Tour Of Duty

This is a time of societal upheaval. If I were more poetic I might suggest that it was a time that tries men's souls. It is a time when we define the nation, more spectacularly now than ever before because the last time there was a moment such as this the nation turned to socialism and the New Deal. They abandoned, as George W. Bush suggested we do this time, capitalism to save it. That is impossible and I took Bush's words as the most insulting thing I had ever heard him say. I felt he weakened the nation when it needed strength, the strength to go through the rough times, no matter how dire, and rectify the disaster of the New Deal.

Franklin Roosevelt, instead of calling on the greatness of the people to hold together, to rely on one another, to be giving in all things and to help one's neighbor, he called on the worst of us. It was known in my household that during the depression my family never turned a man away hungry. If you knew the extent of my family's poverty at the time, you would understand that as the soul of America, before it was ripped out by Roosevelt.

To the socialist, every crisis is an opportunity as so clearly laid out by Rahm Emanuel when he said: "Never let a crisis go to waste." Okay, they didn't and now we are faced with Obamacare, a runaway Federal Reserve, chronic unemployment, bailouts and giveaways and purchased votes. We have social programs galore and no way to pay for them. Billions have turned into trillions and they are looking for another, greater means of counting our debt and obligations. All of this based on the idea that one person owes another a living and a retirement.

I have often said that when a person is kind and charitable and giving it is virtue, when a government does it, it is vice. The reason I say that is there is no government money. When a person takes their hard-earned money, the profit from their sweat and gives that to a person or a cause it is virtuous. When the government demands that same amount in taxes from the worker to give to people or causes it deems worthy, it is robbery. This act is the very destruction of charity.

The ultimate price for government largess is not only capitalism, but the republic itself. When representatives and senators go to Washington to divide up the spoils of a welfare state, they are not doing the work of the American people. At that point they have become mere arbiters in the way that the citizen is robbed. Their long-forgotten job is to figure out how to give the citizen the most liberty for the least cost, nothing else. They were sent there to defend our rights and protect the Constitution in its entirety.

In a recent interview on a radio station the host compared Guardians of Liberty with our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and while I know he did not intend to make the comparison on a heroic level, he did intend for us to consider what we are about as being as much a service to the nation as those brave troops in the field. It is our tour of duty to go to Washington starting on 1/21/2011 and serve our nation, to restore what was great and to demand the rights and liberties every American deserves. If you will give of yourself for your nation in any of the many ways Guardians of Liberty offers, you can consider it your tour of duty.

Graciously linked and quoted at Green Mountains Homesteading.

Cross-posted at WASHINGTON REBEL and Guardians of Liberty.