"The Lone
Survivor"
You might
think from reading that title, this was going to be about the movie of that
name...but it's not. The lone survivor
in this case, is America. From reading various things about democracy,
freedom, innovation and just about anything else of any sort of nobility, the United States
pretty much stands alone. Oh sure, there
are democratic countries in the world...but they aren't, or weren't
innovative. Yes, there are innovative countries
in the world, but they didn't give their people the same amount of freedom that
we used to have in this land of ours.
What's that you say? You noticed
it says that we used to have freedom in this country, and you wondered why it
says we used to? Think about it for a
moment or two. If you’re about 50 or
younger, a twinge might be going through your head, and you can remember a
couple of things that have been “changed” over the past few years. If you’re about 40 or younger, not much has
changed, you think it’s always been that way.
If you’re about 20 or younger, one of you may be a lone survivor in some
not-too-distant future where you have to scrounge for food, clothing, and
shelter. It may have been the result of
an apocalyptic upheaval resulting from a nuclear war…or perhaps nothing more
than the collapse of an experimental government…ours.
If, however, you are 60 and older, you have experienced
the early years of the decline of the United States as a world
power. Are you 70, 80, or older? You are among those folks, like me, who lived
through a world at war, and saw your country emerge unscathed…a lone survivor
in a world that we took part in destroying, and now we were going to rebuild. Somebody, much smarter than I could ever hope
to be once said that America was the only country that, after defeating an
enemy, did not take the country as a war prize, but built it up to be, and
let’s be fair about this…we built Germany and Japan back much better than they
were before World War Two. That’s what
Americans do…or used to do. In memory,
the war years are with me, the post-war years were splendid and America
was still the land of the free because of the brave. As a nation, we had repeated defeating not one,
but two, of the mightiest military machines ever seen. We won our independence from England
that way and we made the world free again in the 1940’s.
Now, as Lincoln
said, “we are engaged in a great civil war”, and make no mistake my friends, it
is a war and, so far, it is civil. But,
shall we be the lone survivor in a new and different world where corruption
from top to bottom is the norm? Shall we
be the lone survivor in an ocean of hate, distrust, violence?
Shall our great nation,
which was once called The Noble Experiment, vanish and be replaced by tyranny,
despotism, and yes, even slavery? You,
reading this, are but one voice, but that one voice can influence others, to
save America. You can be part of the rescue so “that this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Think about it…and do something.