Steve, A Briefer Introduction

With thanks to Mr. Brutally Honest, and in acknowledgment of my good friend CitizenScribe, I am also stepping in to provide some perspectives on things for a spell.

My introduction, however, is not really about me. I'm not cool enough to share with you a picture of a typewriter. I'm not deft enough to reference my beloved Monty Python as skillfully. I'm also not famous enough to drag in a massive following to this fine blog. I actually come with no following. I'm not a hermit. Most folks simply wish that I would embrace the concept.

But I love Liberty. Personal, individual, rarified Liberty. That which truly makes ours an exceptional nation. And I understand that the Declaration of Independence boldly embraced the concept of individual liberty, and that the Constitution put into place an imperfect but carefully crafted form of government with checks and balances for the sole purpose of preserving that liberty - personal, individual and rarified.

And though I don't write much these days, when I do, fire tends to leap from the lips, for it's usually the abject assault on said Liberty which drives a man to reach for the pen - or keyboard - to express displeasure and enter into the battlespace of the mind.

For America is, after all and above all, an idea - Liberty. Personal, individual and rarified. We are not our borders or the dirt within. We are not a language, a cuisine or a specific regionalized culture (ie, Franch, German, Chinese, etc.).

We are Liberty. We are the idea that the individual is greater than the whole of a government. We are the concept that government's purpose is far less to serve men than to stay out of his liberty-filled life as much as possible. And this is why our rights are codified, delineating where government must not venture so as to preserve Liberty and the American idea.

We have, in just a few short generations, ignored this. The assault has become the new normal over the past 75+ years, and it grows and rarely recedes. And now, even if only visible to many in the form of deficits and budgets, the growth of government means a corresponding shrinkage of Liberty. 

This cannot stand. It must not stand. Or we are no different as a nation than Greece, Spain, Venezuela or any other nation in any hemisphere. 

It is more than an election. It is more than many elections. It is far far more than any man or men. It is a battle for the American identity, the American psyche. So we enter onto the battlefield of ideas, confident, free and proud yet humble. Tomorrow is too late.

Engage.

Comments

[R.C.]

Hear, hear!