Love of country, says the Patriot, marks a man. The question for every citizen is how much love, and what kind of love should one have for country?
The love of God for a person of faith is easily priority one. That love comes naturally and passionately. But the love of country, with a strong sense of nationalism, takes time. One grows into citizenship. Appreciation of freedom, and the rights and privileges of citizenship come with understanding, and experience.
Experience, good and bad, right and wrong. Day by day, year by year, we see our country at work. We interact with our fellow human beings and we learn more about them, and about life. We form strong opinions and beliefs. The stronger those beliefs, the more resistant we become to change. When those beliefs are right, we pursue them with all our might and once we know, really know who we are and what we believe, we are ready then to lay all on the altar and champion those beliefs. We are determined to make a difference and to do whatever is right, whatever is required. FOR GOD AND COUNTRY.
What a marvelous country America is. It was at the beginning and it now is more than ever DIVERSIFIED. We are people of different origins, nationalities and ethnicities. We are different. Our backgrounds, predilections, cultures, wants and needs are different, sometimes very different. Sometime so different they divide us. When times are difficult, whether economically, or in war, divisions become greater. Like now, in this era, now in the second decade of our third century. It seems as though we the people are divided, polarized more than ever. This fractionalization can tear us asunder, and will unless we find a way to change, change back to where we once belonged.
So, my fellow Americans, we need to ask the fundamental and most important question for each of us as citizens:
WHAT UNITES US?
In what do we believe?
What are our commonalities?
What are the guiding principles which form the greatness of our great country? What are the rights and duties of each and every citizen?
How do we define our own lifestyles, the standards for interaction with our fellow mankind, and with those in all the world?
In short, what is America today at its best?
More importantly, what is it that America, that we the people SHOULD BE?
There are things wrong, fundamentally wrong, systemically wrong with our country. We face problems we have never faced before. We are challenged at the core, challenged to identify ourselves, our values and beliefs. We have been characterized as a Christian nation, by the world over and by ourselves. Judeo-Christian at the core. Many now think that we live in an America POST-CHRISTIAN. We are challenged by Islam, benign and militant Islam seeking fundamental change in America. We are beset with the problem of illegal immigrants who wish to fundamentally change the way America structures citizenship. Our laws are broken with impunity and the culprits often without accountability. Our courts often do as they wish and what they think is right. Our Constitution is adrift, interpreted away, often rendered irrelevant or meaningless. Our governments everywhere grow and control. Our debt is staggering. Our spending lascivious and irresponsible. Our politicians often immoral and standardless. Our institutions and political bodies are detached and removed from the very people who elected them. We are ruled rather than represented. We the people have ignored and defaulted with regard to our duties as citizens and our responsibilities to protect and preserve this great country. We have become self-serving and marginalized. We act and vote selfishly, for us and not others and our country. We are identified by labels, stereotypes and parties. We are conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, persons of faith or secular, and not Americans. We have become weak at the core and forsaken our principles. We are ruled by bureaucrats, red tape, and a growing political class bent on power and control. Over us.
We are a people perhaps in the very last stages of our great civilization. We can well be near the end of democracy and the great Republic of America. We stand and watch our freedoms wash away and we do nothing. We compromise our civic duties and ignore the things that made us great. We seem unwilling to stand and defend the things we know are right and the things which made us great. We are a country ready to lose, to be taken over by any with greater passion, different beliefs and far greater will and determination to effectuate CHANGE. We are a country in need of a major wake-up call, perhaps the final one. We are a people in need of falling in love all over again with America.
Now comes Election 2010. Men and women of different parties and persuasions, philosophies and personalities come before us, asking to represent us, to make decisions for US. Nothing is more important now more than ever that we understand who they are, what they believe, how they will act and what they will decide. When we vote, my fellow Americans, we:
TURNOVER Our beloved country to them. Those recipients of such power and privilege must be right for America, now more than ever, or there will be no more America as we know it.
Your vote, American, means more than ever. Your educated vote, knowing the issues and candidates, is even more important. You and I must know what we believe and how we want America to be, demand America to be and vote to make that happen. Our beloved America cannot survive as it is unless we do. That vote of yours is critical locally. Every person in a position of power and decision-making should be carefully analyzed and evaluated. And your vote should be made accordingly. And the same for your state. Every state is in a battle with the federal government for power, autonomy, rights and privileges. You should vote for those who care best for the state in which you live. You should carefully evaluate the role of our federal government. You should think carefully in terms of the power of the President, the incredible powers of the Senate, and those 435 people who represent 300 million people in the House of Representatives. You should vote for those who are like you, believe as you do, and care for and love America hopefully as you do. Be heard, my fellow Americans, with your vote, heard all over America. Make a difference everywhere with your vote November 2, 2010.
For God and Country.