“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.” ~ H.L. Mencken

I’m a member of what the younger generation derisively calls the Baby Boomers; those born after the World War II vets returned home and started producing babies. We grew up in a different era; and I don’t mean that figuratively. We grew up watching TV shows like I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Leave it to Beaver, and Mr. Ed; you know, the show about a talking horse.

Things have changed since I was growing up; and not for the better if you ask me. In fact, I barely recognize my country anymore; that’s how drastically things have changed. It’s not just the TV shows that are different, it is people themselves; their morals, their ethics, and their understanding of what their rights and liberty are that have changed.

What has really changed though is people’s concern for the truth. Those who speak the truth today are marginalized and demonized; especially if that truth is found to be politically incorrect, or conflicts with whatever the official narrative happens to be; and that can change on a day to day basis sometimes. People today place way too much trust in the media and those they elect to serve them in office; thinking that they are above reproach and would never lie to them. Sorry to burst your bubble but all they do is lie, and your apathy towards the truth means that whatever opinions and beliefs you have formed are based upon those lies.

Although I came of age during the Vietnam War era, when anti war protests were common, the people still predominantly supported the military, and considered themselves patriotic; it was considered honorable to enlist in the military and serve your country, defend freedom, and all that other patriotic rubbish. So with that in mind, as well as the lack of a clear career path, I enlisted into the Air Force in 1979; and for the next decade and a half I served my country faithfully; or so I thought anyways.

The thing about it is, my country did not serve me; it did not respect the rights and freedom I was supposed to be defending. Today when people thank me for my service, I tell them it is something I’m not proud of; because my country betrayed the principles I was supposedly defending, and I take no pride in defending this country because of it.

It cracks me up how outraged a portion of this country is over what happened back in January when Trump supporters ‘breached’ the capital and caused a bit of a stir; causing Congress to halt their proceedings and seek shelter from an ‘angry mob.’ I emphasized those particular words because if those protesters were angry, trust me, those Congress critters would have actually had something to be afraid of. As is, this was just a circus, a sideshow put on by people who had an election stolen from them; and yes, I believe Biden won by fraudulent means; but it was intentionally stolen from Trump to keep the animosity between the left and the right at a fever pitch.

If our military truly served to defend American freedom, it would refuse to send our young men and women off to foreign lands to fight and die in wars that we have no business being involved in. Former Marine Corps General Smedley Butler once said, “There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is defense of our homes. The other is the defense of our Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit. Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.” That quote comes from the most highly decorated Marine General of his time; yet can you truthfully say that the reasons he provides are the same reasons our young men and women are sent off to die in foreign lands; not to mention, slaughter people who’ve never harmed us?

I don’t mean to be disparaging towards those who serve; they are victims of the system that has lied to them and indoctrinated them into believing that they are serving this country; when the truth is they are serving the special interests that dictate U.S. foreign policy. Again, quoting from Smedley Butler, “I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” Tell me, how are U.S. soldiers guarding opium poppy fields in Afghanistan defending this country, or your rights and liberty?

If our military truly were defending our rights and liberty, they would not be erecting a wall around our nation’s capital to protect the lying and thieving scum that work there, they would be marching up the steps of the capital building to arrest and try them for their crimes; and execute them when they were found guilty.

I don’t want to go off on a tirade about this, but the same principle applies to law enforcement. If the police truly served and protected the people, they would be protecting us from invasions upon our rights; not enforcing the laws that do deprive us of them. Sure, they do perform some noble, and often, heroic functions…sometimes. But that does not take away from the fact that, for the most part, they are the enforcing arm of tyrants. After all, you don’t see Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, or Mitch McConnell going around enforcing the law, do you?

Yet I’m pretty sure that by now I’ve offended and upset a wide swath of the American public; for they have put both our military and our law enforcement officers up onto pedestals without looking at who they serve, and more importantly, what purpose they serve; and it certainly isn’t the defense of our rights and liberty, of that I can assure you. That is why I take no pride in my time in the service. Sure, I had fun; I traveled around the country, and the globe, and I met my wife during my time in the military; but I still feel that were you to ask me to do it all over again, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself!

