Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy Birthday USA and be careful old girl

The problem with forgetting what freedom is and what is cost is that as each successive generation moves on they do so absent the knowledge of that freedom and of that cost.  It is a sort of "ratcheting" of the Nation's psyche, and to regain it would take an extraordinary act or event.

To check me, ask a high school student some probing questions about freedom in America.  Most have no idea.  Ask them some questions about what communism or socialism takes away - they won't know.  Ask them what freedoms they cherish, what they'd be willing to fight for.    Ask them what WWI or II, what the Civil War, or what Desert Storm were about, and beyond a possible "headline" or 2, most will not know how they relate to freedom.

It's a slow fade.  I fear as this ratchet continues, George Orwell might have been right after all, just got the year wrong.

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