The End of the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave?

The United States of America, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, experiments in freedom the world has known has fallen victim to a disease that is plaguing most of the nations of the world. Before I talk about that, let’s review what it is that has made America the “land of the free and home of the brave.”

The Constitution of the United States is likely the greatest secular document ever written to be a guide and law for defining a nation. Our founders didn’t write this document to tell the people what rights they had as a people, but rather what rights the people voluntarily allow those they select to lead them. After defining the basis in which ordinary citizens will serve in the government, it goes on to limit the rights of that government by calling out a few of those natural rights the government is not permitted to infringe.

Slowly over the past 200 plus years, we’ve given up some of our freedom and rights, either thinking we were fulfilling the greater good or because the courts thought they knew better than the founders. Now, suddenly amid a great reawakening and emerging prosperity brought on by a President who believes in the innovative ability of Americans to make their own choices and to increase their lot in society through free and brave incentives, we find ourselves less free and less brave than our ancestors were when they decided to break away from tyranny and despotic rulers and form this nation.

To think a people who celebrate our forefathers for rebelling against British rule and sacrificed their lives for their children, families, and neighbors are now fearful of an illness, a pandemic to be fair, that might cause 0.03% of our people to die? Because of that fear, we are somehow willing to give up our lives to poverty and the side effects of poverty that we haven’t seen in a century. When we last saw this type of economic devastation, it didn’t happen voluntarily. This time we are going into it with our eyes wide open, listening to the fearful cries of those who would have us become wards of the government, shredding society of all that our forefathers fought and died for. Shame on us!

It is acceptable for a people under siege of an enemy to temporarily agree to give up some of their freedoms to join in a fight to defeat this common enemy. It is not acceptable for our leaders (President, Governors, and Mayors), to go beyond the minimal measures to accomplish the goal of victory. After a victory is won, even at the turn of the battle in our favor, our leaders need to step back and return the rights and freedom they temporarily asked the people to lend them. For those leaders who take advantage of the goodness of their people during this emergency, they need to be thrown out of office, not at the next election cycle, but as soon as the people and courts can accomplish that. If they are unwilling to step down, then impeachment would be the answer. What higher crime and misdemeanor can there be than a violation of the very rights and freedoms that define our society. Let us return to being the land of the free and home of the brave.