 |
Sweet Liberty
By Thurman P. Woodfork - August 1, 2011 |
 |
|
| How much do people who have always had true
liberty actually value it? I remember, years ago, standing
at the window of my hotel room in Madrid watching a kid of
about twelve or fourteen walking down the street. I could
tell from his carriage more than by the cut of his clothing
that he was an American.
He strode self-assuredly
through the Spaniards around him – proud people themselves –
as though he owned their streets. He had the arrogance of
freedom, that innate confidence that comes from enjoying
unfettered national liberty; he had never known anything
else in his young life. Even though he was momentarily alone
in a foreign country, he was an American, and special, and
he knew it. But, I fear those days are history; Americans
can no longer blithely stride along the world's avenues, and
this is leading to a domestic crisis.
There are so
many of us who grew up with that special awareness of being
free, of being Americans. We take our liberty for granted;
so much so that we feel no special need to defend it from
usurpation by fellow Americans. It is, after all, our right
by birth as citizens of the United States. It has always
been there for most of us.
We ingested liberty with
our mothers' milk and it's difficult for us to believe that
other Americans – who seem to espouse our own beliefs –
would, for their own selfish purposes, conspire to take it
away from us. We do, after all, have “Constitutional
Guarantees.” Our attention is focused sharply outward on
foreign terrorists and not inward toward domestic duplicity.
This allows us to fall under the sway of alarmist,
pseudo-patriotic rhetoric from politicians who were elected
to office to protect our interests. Unfortunately, they're
more concerned with advancing the interests of the
multi-national corporations that line their pockets than
they are with safeguarding the rights of the electorate.
America is slowly losing its liberty even as we common folk
band together to defend it. We're unmindful that most of the
people who lead us never before personally lifted a hand in
defense of the freedoms of anyone outside their own circle.
I stand in baffled frustration as I watch the people
head obediently off to figurative shearing sheds to have
their liberties clipped, baaing contentedly like well-fed
sheep under the deceitful direction of lupine shepherds and
their sheepdogs. Even the rams... especially the rams... trot
along dutifully. Who is there to protect us from these
modern-day wolves that have taken deception a step farther
and now wear shepherds' clothing? To protest is to be seen
as seditious, which in itself is a diminution of liberty.
My, my, what big teeth you have, dear Guardians of the
Republic's Liberty! |
 By Thurman P. Woodfork
Copyright 2003
About
Author...
Thurman P. Woodfork (Woody) spent his
Air Force career as a radar repairman in places as disparate as
Biloxi, Mississippi; Cut Bank, Montana; Tin City, Alaska; Rosas,
Spain and Tay Ninh, Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was assigned to
Detachment 7 of the 619th Tactical Control Squadron, a Forward Air
Command Post located on Trai Trang Sup. Trang Sup was an Army
Special Forces camp situated about fifty miles northwest of Saigon
in Tay Ninh province, close to the Cambodian border.
After Vietnam, Woody remained in the Air Force for nine more years.
Visit
Thurman P. Woodfork's site for more information | |
Comment on this article |
|
