Take a lesson from the Romans. Falling apart
from the inside out, breaking, cracking, rotting from the corruption planted
deep inside their body. Once a great empire, they crumbled. Enemies had no need
to wage frontal assaults. Laziness, passivity, neglect did their work until the
Germanic barbarian tribes swept in from the north. Break, crumble, fall into
the dusty pages of history.
A great empire once before, we must take this lesson
from the Romans: we fall from the inside out just as they did. Our defenses weaken;
our enemies lie in wait because we do the work for them. We poison ourselves,
we corrupt ourselves, we fight the fight for them. We wage war on our brother,
on our home, on ourselves. Enemies do not come to invade directly; full
invasions are a thing of the past. They simply wait. These days are not those
of 1773, 1812, 1860, 1914, 1941, or even 1960. The world is smaller now, and
yet, the force with which we fight has made the consequences escalate to a
world-shattering scale. Cloaks and daggers, mirrors and smoke, they compromise
us from the inside, creep up behind us and cover our eyes until we’re blind to
true intentions. The walls crumble from disarray and neglect. Darkness covers
us as we lie lazy on the watch towers, and there is no one to call out warning.
When the alarm is raised, it is too late: our bodies already lay across the
walls, blood dripping and staining the dirt like some abstract splattered water
color. Drip, drip, drop.
Change some call it, but not all
change is for the better. Why do most assume all progress or “forward” motion
is a promise for a brighter future? Why assume we want their version of a
bright future? Who are “they” to command us to do what “they” will us? Are we
not a land of freedom? Our land has weathered so many bleak times: it is what
we are weathered for, built on, and our fields, mountains, and plains are scared
with it. Trial built our foundation glued together with the blood, sweat, and
tears of our forefathers. We have not seen a time of peace, and
now some say we are due. But if that peace and progress is at the sacrifice of
our children and the freedoms we have so ardently fought for in times past, is
it really freedom at all? Is it really progress? Perhaps, in the backward
direction. Decline, fall. And we will fall hard. Heed that word of
warning.
In the fallen state of our race, how can peace
ever prosper when each is out for their own agenda and none of it aligns with
what our fathers had discovered? Our propensity to face adversity is what makes
us unique. It is what makes us Americans. The world pushed us and we pushed
back, beat them out with our large sticks. And yet, now we have become passive,
quiet in our times of ease. We have forgotten who we are, and it is part of our
down fall. Our fingers weaken from lack of work and forget the feel of a sword
in our hands. We forget the feel of what it means to protect and defend
ourselves as we allow others to take care of us. We say we have not lifted a
finger to cause such distress, and the problems is that we have not. We have
not lifted any finger at all. We step aside and let the crucial moments that
define us pass us by, wave and wonder as events unfold and question what we did
to cause it. We did nothing. And that is our downfall.
We have forgotten who
we are.
Let
me remind you:
This land had lain hidden for
centuries from Euro-centric minds and eastern thought. The natives, whose blood
runs through some of our veins even still, diluted yet alive, lived, and thrived
for centuries. The endless oceans of trees and grass were their home. They
lived off the land, they fought with each other, but they endured. When
invaders came, they banded together and they fought. Whose right was it after
all, to demand how one should live? Whose right was it for a man to set himself
up as a god?
Europeans came in the middle of the
second millennium, looking for adventure, for a new life, for gain of riches and
glory. Strangers in a new land, they struggled and starved, and yet their blood
runs in our veins even still, mingled with those of the natives, diluted and
alive within our heritage. Through us, they still stand. We stand. We endure.
We live. It was not our right to take, but we did. And while some claim
perfection of our race, we must never allow or admit that our history is filled
with correct choices. It is not our right or even our privilege to play God,
and we are so inclined to do so. It is the arrogance of our pride that has
followed us through the centuries. We have not learned. Time is running out.
Tick, tick, tock. Watch the movement of the second hand and ponder the meaning
of this momentous moment.
Fighting against oppressive
government is what defined us. The 1770’s were a decade of struggle. We became
American, defying the largest empire of the time, and again in 1812 when we
repelled them. We stand. We live. We endure. Freeing oppressed became our
mission, and as history repeats itself, we need to fight against another government. However, what some can see, and so many others are blind
to and refuse to comprehend, is that this new challenge, this new people that
need to defy the corrupt government, is our own. When injustice becomes law,
rebellion becomes duty.
Where is the spirit that defined us
as Americans? Where is the fight, the drive, the ingenuity, the rebellious streak that caused
us to split away from that which we knew held no promise? And yet, even now, we
continue to cleave to that which will kill us. Our walls crumble, and those who
would fight are caged by those who have been blinded. Blood runs on the
flagstones. We surrendered the gates and tossed them the key to the locks. The
gears grind, disengage, click. Swing the doors wide open and pour inside. Let
them say, “We let them in.”
If ever the Earth continues for the centuries
to pass by and our kingdom to be recorded in the pages of history, then they will
say of us as they said of Rome: “It did not fall in a day.” We held onto our
pride and took a heavy fall.
We are our
own undoing.
