America: do not write the obituary

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” – Benjamin Franklin

New Lisbon WI – The NSA leaker, hero or otherwise, from what we know currently, has done nothing worthy of execution. If he is extracted from where he is believed to be in Hong Kong, and tried in the US, he may be sentenced to life imprisonment, but even if he carries out that sentence, it will be in a nice cell, heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, with proper food. He will not be beaten or ordered not to talk; he will not be hung up by his hands for hours to reveal who helped him.

America is an exceptional nation. Throughout a deal of earth history we thought the solar system revolved around the earth. Sanitation was bad, rats lived with children. Famines were constant occurrences, there was almost no such thing as a stable nation. Millions died of unknown causes.

As for government, the cruelest president is kinder than the gentlest monarch. The absolute power they held over the lives of men was used often in cruel ways. To speak against the king was often to die. Freedom of speech was something most had never heard of. Justice was in the hands of those were strongest, if they did not feel like administering it, they did not.

But then came the great change. Suddenly it is not abnormal to live past 70 years of age. Now, health and cleanliness are valued. People can travel all over the world, we can find out instantly what is going on in Turkey.

Here, over 55 percent of those that live below the poverty line own two or more televisions. Over seventy percent of those below the poverty line have air conditioning. Compared to other nations, forty percent of all households in the nation of Sweden would be considered “in poverty” in the US.¹

In America the internet began. In America man first flew in an airplane. In America freedom was experimented with for the first time on this level. In America we started building cars. In America a collage dropout like Bill Gates can become the richest man in the world. In America we have no Berlin Walls, in America we have no guillotines, and in America we have no department of propaganda. In America there are no kings. We do not need them, we decide for ourselves what we want.

At the supermarket, we decide what food we want, with our televisions we decide what we want to watch. We decide where to go to school, if we want to go at all, we decide what vocation to have or not have one at all. We can make most of the choices about how our life will turn out.

America, and American liberty, is built on trust:

“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

Unjust and dishonest societies must have more rules. That is because the people have made a demand for them by their behavior.

America can decide now if they want to continue the way they are currently going. It is up to them, it is the nation. But if they want government to change, they must change themselves first. America is not dead yet, but the people can kill it if they continue on. Those in government are really a part of the nation. And the nation must decide what it wants; freedom or slavery. They will be slaves if they cannot control themselves, for those who do not make chains for themselves will have chains made for them. Do not write the obituary yet for America, they can still choose freedom.

Andrew C. Abbott