Independence

"Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it." - John Adams

If there is one thing above another that I can point to as the driving force in my sudden change of mind regarding Grad school, it is the previous quote. The John Adams miniseries on HBO made me realize hos much History we have, and can teach, but we don't because it is not convenient for whatever agenda the medium in which it is taught holds.

I'm finding myself more and more each day desiring to teach History. It's not my major, but that's okay; it is my minor, and I'm fairly well versed in a wide swath of History. Also, I can teach Lit and Writing if necessary. I can tell you without hesitation that this blog does not represent the pinnacle of my writing ability.

I've written semi-historical posts before. I simply find history fascinating. They say, and again, who is they?, that if we fail to learn the lessons of history then we are doomed to repeat them.

I fear that the United States, as a nation, is headed for such a failure, if we haven't reached it already. Many scholars have been attributed the following quote, but who said it is far less important than the truth behind it:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

The United States is already over 230 years old, and it seems that each year the only candidates who gain election are those who offer more and more money from the public treasury. Let's break down the quote just a bit.

from bondage to spiritual faith: the original colonies, bound to Great Britain, rallied around their desire for religious freedom.

from spiritual faith to great courage: those Colonies, with their spirituality intact, began to rise up, rallying around the militias and the Continental Congress

from courage to liberty: That support of the militias, and the unfettered outrage of the Colonists over unfair taxation, led to irrevocable separation from the power of the Crown

from liberty to abundance: at first, the States were not exactly prosperous. They slowly gained their financial freedom, gaining true self-sufficiency over time.

from abundance to selfishness: The self-sufficiency grew to greed, as is common among man as they gain wealth. The same goes for power, and for that I point to Washington D.C. as an example. Politicians, and those with extreme wealth, will do all they can to both hold on to their status of wealth and power, and to accumulate more.

from selfishness to complacency: The greed of those with power led to a state in which the US thought it was free from intrigue or attack. This step has essentially happened twice, once on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, and later on September 11, 2001, when Al Qaida launched the worst terrorsit attack in history. Both of these incidents are considered wake-up calls for Americans.

from complacency to apathy: Even though we've been "woken up" to the events of the world around us, we seem to quickly fall into an apathetic state. Already, even though we know that radical terrorist groups exist, the belief that ignoring the problem, or simply appeasing the problem, will make it go away. The lesson of Hitler has already been lost, in just 70 short years.

from apathy to dependency: As the nations waxes apathetic, we grow dependent on government to sustain us. The more liberal aspects of the Democratic party would create and mostly socialist state in the country, causing total dependency on government. The Republican party fares no better on the government dependency test. The original founders saw a nation with a strong central government made up by strong state governments. Currently, the state governments are growing weaker and weaker and the people are becoming more and more beholden to the federal system.

from dependency back again to bondage: I can't say where the bondage would come from. I don't know if the people would be bound to the federal government, or if a rival nation could gain enough global strength to overcome our great nation. I do know this: the quote is so far ringing true, and this last step is seemingly inevitable.

I guess you're thinking that this is depressing news, eh? It doesn't have to be. We simply have to recall the lessons of history. We must know why Rome, Greece, Babylon, and Macedonia didn't survive as nations? We have to recognize that appeasing an enemy only emboldens them, it does not make them stop.

We also have to recall the lessons of our Founding Fathers. Unfair taxation led to revolution. The next revolution in this country will probably not be as bloody, but the lessons are there to be learned, and I think my calling might be in teaching them.

The John Adams quote at the beginning of this article hit me very hard. This nation has lost sight of what was done to give us freedom. Hopefully we have not lost so much that Adams has already repented...