution, but instead are captive to their personal whims and greed, as well as their allegiance to a president, political party, and statist ideology.
We recognize that in the White House, in the office once occupied by some of the greatest men in history, the nation has as its president the person most hostile to the founding tenets of the United States since its inception. Mr. Obama appears more desirous of creating a “cult of personality” and a socialist utopia by any means necessary than in acting in the best interest of all the people.
We have witnessed, despite the overwhelming opposition of the people, the arrogance of power as the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress forced through a Health Care Reform bill — a bill whose objective is not to improve the health care of the citizens, but to expand by geometric proportions the power of the state over the individual.
We know that this bill will be nearly impossible to fully repeal, but more importantly, it will pit the government against the individual, foment class warfare, create additional unemployment, shackle the economy, and exacerbate the national debt crisis, while ultimately rationing health care to the most vulnerable in society.
We notice that the (once-)mainstream media are no longer the watchdogs of the machinations of government, but rather the cheerleaders for the present administration. The current health care debate was viewed not as a vital national issue, but rather as a sporting event with the requisite reporting on which team would win.
We see an economy, the engine of wealth and security, hamstrung by regulations, taxes, government policies, lawsuits, and mandates no longer able to generate jobs and income for our citizens. American businesses can no longer compete in a new global economy and must therefore leave our shores, taking employment opportunities and wealth with them. Small businesses and entrepreneurs will no longer be able to generate jobs or even open their doors, as they too will be hobbled by this same myopic and rigid socialist ideology.
We realize, as do many of our fellow citizens, that the United States is on a collision course with national bankruptcy. Yet the present government appears determined, by their policies, to make certain that there is little or no economic growth so necessary to mitigate the future debt crises and make certain that the standard of living for all Americans continues to increase.
We fear that one day, the greatest nation in the history of mankind will be relegated to secondary status, easily intimidated by those who wish us harm, as the United States will no longer be able to finance the most dominant military in the world. Many of us have known first-hand the horrors of war, and we pray that that is something our fellow citizens never experience.
We watch as a nation blessed with abundant natural resources refuses to responsibly exploit them, but rather becomes dependent on the unreliable whims of foreign nations for energy while willingly enriching potential adversaries.
We know, based on our personal experience, that when a nation embarks on the road to massive government and control of the day-to-day lives of its citizens, the outcome is always detrimental to the individual. We know that liberty and freedom are the first casualties, and once fully lost, they can never be regained short of armed conflict.
We have been blessed to live among the most generous, outgoing, and patriotic people on the face of the earth. Some of us have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, but all of us cherish the freedom to fail or succeed, to live in a land established on the premise that our rights come from God and not man, and to be part of man’s most noble and crowning achievement: the founding and creation of the United States of America.
The founders of our country gave the people a road map, the Constitution, to maintain or regain the power of the people. Follow it. Unite, organize, use the legal process, peacefully march, and above all, vote and take back the country from those who are hell-bent on destroying it for personal vanity or adherence to a failed ideology.
This will be our last chance. On behalf of all of us over the past century
who came across an ocean to seek freedom, please do not forsake your future and
that of succeeding generations. There will be no beacon or haven for
liberty-loving people throughout the world if the United States ceases to be
that “shining city on a hill.”