Funny thing happened on the road to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;" America yielded her right of way to traffic making a left turn in the wrong direction.
I am not what you would consider politically active or civic minded.
I have never attended a political convention, rally, town hall meeting, cottage meeting or city council meeting.
I have never run for local, state or national office or volunteered in any civic organization or political campaign.
I am not an activist for any cause or anyone.
I am simply an average citizen that believes Americans are the luckiest people on the planet.
In spite of my lack of political or civic involvement, I do love my country for all the freedoms and opportunities she has afforded me.
Regretfully, this love has been demonstrated more by lip service than through action.
I have done nothing of consequence to stand up for, defend or make this nation stronger other than to vote in elections and pay my taxes.
However, I don't believe these are sufficient alone to count me a grateful and worthy patriot of this great land.
So what does this make me and why am I speaking out now? First and foremost I am a child of God.
I am a Christian by faith and more god-fearing than a casual believer.
I am a Republican by registration but consider myself more moderate than conservative or liberal, and more centrist than right or left.
I am also a son, brother, husband, father and friend.
And I am an American.
As with all of these labels or titles, I know the honor and right of being called an "American" cannot just be bestowed, it must be earned.
I do not wish to come across as political or partisan in tenor and tone, but one thing has been made very clear to me.
That is: Taking a moderate, centrist, or middle of the road position means I am just as likely to get run over from the left side of the road as I am from the right.
For this reason, I have chosen to plant my feet squarely on the right side of the road and to follow that path which I believe to be right.
I believe in this country.
I believe it is a choice and chosen land.
I believe the earth is God's creation and the United States of America is His footstool.
I believe we have a solemn and sacred responsibility to be faithful stewards and valiant protectors of our nations resources and its ideals.
I believe we must face head-on and defeat any and all enemies and threats to this nation, both foreign and domestic.
I believe the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by men inspired of God, for no natural man, mind or institution could have penned these words and raised a country out of obscurity without the guiding and protective hand of divinity.
I hope one day to find myself worthy of adding my voice to a heavenly chorus of forefather patriots with the rallying cry of "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
" One of my favorite quotes comes from Abraham Lincoln: "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
" God never moves.
He is the one constant this nation and its people have always been able to depend on in prosperity and peril.
But God will not be mocked.
His protection and blessing is conditional upon our adherence to the principles and values on which this nation was founded; the very ones that He inspired.
So we must ask ourselves: How long will God stay on the side of a people possessing so much selfishness, divisiveness, avarice, apathy and immorality? How long can our democracy, institutions, communities, homes and way of life withstand assaults from false promises, false hopes and false gods? Each day we see and hear and feel the very soul of America slipping into an abyss from which there may be no return.
Surely you have felt a discomfort or uneasiness about the direction this country is headed down.
And if you listen to that still small inner voice that whispers truth even when the cacophony screams its loudest, you will know, as do I, that its time to do something about it.
I am not an alarmist.
By nature I am more optimist than pessimist, and more pragmatist than realist.
That being said, the direction this country and its people are currently headed is in reality, alarming.
I still believe that America's best days and brightest hours are ahead of her, but more than anytime in our history we are faced with perilous times on all fronts: economic, political, societal and moral.
Undoubtedly, there are wolves outside our borders that would blow our house down brick by brick if they could.
They pose a real threat to our peace, security and way of life, and must receive our careful attention.
But they can never succeed unless we diminish our institutions and weaken our beliefs enough to let them inside.
For this reason, we must wake up to the fact that America's most dangerous enemy is not some foreign military power or secret band of terrorists from a far distant land, but ourselves.
We have become too selfish, too indifferent and too faithless.
More than losing job or home, losing our identity as "one nation under God" and our ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" represent far greater threats to us than any external force.
The rise and fall of great empires in history like the Persian, Roman, and Greek lay in ruin as witness and warning to the United States.
As they achieved success, they increased in power.
As they increased in power, they achieved wealth until reaching magnificent glory and influence.
Eventually the societies and institutions and ideals of these empires became so corrupted and polluted by their leaders and citizens that they could no longer sustain themselves.
In spite of contributing much to the world by way of intellect, culture, art, science, religion and social progress, these empires and civilizations self-destructed long before they collapsed or were ever conquered.
Has our country reached its apex of glory, power and influence? Are we on a similar path of polluted ideals and eventual implosion? You don't have to look very far or deep to see exactly where our country sits in the spectrum of empire and history.
Just watch the news.
Look around your community.
