“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”
Historian Will Durant on Rome’s decline, 1944.
What we are witnessing in the United States is the decline of Western Civilization. What we are living through may be America’s last great adventure, and the world’s last experiment, in relative liberty.
Durant went on to conclude, “The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.”
Sound familiar?
I walked the Washington Mall at the Glenn Beck rally; I spoke with Michele Bachmann; met Ted Cruz’s dad, Raphael; talked with Oliver North. . . In my 70s, I marched in protest with the Tea Party, the 9-12 organization. . . I showed up at IRS demonstrations. . .
No one would ever consider me a radical. I was a cop for 14 years, in Miami, Florida, and in Tulsa, Oklahoma; I served in the military 29 years, 13 of those as a Green Beret soldier. I was a school teacher. How much more “establishment” could you get?
“All that time as a cop and a soldier,” I confided in my wife Donna Sue, “and for what? For the liberty I fought for to be squandered? I don’t want to live in a society where we are punished for succeeding. I don’t want to live in a nation where half the population is “entitled” to what the other half earns.”
As a historian, I am writing a book on the history of collectivism, of what we call socialism. How it rises inch by inch until a free man becomes a serf to an all-powerful government.
“While democracy seeks equality in liberty,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in the early 19th Century, “socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” warned Santayana.
And we are repeating it. I tell my children and grandchildren that they will live in tyranny.
So I cry against the darkness.
But mostly I write. Books such as A Thousand Years of Darkness: “What if the President of the United States was trying to topple the nation, and you found out about it?”
And Going Bonkers: The Wacky World of Cultural Madness: “America is being conditioned to accept, endure, and promote virtually anything (through political correctness). Sound off and you find yourself accused of intolerance. . .”
One of the “Big Five” New York publishers with whom I had published a number of previous books cautioned that I would never published again in New York if I persisted along this road. I was audited by the IRS two years in a row. The same years Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and hundreds of other “conservative” journalists were targeted. Call it intimidation.
“We will preserve for our children,” said Ronald Reagan in 1964, “the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.”
So I march. I speak out. But mostly I write. Some people need to be offended with truth.
And then I listen. . . I listen to hear if anyone is listening back.
The Vietnam War ended years ago. Veteran Jack Kazmarek returns to Vietnam. Some memories are best left buried, some questions should remain unanswered. From The Return, by Charles W. Sasser. Available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Kobo.com in e-book format.
It makes my blood boil too when the lily-livered caution me to “watch my speech” lest someone think I’m radical. God bless Texas, Merry Christmas, the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights flow loud and clear from my lips and devil take those who are offended by it. Every one of my Ford ancestors since 1775 and I have stood up for freedom and liberty and I hope I have instilled these patriotic ideals in my children and grandchildren. I believe as did Emiliano Zapata, “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” I know there are many others with this belief and we would sell our lives at a very high price if some petty tyrant or semi-organized bunch of rights grabbers were to attempt to subjugate us.
Amen, Jim. Thank God, there may be a few like you left. chuck sasser
You are so right on, Chuck!
Morning, Sally. We have to stand up before it’s too late–if it’s not already too late. chuck sasser
Very disturbing. Very true.
Thank you, Carol. World and national events call out that we shout back. chuck sasser
Chuck:
I totally agree with you, and as far as what can be done, I feel it’s way too far gone. I look around me and have seen a spider web of surveillance being put up everywhere without even a whimper of anything from the Republic. I am talking about camera’s, video’s, and scanner’s everywhere I go. When DRONES cover the sky’s the web will be complete. In my mind I don’t believe we have a viable Constitution or Bill of Right’s which was supposed to back up the Constitution. I have driven cross-country on numerous occasions and in Ohio been pulled over and actually put in a cage while THEY tore our car apart. We had no rights at all. We had made the mistake of telling them back in October of 2011 that we were going to an action in Washington DC…which THEY had decided was against the government. All for now ….keep rocking…Arthur 11/16/2014
We’re listening, Chuck, and reading. I’m sharing this.
Morning, Bonnie. Thank you for your kind comment. I do hope you are having a Merry Christmas and the New Year’s will bring life even more rewarding. God bless. chuck sasser