It is often sloganized that if other countries want Freedom, they should stand up and fight for it themselves. We are not the world's policemen. Yet, in today's America, it is becoming more hypocritical for us to say such things. America has seen a greater loss of Liberty in recent years, than at any time in her history. Sadly, many are not only defending the incursions on Freedom, but cheering it on.
Too many today can't even tell you what the Constitution says, much less why the Bill of Rights was written. While decrying the politicians of the other side of the aisle as heartless, they call for their deaths. While praising the MSM's propaganda for the party, they call for suppression of speech of their countrymen. While demanding tolerance of their own views, they call for the silencing of "Evangelicals." While calling for an end to the war against Islamist Terrorists, they label peaceful protestors in their own land as "American Taliban." In the name of compassion, they defend Obamacare though it has cancelled 100x as many policies as it has provided.
In the name of saving lives, they call for Americans to be denied the Right of Self-Defense. In the name of security, they demand the corraling of fellow citizens through pornographic x-ray machines and sexual assaults by government agents at the airports, and endorse an expansion to sports arenas and trains. In the name of fairness, they call for more earned money to be taken from workers and given to the lazy. In the name of safety, they defend the shootings of unarmed citizens by police forces.
When the US Constitution or Bill of Rights is directly quoted, they proclaim that the plain English must be interpreted. Government officials have actually stated that those quoting the Constitution are to be considered "extremists," and viewed with suspicion, even as the IRS targets political groups which openly endorse it.
And when the IRS seizes papers and properties of those that fail to comply with its demands, the populace cheers it on, never bothering to consider a Citizen's Right to be secure from warrantless searches or seizures. With the advent of digital financial transactions, the mere possession of cash is often considered evidence of criminal activity.
When the NSA is exposed as maintaining a database of every American's every call and text, too many write it off by saying only wrongdoers need fear the government. Nor does the outrage last long when internet usage is added to the database. Judges and politicians on both sides of the aisle defend the "necessity."
When consumers are offered a service in their cars that records their every move, and can be remotely accessed by a corporation far away, they pay for the intrusion. And when government requires all phones to be trackable, they buy them up. When local governments contract out traffic cameras to collect more revenue, subjects of the ruling elite buy into the increased safety, without asking why it pays more to the camera owner than the city government, or why when safety is increased the city removes the former money maker.
"For the greater good," is the excuse used to justify a government takeover of 1/6th of the economy, and "1/6th of the economy" is used as an excuse to claim it falls under "commerce clause," but "commerce clause" is the extent of what they can quote. Even though the extent of their knowledge of the word "interstate" ends with divided highways, they somehow think a doctor and patient fall under it.
While those pesky Veterans who risked their lives and sacrificed their limbs are charged more for the resulting wounds, the same crowd calls for more "stuff" from phones to food to health care to be given to those who have never worked a day in their lives.
In an ironic paradox, people can have equal opportunity or equal (lack of) prosperity, but not both. If people of unequal values and unequal motivation have equal opportunity, they will have unequal results, and if they have equal results, it necessarily means taking from the one that worked harder to achieve than the one that sat back and collected the goods.
As certainly, one cannot successfully call for the suppression of others' Freedoms while having a reasonable expectation of keeping their own. One may be able to justify their desire to remove the right of their neighbor to keep a broken down old car in his lawn by saying it is a health hazard, or that it drives down his own home value, but when they succeed, they open the door for the neighbor to point out that their own shed creates a habitat for rats and is also a health hazard.
And when one calls for the death of a politician of an opposing party, it is a symptom of their own lack of compassion. If your loyalty is to a party before it is loyalty to the Constitution, you are part of the problem. Our system may favor two parties, but until we begin sending Representatives to Washington, instead of power hungry lawyers who get richer beyond their salaries, neither party is our salvation. At best, one is moving us slower towards enslavement than the other. And when either party takes your vote for granted, they will stop caring about what you want or need. When they know you'll parrot their every word, no matter how ludicrous, they won't work too hard to make it believable.
If you praise the SCOTUS for ruling a clearly un-Constitutional law is, you have failed to understand the separation of powers. If you believe a judicial ruling modifies the Constitution, you fail to understand the reason and means of the Amendment process.
It is not in your self-interest that the Federal Government infringes the Rights of your neighbor, and hence of you, nor that the polticians sponsor lobbyist written 2000 page laws in legalese you nor they can comprehend, or that you are breaking IRS regulations that not even their agents know. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law, and breaking those laws means government agents can put you in jail, or take all that you've earned. And guess what, there will always be somebody willing to cheer the IRS or FBI on, for catching you in that crime. Sure, others will decry the abuses, but the chances are that those voices will be fleeting and muted.
Americans, until you stand up for your own Freedoms, and those of your fellow Citizens, you no longer have the moral authority to blame others for failing to stand up for their own, in far more brutal regimes. After all, all you need to do is educate yourself on those Rights, and exercise the Right to Free Speech, and vote for those that do as well, not risk your life fighting tanks and chemicals with shovels and spears.