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Think of the children

t1m0thy

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
50
Location
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, USA
imported post

[font="Arial, sans-serif"] [font="Lucida Sans, sans-serif"]Tonight as I put my girls to bed and they laid their heads down and went to sleep I was struck by a thought that pierced me so deeply I felt the need to put it into words. Often in the realm of political struggle and legal battles to preserve our liberties we discuss philosophy and principle and we offer platitudes suited to further our cause, but in the midst of all our quotations of law, founding fathers, and men of reason we cannot lose sight of what gave men pause to discover the nature of man's rights and the cause which made men run into battle in the name of this notion we call individual liberty. I think , tonight, I saw more clearly than ever the tangible motive that provoked men to challenge kings and tyrants from the times of ancient Egypt to colonial America. It was not wealth or power these men sought; although they did wish to prosper...it was something far simpler and yet something not considered principle in the argument for freedom by many politicians and scholars.[/font][/font]


[font="Lucida Sans, sans-serif"] Before I became a father I always talked of liberty and the rights of man but it was purely intellectual. I never really felt such passion as I do now to actively preserve the essential liberties granted to us by nature and secured by our Constitution. When I first held my daughter in my arms my whole world changed. As time passed and another beautiful little girl entered my life I began to ponder on not just the intellectual side of my belief but the reality of how eroded the concept of essential liberty has become in our country and what it might mean for the future of my children.

I often hear the arguments by those who seek to remove more and more freedom that I must think of the children and that we must keep them safe so please, if you will, hand over this right or that right. Then they return a little while later and request with aid of some tragic event if I would not mind handing over another liberty because after all you don't really need that and it would make our job so much easier to keep you and your family safe. Time and again the people of this country buy into that same line of thinking and willingly tighten the noose around our collective necks. Not many stop to think of where these requests will end or what they are giving up until it is too late. As I sit here tonight and feel my heart beating with such pride and love as a father for the two most precious people in the world to me and of my wife who is my life and love I cannot fathom handing their safety and well being over to another. It is this cause and this motive that I believe moved men to first perceive of freedom and individual liberty.
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[font="Lucida Sans, sans-serif"] In the end of our lives here in this existence what have we but the dirt which holds our remains? What is it that causes us to want to preserve our freedoms which we hold onto for yet a moment? Looking into the kind and innocent eyes of a daughter answers that question for me. Holding my wife and feeling the love I have for my family is what pushes me to action. Liberty should not just be for one generation but for all who follow behind us. It is not an idle task to endure but is a daily battle against those who would turn our emotion and our love of life and family into a cause that would destroy all that we hold dear. Know that the only thing that can keep all we treasure safe from the hands of tyrants and small minded men is the barrel of the gun that you hold pointed in the face of every such evil. Without the ability to protect our loved ones and our families there is no liberty. That is why I fight as passionately as I do for my right to bear arms. The root of my cause is not a love for wood and steel or a fetish for violence...it is and ever will be the endearment of that first glance into the eyes of a new human being that calls me daddy.[/font]
 

Task Force 16

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
2,615
Location
Lobelville, Tennessee, USA
imported post

Very eloquently stated.

There are people that believe that some liberties can be traded for safety, but what they don't realize is that life itself is full of hazards that cannot be eliminated simply by trading liberty away. What yu will end up with is no liberty and no safety.

I often hear people say that they want to insure that their children have a better life than they had. I believe that the real goal should be to insure that our children will have the same liberties that our parents had, so that they can make what they will of their own lives. We should be teaching our children that libertyis the only true counterbalance to lifes hazards.

After all, none of us are going to survive lifeanyway. Better todie free thanlive asa servant to tyranny.
 
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