Friday, August 16, 2013

"You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom."

I posted this John Quincy Adams quote on Facebook the other day, and it got the usual number of "likes" and "reposts".   (For those who have mobile devices that aren't good with pics, it's a marble slab with the following quotation: "You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom.  I hope you will make good use of it.")

What Adams said is now bugging the crap out of me. 


I think if Adams' generation of rebels could get inside the heads of my generation of passive sheep, they would be depressed. 

Some of us don't want to have our freedom preserved.  We want Barack to give us 40 acres and a mule. 

We want to live on a plantation where the owner gives us 3 hots and a cot.  We want him to pay for our healthcare, and we want him to "invest" in our retirement, and we want him to withhold our taxes so he can pay our tribute to our superiors without the money entering our grubby little hands. 

We want the plantation owner to withhold our child support.  If we can't afford to live on our own, we bitch about him not paying us enough to do so, rather than gaining some skills that would increase our worth to someone wanting to trade money for them.   

Some of us don't want our freedom preserved.  We learn about government munchkins eavesdropping on our correspondence, and we assume that it's the cost of remaining a free society. 

We don't want our freedom preserved.  We see a civilian with a gun, and we break out in tumors and rashes. 

We don't want our freedom preserved.  We let Washington and Austin and Downtown rack up huge bills that will be paid by our great-grandchildren, and we just assume that things will continue to be as they always have been.  (Herb Stein's Law:  If something can't last forever, it won't.) 

We don't want our government to merely act as a referee, groundskeeper, cheerleader and security guard.  We want leaders !  Quarterbacks !  Linebackers !  Coaches ! 

If there's ever been a generation that was ungrateful for freedom and liberty, it is this one.  Sorry J.Q.  Maybe you and your dad shoulda stuck to law. 

Sorry for the bad mood tonight.  I'll try to be funny tomorrow morning. 

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