The Fall of Rome

I talked about this on #LibertyHappyHour last night, but I’ve been sitting with it and want to expand a bit on my thoughts. I am reminded of a quote from Ben Franklin upon the founding of our nation where he once said, “America would be a republic, if you can keep it.” The most significant danger republics like ours face is not the sudden assault of an aspiring autocracy but the slow erosion of cultural and institutional defenses. I am not a puritan by any stretch of the imagination. I have made mistakes in my life that are irredeemable. Some of the choices that I have made weigh on me and wrap themselves like chains around my neck and attempt to pull me deep into the water of regret, but I learned from every single one of them. I learned that I can share my experiences, but I cannot force anyone to accept my realities for their own. Our society has lost sight of that. Somewhere along the way women were encouraged to no longer be women…To no longer be feminine and comfortable in the roles of keeping a home and raising children but to compete and try to be equal or I would even argue superior to men; if you disagree with that you are a misogynist. Men were encouraged to no longer be men and make themselves more effeminate and “get in touch with their feelings” and if you do not agree, you support toxic masculinity. Murdering unborn children changed from being a taboo, emergency circumstance to a how-to-guide to promiscuity and a normalized alternative to birth control. People with a genuine medical condition, gender dysphoria, were diminished and pushed to the side in the name of fads and trends for people to garner attention. Sex shifted and transformed from being an intimate, private interaction between two people to “Here’s the link to my OnlyFans, 25% discount and you can see my vagina swallow a watermelon for only $2.00 this weekend.” Children are no longer looked at as the most vulnerable and most important asset to be protected and nourished. They are expendable, discarded, sexualized and used as bargaining chips to the cause of grownups. Respectful discourse regarding difficult topics and controversial ideas has all but disappeared into screaming and absolute refusal to neither be wrong or have the capacity to “agree to disagree.” Institutionally we have created celebrities out of people who are supposed to be civil servants. We have allowed the government to expand to the point where two people can pretend to be federal agents for TWO YEARS and a fight with a mailman is the only reason anyone found out about it…And a federal agency can fund and stage a plot in an attempt to entrap citizens, a prosecutorial team can bring outrageous charges against those individuals and the only thing standing between them and jail time is a jury of their peers but the federal agents who started the entire fiasco are not held accountable. Money is printed and screws tightened at the whim of seven individuals who are accountable to no one. The average, every day citizen works their ass off to hand over 50-60% of their earnings to the government so that the ruling class can distribute it to their friends in the name of “the greater good.” Law enforcement has grown at a record pace and has transitioned from “protecting and serving” to violating the civil liberties of citizens in the name of the state. I am solution-oriented. I have been my entire life. I am frustrated because I know the solution in our current predicament that we find ourselves, but apathy has settled in the bones of society. Total and complete disregard and lack of respect for the institution that makes this the greatest nation on Earth has taken root and grown into non-participation. The desire to vocalize disdain while putting action in one’s back pocket for use at a later time is the normative response. The majority of my friends are anarchists and I cannot blame them. The system has been corrupted by power and greed. Lies and promises of change are doled out to dehydrated and thirsty people crawling through the Sahara, but the canteens are all empty. The government serves the people. If your government isn’t serving you, you have the right to abolish that government. Local elections are largely ignored and that is by design. The primaries are coming up. I challenge every single person who reads this article to take an active role in your upcoming local elections. I don’t care about the Senate and House; other than stealing your monopoly money, they have no direct impact or bearing on your day-to-day life. The local health department, county commissioners, school boards, district attorneys, county judges and sheriffs most certainly do. Do you know who is running for those positions? Have you called their offices or, better yet, physically met them and asked them questions regarding the issues that are important to you? You can be angry, you can complain about the things you take issue with but most importantly, you can change it. Hold a town hall in your local community. Force these civil servants to go on the record and do not allow them to politician their way out of it. Let’s help the federal government see how irrelevant they are in our lives. I, like Ben Franklin, hope that we can keep our Republic and do not allow Rome to fall a second time.