Listen to your heart.
What do you hear? What do you see? How do you feel? Is that shining light on the hill, even that beacon of hope throughout the world which is America, growing dimmer as unprincipled capitalism, governmental intrusion, judicial activism, neo-socialism, and moral relativism continue to diminish our values and virtue? The eternal light of destiny simply will not continue to shine on this nation unless the majority of its people begin to let their light shine again.
Battlefields throughout the world and in our own land are soaked with patriot blood that won the rights, privileges, and blessings we now enjoy, albeit may not appreciate as much as we should.
We can no longer continue to live on the borrowed light of Revolutionary forefathers or those called the "greatest generation.
" It now falls upon us to light our own flame of freedom and to carry our own torch of liberty house by neighborhood, community by city, county by state, all the way to the Capitol and White House.
Today, we must fight the good fight for the soul of this nation by enlisting the hearts and minds of all those who still believe in the original ideal and hope that is America.
Gone are the days of citizenship on credit and patriotism by proxy.
The American Dream was and is uniquely borne and sustained by sacrifice, courage, and compassion.
It was not just dreamed up; it was inspired.
It was not just given; it was fought for and won.
So let us roll up our sleeves and begin acting as if everything depended on us, and get on our knees and pray as if everything depended on the Almighty.
This country became great and is great because of the faith, industry and conviction of a people that believe in God, enterprise, and the promise of a better life.
Our democratic republic is the greatest system of government ever devised.
The United States has been the greatest force for good, liberty and charity of any country in the history of the world.
But our ideals and standing are now in jeopardy of being dismantled brick by brick, liberty by liberty, and principle by principle unless we stand up to be counted and speak up to be heard now.
Our fundamental principles are under deliberate and calculated attack by enemies from within who would do this country harm through malicious intent, political sophistry, willful arrogance or just plain ignorance.
By abandoning eternal principles of truth in favor of relativism, popularism and benign belief, many of our political leaders and their minion subjects are taking us down a path that leaves one to wonder, as did Lincoln, how long God will remain on our side.
The principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not created by party, committee, poll or election.
These are eternal principles that are God given and absolute.
Unfortunately, these principles have been shamefully uncultivated and unprotected by the "silent majority" and left to the designs and devices of political machinations, vocal minorities, partisan media, elitist academia, celebrity, and special interest groups and unions who seek to first blur then eradicate the lines between compassion and self-reliance, good and evil, right and wrong, and even life and death.
Whether in the glimmer of night or in the light of day, these brazen plotters find confederate in backrooms, boardrooms, classrooms, congressional offices, the oval office, committee chambers, union halls, and in complicit media and entertainment studios.
These freedom assassins are nothing more than wolves dressed in tolerance, compassion, and enlightenment that would tear this country's ideals asunder and devour its soul if their agendas were allowed to succeed.
Radicalism and ultra-liberalism must never be allowed to overpower our collective reason and conscience.
Listen well.
A silent majority does not a majority make.
It is nothing but a puppet majority with no power or effect on outcomes or institutions.
The enemy counts on this majority remaining silent while they seek to change America's ideals under the guise of having us believe in their false hope.
But while they may be malicious, misguided, misinformed, and just wrong, are they any worse than the complicit citizen who slumbers in silent apathy, apology or fear and does nothing? We are supposed to be a nation and government "of the people, by the people, for the people.
" However, what's been blatantly missing in this equation is not the right form of government, but the right people participating in it for the right reasons and in the right way.
What's been missing is you, me, us - the people, the silent majority.
Our representative form of government as envisioned by our forefathers and documented in the Constitution, along with its system of checks and balances, was designed to ensure that the process of governance was performed in the right way.
But even if the process is administered correctly that does not mean that all decisions, programs, policies and laws will be right.
You must still have the right people making the right decisions.
Therein lies the awesome responsibility and accountability of "We the people.
" Friends.
Americans.
Countryman.
Fellow citizens from sea to shining sea.
We have much more going for us than against us.
This nation still has more hope and promise than gloom and doom.
But now is the time to act and make a difference before we lose our sense and soul.
Our country needs modern Washington's, Jefferson's, and Lincoln's for sure, but it desperately needs a whole new breed of citizen patriots full of spirit and zeal.
Abraham Lincoln summed it up this way: "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.
I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
" May each of us be endowed with courage and conviction from on high, and with the true audacity of hope, in this our worthy cause.
God bless America! And may she never yield the right of way again! I, Citizen (American)