There are some serious gaps in the
education of our youth (and I mean going back decades, so that we
find ourselves with an ignorant and uninformed adult population as
well).
That has to be the explanation of all
the very stupid things people are saying and doing these days. Right?
I mean how else do you explain the stupidity of the Black Lives
Matter movement? Or the This life is better than that life concept
that has followed?
I say this because there is a
storycoming out (not on any mainstream media outlet, of course) about a
young ex-Marine who was assaulted by a gang of black youths (he
figures five between the ages of 16 – 21, including one female)
outside of a McDonald's. They had been harassing him inside,
cornering him and shouting the question did he think black lives
matter. He was knocked unconscious and robbed of money, credit cards,
VA id and driver's license.
Here is a young man who surrendered his
rights and the possibility of his very life to protect the freedoms
these ignorant punks (and that is what they are, “usually a petty
gangster, hoodlum, or ruffian”) enjoy.
So I am going to get real here. I mean
really REAL. I am aiming this at EVERYONE! Men, women, children,
politicians, civilians, black, white, red, straight, gay,
transgender, rich, poor, middle class, the powerful and the powerless
. . . EVERYONE in the United States!
The founding document of this country,
the one that separated us from our colonizer nation, the one that
outlined why we became who we became, explains things pretty clearly
about who we should be as a nation.
The Declaration of Independence.
It starts out “We hold these
truths to be self-evident . . .”.
For the uninitiated into the English
language, let me translate. “Here is the obvious truth.” Its
obvious, or self evident, to anyone who cares to simply open their
eyes and see. Here are some truths and they are obvious. Pretty
simple. But some people numbly look at you with a blank stare and go
“huh?” and then ignore the document.
Okay, so we move on. “ . . . that
all men are created equal . . .”. WOW! That line just blows
away all of these separatist movements. All. Men. Are. Created.
EQUAL! By men, the founders meant men as in mankind, as in humanity,
as in EVERYBODY. So, everybody. Created equal. Boom! Black lives
matter movement shut down. Because ALL lives matter. Says so in the
founding document of this country. Rich lives, poor lives, homeless
lives, working lives, black lives, white lives, ALL lives! End of
discussion on that.
Now here comes the boom that makes the
actions of thugs like the ones who attacked that Marine and like the
ones in elected office un-American. “. . . that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”.
You may ask what the heck “unalienable”
means, and what are unalienable rights? Well you would be in good
company because this has been discussed over and over by many people
in the past. But here is the 411. Unalienable rights are rights that
cannot be taken away. That's it. They are rights that you are born
with. Like the right to breathe. No one can take that away. They can
take away your ability to breathe. But your RIGHT to breath? No, they
can't take that away.
So what are these rights? “Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Now these are not the only ones. As I
said before, you also have the right to breath. But the founders
thought that would be kind of obvious to anybody, so they prefaced
these rights by stating “that among these are”. So there
are others but they wanted to include these three specifically.
Everyone has a right to life, to be
alive. Therefore taking a life is not to be done for the hell of it.
Any life. (And yes, I know, the taking of lives in war, any war is
necessary to preserve life. A contradiction to be sure, but as I
said, not simply done for the hell of it. Self defense, protection of
others. Usually undertaken by those willing to sacrifice their own
lives to defend the freedoms of these rights I am discussing.)
Liberty. Freedom. Everyone has a right
to be free. You can be enslaved, in so many ways, but you choose to
fight for this because everyone has a right to freedom. We fought a
war to be free. People have staged protests to be free. Because it is
a right everyone is born with.
And finally, everyone has the right to
pursue a happy life. To be happy. To pursue it. A right. Born with
it. Not to be taken away. Ever. By anyone.
So how do we secure these rights so
that no one takes them away? The Declaration answers this. “That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Which means it is up to the government to preserve these rights.
Governments that derive their power from the governed. That's us. The
governed. The people. The voters who put the government in place.
But here is the rub. We the people have
to ensure the government abides by the tenets of our country. And
what to do if they don't? Well, we have elections to make sure that
the ones who fail are replaced. But what if it gets so bad that we
find ourselves falling apart at the seams, as we are now? There is an
answer for that, too.
“That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety
and Happiness.”
Kind of extreme. So if we want to avoid
the latter, the abolishment of it, then we need to get active and
work on altering it. By voting in people who do not derive their
popularity or power from dividing us.
United, we stand. Divided, we fall. In
modern times, one of our Founding Father, John Dickinson, used these
words in a pre-Revolutionary War song called "The Liberty Song".
In July of 1768 Dickinson wrote: "Then join hand in hand, brave
Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!"
These Black Lives Matter movements do
just this. They divide us. As do all of these “fill in the blank”
Lives Matter groups, and as do all those who seek to usurp power by
dividing us. And politicians who only wish to garner the largest
amounts of votes. And they not only do a disservice to us as a
country, but they tear apart the very tenets this country was founded
on. That every one of us are created equal.
To that point, there is not one single
candidate for public office in a very long time that is not guilty of
dividing us. And we let them. We fall prey and victim to their
manipulations.
I say it is time to stop listening to
them and start listening to the concepts that formed this country
that is the envy of the rest of the world.
Only by standing united, as one
citizenry, as Americans all, will we fight off those that would
divide and conquer us. Whether they be outside sources such as ISIS
or Communists or Socialists or money grubbing, power hungry
corporations, we must battle them all by ignoring their attempts and
uniting.
Another document that looked to create
a better country, a better world for all that followed them – for
posterity – is the Declaration of Independence.
“We the People of the United
States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.”
It is time. To stop being sheep and to
stop believing in “the spin” of all these divisive people and
groups. We are ALL Americans. Not black Americans nor white Americans
nor rich Americans nor poor Americans nor any other kind of such and
such Americans. We are Americans and we need to stand united in the
knowledge that ALL are created equal. All lives matter. Our Founding
Fathers tried to make sure we understood this.
Normally I say agree with me or
disagree with me, it doesn't matter. But I can't say that this time.
Read it for yourself, don't just take my word on it. But if you
disagree, if you think that all lives don't matter, that we are not
all Americans, that we do not all have rights that cannot be taken
away, that we don't need to stand united, then we will not all fall
divided – then there is not much I can do for you. So just think
for yourselves. Read what this country is all about. If you don't
like that we are all one citizenry, then maybe you should think about
finding a country that lets you feel divided and promotes
divisiveness. But really, this is just me,
Thinking Out Loud.
I hope you have a great day, and that
you take my words into consideration the next time you hear someone
saying something that divides us.
Charles