The Cost of Freedom
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
Thomas Paine, ‘The Crisis’
Pardon the poor PaintShopPro efforts…but the point is that our Founding Fathers knew what it took to balance a scale with Freedom on one side, and Thomas Jefferson put that “counter-weight” on the end of the Declaration of Independence: “…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Scales have historically been used to determine payment, and they still are. But with the advent of electronic scales something has been lost, IMHO. What has been lost is the image of balance, and tradeoff. When an electronic scale spits out a price-tag we simply pay the amount, trusting the calibration of the scale. And now the Obama Administration is handing us a flurry of “price-tags”…and asking us to trust the calibration.
I don’t.
For they are truly re-calibrating the scales of Freedom.
Offering the guarantee of sustenance…at the cost of the freedom to pursue success.
Offering the guarantee of access to health services…at the cost of the freedom to choose who provides them, and what they may provide
Offering the guarantee of “balanced discourse”…at the cost of the right to ANY discourse that disagrees with them
Offering the guarantee of safety…at the cost of the right to keep yourself safe
and so on…
These trade-offs will be VERY seductive to VERY many. Indeed the Democrats have cobbled together a “coalition of the needy”, and that coalition has been told that they are entitled to have those needs filled. The re-calibration of the scales of Freedom is how the Government intends to PAY for those entitlements.
Stay with me on this next part…
I get introspective sometimes…ok, a lot. I was trying to place a particular feeling I was having…a feeling of a weighty obligation that seemed distantly familiar. I finally traced it back to a loan I took out when I first went into the Marine Corps. I didn’t have 2 nickles to rub together, and needed a car, furniture, etc. I took out a loan with incredibly low payments…but with a balloon payment at the end of two years. The “theory” was that I would save a little towards the balloon-payment over the 24 months. But with 6 months to go on the loan I realized I had saved little…and started to feel BITTER towards the loan company about the looming balloon payment. I was WRONG to feel that way…and reconciled myself to paying if off. I worked 20-30 hours managing a McDonald’s on top of the 60+ hours a week in the Marines, and paid the debt on time.
That feeling of a “balloon-payment” coming due was what I was feeling the other day…and I was feeling just as bitter about it!
The “balloon payment” is the cost of FREEDOM…and it is coming due.
The Obama Administration is offering to “re-negotiate” this “balloon payment”. If we just give up a little of this, and a little of that…then we can sink back onto the couch and watch TV, or do whatever else distracts us. How much will we really miss freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to keep bear arms, freedom to…???
Where’s the clicker? What’s on the tube?
[1]
Great post, and the ones below are all right on as well. God bless the patriots in this country, and God bless the patriots in the armed forces.
[2]
I fear the actions of the Obama administration will speed the date the balloon paymeny comes due.
[3]
It will be an honor to die in defense of our constitution. I don’t want to die, I want to see my boys grow up. But if the time comes, God give me the strength to die well.
[4]
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – Thomas JeffersonI wonder sometimes, if the founding fathers had a theory as to when the breakdown of our core principles would occur. Did they imagine our society at this point at this time to be what it is? How long did they think it would be before a revolution occured?
[5]
Jefferson said, “God forbid we go 20 years without a revolution”… I’ll go get the quote, but clearly he had little faith in the integrity of the Federal government..
[6]
Jefferson:The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
[7]
Thought-provoking post, JustRand.Introspection is what lots of people are doing nowadays…like, “How did we this country go south so fast under Obama??I think what bothers me almost more than obama himself, these days, are the people who seem to have a disconnect from his words and what his actions are really inciting and unraveling! It’s like everyone is reading along with him, on that old teleprompter, and believing everything materializing on that screen. In the meantime, there is a huge earthquake going on around them. Things are falling down as Obama is speaking, and all these STUPID partisans can do is hum and sing more praises for this inept man!The unfortunate by-product of unintended consequences is that they befall everyone, even those people with their eyes wide open!
[8]
Jefferson refers to the Whiskey rebellion, and although it failed he thought it overall a benefit to the spirit of liberty. I actually think they (the rebels) got a raw deal.
[9]
“Lethargy” and fear are the evil twins prohibiting people from standing up and saying “no more!”
[10]
Bah, I meant Shay’s rebellion, I knew it was wrong when I typed it. 1786-87…The Whiskey Rebellion was a PA affair in 1791,
[11]
Remember Jan, proper and just revolutions are slow in coming, like ours was, begun long before 1776… It must come only after a “long train of abuses and usurpations”, and the rebels MUST demonstrate a prolonged good faith effort to uphold the US constitution BEFORE reaching for the rifles. Patience. I don’t want to hurry my own death. It will come, if the present course continues.
[12]
rwyThe following exerpt continues this discussion in questioning what Obama might really be trying to accomplish:
Incompetence, malevolence, or both…
[13]
Might be playing with fire. They could well get burnt by this by playing with people’s lifes. Don’t know how they will respond to adversity brought on by people with an agenda – may go postal on them.