So, I find myself driving alone late at night across Pennsylvania and in the interest of staying alert, I turn on the radio (mistake #1). The music kind of drones on and doesn’t really help so I switch to “talk radio” (mistake #2). Have you noticed that despite their arguments to the contrary, bigots, anarchists, immoral spreaders of profanity, and generally disreputable people populate some news channels? I mean really, its one thing to argue a political or social position but quite another to simply spew lies and libel under the so called “freedom of speech” clause of the Bill of Rights. Which leads me to mistake #3 where I hear the commentator, quoting speeches from APAC, announce he was going to discuss “Making America Great Again.” I did not switch channels (mistake #3).
Now I am generally in favor of political dissent. I support religious expression. I believe the US Government spends too much and has too many regulations. I voted for Reagan, Bush (both), and McCain. Prior to 2000, you might classify me as a Republican. But somewhere along the way, rank and file Americans forgot what being a good American was all about and this demise was lead by elements that would take over the Republican party. The party that nominated Ronald Reagan does not exist anymore. It’s easy to blame Donald Trump but he is really just the buffoon the real troublemakers stood up to defend their unAmerican zeitgeist.
So here I am listening to this “journalist” lambast Mike Pence for speaking out against his party’s subservience to Trump when they start talking about taking “making America great” and EVERYTHING they say is about dismantling progress that was made regarding Civil Rights over the last 70 years. Clearly, they have forgotten why America is great!
So, here are some quotes by people who worked to ACTUALLY MAKE AMERICA BETTER:
However political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
– George Washington
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
— Ronald Reagan (Republican)
If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
— Samuel Adams (Democratic-Republican)
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin
America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
— Harry S. Truman (Democrat)
America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (poet)
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.
— Bill Clinton (Democrat)
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
— John F. Kennedy (Democrat)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
— Edward Abbey (author)
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
— Patrick Henry (Anti-Federalist)
The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people’s hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
— John Adams (Federalist)
I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.
Theodore Roosevelt (Republican)
This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
— Abraham Lincoln (Republican)
What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from’.
— Marilyn vos Savant (author)
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
— John Quincy Adams (Whig)
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
— Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)
Let me now warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another. In governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.
– George Washington
Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.
Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) in a letter to John Adams (Federalist)
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Independence is happiness. Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.
— Susan B Antony
From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’
— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The spirit of party serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another.
— George Washington
So, the first step in making America great is clearly to find some great Americans to lead our country. Not the petty small minded xenophobic monsters that have been put on the slate for us to choose from but REAL AMERICANS! Don’t wait for March 5th, 2024 to select YOUR candidates, get your voice heard. This is not an issue of party, WE NEED TO TELL PARTIES what WE THE PEOPLE stand for, what WE THE VOTERS expect, and we expect from our elected officials. This is a nation “that government of the people, by the people, for the people” NOT a nation the mythical two-party system.
In his journal James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention, records the events of the last day of the convention. He wrote: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” For the last 236 years, we have endeavored, labored, fought, and persevered to keep our democracy. Now is not the time to allow “vain and aspiring men [to] possess the highest seats in Government.” It is time for us to stand up to tyranny once again and take our country back from the brink and prevent its ruin.
“There is much more to being a patriot and a citizen than reciting the pledge or raising a flag.”
— former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura (Green Party)
And for G*d sake, tell that b@!#$d on the radio to SHUT UP!
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 