Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, "Ignorant and free has never been and never will be." He is right, of course. Furthermore, this simple proverb may best explain the cause of America's rush to moral and political destruction.
Under our form of government, an informed and educated electorate is essential. There can be no lasting freedom without it. All of our public and private institutions derive their shape and sustenance from people. Every single one of them.
People sit on court juries and staff government bureaucracies. They become our sheriffs, lawyers, and judges. They write our newspapers and magazines and man our television talk shows and news desks. They teach in our schools and in our Sunday Schools.
In America, "we the people" are the government; we are the authority! Nothing happens in this country except that "we the people" promote it, finance it, or at least, allow it to happen.
It's time then that "we the people" started taking responsibility for the mess we have made of our country! It's time to stop blaming the Democrats or the Republicans or anyone else in Washington, D.C. Our nation is exactly where the people have taken it.
Furthermore, the nation is exactly where the people want it to be. I'll say it again, the nation is exactly where the people want it to be. If it wasn't, the people would do something to change it. That they don't proves they are content with life as it is.
Americans today are content to be ignorant about the abuses committed by their elected leaders. They are content to be ignorant about what is really going on in Iraq and in over one hundred other countries where American troops are putting their lives on the line to protect the elite's Brave New World. They are content to be taxed to the point of financial ruin. They are content to have their public schools deteriorate into elaborate (and dangerous) baby- sitting services. They are content to listen to the propaganda that emanates from both CNN and Rush Limbaugh.
Beyond that, the American people today are intoxicated with sports and recreation to the point that they have become slaves to it. The best that many of our husbands and fathers can do is to bury themselves in front of the television set all weekend and get drunk while rooting for their favorite sports celebrities. Some do more than that, of course.
Some people work all week so they can follow their favorite college football team to wherever they are playing. Understand that this goes on for as long as the season lasts. The time, money, and energy that goes into such fanaticism is incalculable.
Sports in America has become more than a past-time. It is a religion. It is a religion that demands countless hours and financial contributions from its worshippers. More than that, sports (and many other distractions) have become an excuse for freeborn men and women to acquiesce their God-given responsibility to be a knowledgeable and informed citizenry capable of self-government.
Liberty requires more than putting a flag on a car window! Liberty requires that people are willing to educate themselves regarding the pressing issues of the day. It requires that people are willing to hold themselves, their children, and, yes, their elected leaders accountable to the eternal principles of right and wrong.
In fact, with no million dollar organizations, with no nationwide media campaigns, and with no political pundits telling them what to do, the American people ON THEIR OWN could vote into office anyone they wanted to.
For example, The Constitution Party's Presidential Nominee, Howard Phillips, was on the ballot in some 40 states during the 2000 elections. If every person in those 40 states who only voted for G.W. Bush because he was the "lesser of two evils" would have ON THEIR OWN pulled the lever for Phillips, he could have won that election! Yes, he could have!
The American people do not need the major media or the Limbaughs, Hannitys, or O'Reillys telling them what to do! All they need to do is spend a little time studying the issues for themselves, forming their own opinions, and then acting independently and courageously upon their own convictions. That recipe worked pretty well back in 1776, and it would work pretty well again in 2004.
However, as long as the American people are content to be cheaply entertained, content to be deceived by conscienceless politicians and their collaborators in the propaganda press, content to remain personally ignorant of America's founding principles and constitutional requirements of government, the words of Jefferson will come to haunt this nation as an ominous and self-fulfilling prophecy.
© Chuck Baldwin
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