Perhaps. Maybe the many hours I spent working in the hot Arizona sun this summer finally took their toll on my capacity for rational thought. Or, maybe, it*s a sense of hope for the future. As others have done before me, I, too, can have a dream . . .
It would be fatal for this nation, its people and its current leadership to overlook the crisis of freedom we face in our time. The days of staving off revolt by numbing the population through high-tech military spectacles and emotional appeals to patriotism may have reached their apex. Although, as Jefferson said, "Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed," the time may be nigh that the American people have reached the breaking point against the current manifestation of their government.
I have a dream that one day the people of this nation will rise up, in arms if necessary, and demand a return to the foundational principles bestowed upon this land by the Founders, once again believing that whenever government exceeds its delegated powers, "it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." I have a dream that one day on Capitol Hill members from both parties will sit in their respective chambers of Congress and uphold the rule of law and defend the Constitution and the nation against any and all deceitful men and usurpers.
I have a dream that one day the Republican Party will stand on its professed belief in smaller, less intrusive government, and demand the removal of any man from office, even one of its own, who holds his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," in utter contempt. I have a dream that even the Democratic Party will, for once, stand on principle, rather than on the political opportunism of the moment.
I have a dream that my five children will grow old in a nation devoid of overbearing, intrusive and tyrannical government; a nation where they can speak freely without fear of being labeled a "traitor,""un-American" or "soft" on anything, just because what they think defies the "majority" or what government deems necessary to maintain national "resolve" against our "enemies"; a nation which does not confiscate their property so that complete strangers might live comfortably as wards of the state; a nation in which a patriot is not an empty-headed robotic flag-waver driven by mass hysteria, ignorance or propaganda to root for the government, but someone who believes in and supports the United States as a limited constitutional republic, not an imperial giant which stands astride the globe, beating the rest of the world across an anvil of control and oppression with the hammer of military might. I have a dream today that tomorrow will be free because we consigned government to its proper place - "the ash-heap of history."
I have a dream that one day, whenever the beast of federal oppression threatens to rise like a vampire and once again suck the life*s blood out of this nation, governors and legislatures in all fifty States will stand strong and resist, even unto imprisonment and death, Washington*s threats of enslavement. I have a dream that one day, the mere utterance of such terms as expulsion, impeachment, nullification and rebellion will cause those entrusted with the preservation of our resurrected constitutional republic to tremble with fear.
I have a dream that one day, with a return to a sound currency - one whose value cannot be destroyed by an exclusive banking cartel and a government with a voracious appetite to spend, with a repeal of all regulations inhibiting commercial relations, with a restoration of the pre-eminence of private property and an obliteration of all onerous laws which only perpetuate strife between individuals and groups in society, men and women of all colors, creeds and unique backgrounds will walk amongst each other in peaceful and productive commerce, completely oblivious to the differences once purposely aggravated and exploited by government.
I have a dream that the barriers to achievement, excellence and success intentionally placed in the path of some by "enlightened" condescending elitists employed by the government, supposedly to promote the same among the "historically disadvantaged," will be permanently torn asunder. It is my hope that one day the normal challenges all face in life will no longer continue to be made artificially difficult for some while others remain insulated from the same by the protective hand of government, solely because a coterie of intellectual snobs needs to assuage its sense of collective historical guilt.
Whence that day arrives, it will imbue the American people with a sense of freedom they have never known. Freedom will reign over New York, notorious for mindless and prolific gun control laws. Freedom will reign over California, with its regulatory bureaucracy larger than most socialist nations on earth. Freedom will reign over Massachusetts, where one party rule under the name of *Kennedy* has been the norm for generations. Freedom will reign over Missouri, where a dead man was once elected to the Senate, ultimately condemning the nation to the wrath of his opponent as U. S. Attorney General. Freedom will reign over Illinois, where in Chicago, "vote early and vote often" is the theme on Election Day.
With the federal leviathan reduced to an anemic shadow of its former self by the American people, individual States, no longer satellites for federal oppression, could not possibly maintain the tyranny existent under a system once dominated by the federal government. States would not have the resources or resolve to continue oppressing their people, suddenly awakened to a freedom that is their birthright as Americans, a freedom purposely suppressed for so long. Once this spirit of freedom is rekindled, I have a dream that our people will from that day forward be ever-mindful of energy in government, the fragility of freedom itself and the men who spend every waking moment scheming to corrupt and destroy it. May we all come to understand the profound wisdom in the words of Alexis de Toqueville, who said, "The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave." |