I would consider it an honor to serve my country…if my country stood for the one thing I hold dear – liberty. As is, liberty is the last thing that is on people’s minds today; if it is on their minds at all. Today, those who do stand for rightful liberty are classified as enemies of the state; domestic terrorists or subversives. Since the truth about the purpose of government has been forgotten, or erased from our educations, people laugh at people who speak out openly about how government is evil; how it has perverted the very purpose of its own existence by reducing the people to nothing more than free range slaves.

Americans may call themselves patriotic because they vote, pay their taxes on time, obey the law, and respect authority, but to me that isn’t patriotism. To me patriotism is defending the principles this country was established upon; and using that as a guideline you’d be lucky to find a million patriots living in this country right now; probably far less.

A true patriot would not wear a face mask just because some bureaucrat told them to; nor would they make others wear one just because they themselves were afraid of some virus. A true patriot would not attempt to silence the speech of those they disagreed with. A true patriot would not support measures that took away our right to keep and bear arms. There are many things that people do today that a true patriot would not stand for; far too many to list one by one.

These are among the many reasons I no longer recognize this country. It may have been well on its way to becoming the shit hole it has become now, at least when I was a kid the people wouldn’t have stood for the kind of unpatriotic nonsense you beg government to do for you today; they would have not accepted tyranny as readily as people today have.

Those in power know this though; which is why they give us small doses of tyranny at a time; to let the people get accustomed to it, acclimated if you will, before they slice away at your freedom a bit more. The so-called Father of our constitution, James Madison spoke of this when he wrote, “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties–we hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.”

Those who fought for America’s independence saw the direction King George III was taking them, and they opposed him every step of the way; ultimately risking their lives to secure their rights and liberty. How many of you can say that you’d be willing to do that; risk your life standing up to your buddy Uncle Sam?

That’s what I thought.

You know, when the Son’s of Liberty were busy defending their rights against attack by their King, they knew that there were some among the people who would remain loyal to, and defend their government no matter how tyrannical it became. It was to those people that Samuel Adams spoke when he said, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

If Adams were alive today I’m sure he’d be as disgusted, if not more so, at the people of this country than I am. The people’s idea of patriotism is paying their taxes, saying yessir to tyrants, and then running off to the polls to elect a new crop of them to deprive them of even more of their freedom; so long as the benefits keep flowing and they are promised comfort and security. Well, as Thomas Jefferson was fond of saying, “I prefer dangerous freedom to comfortable slavery.” That was the kind of men that made America the land of the free; and it all began going downhill when vain and aspiring men sought to establish a system of government that would have access to the money and the rights of the governed. It’s been a long steady decline down the drain into tyranny ever since.

But Patrick Henry left those to whom the spark of liberty still burns in their breasts a message, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!“

The other day I wrote a lengthy rant based upon Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four and the TV miniseries Westworld. I would like to offer up a comment made by co-producer Lisa Joy, “What good is life if you don’t have the freedom to enjoy it?”

I hope you’ll ponder these thoughts, rather than getting butt hurt that someone served up a whole plate full of thoughts and ideas that may you feel uncomfortable. You see, the truth is uncomfortable when you’ve lived your entire life being lied to. Whatever choice you make, it is yours; but if you truly understood liberty you would not try to force your views upon anyone else; including me. So all that does is it shows me how little people know about the meaning of rightful liberty; and how deeply they’re enslaved.

The America I see today is the living, breathing fulfillment of something von Goethe said years and years ago, “None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.” And that, my friends, is why I do not recognize this country anymore; for didn’t it used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave?

So what the hell happened to all that freedom and all those brave people willing to defend it?

March 13, 2021

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross, Student of history, politics, patriot and staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Send all comments to: [email protected].

If you liked Neal’s latest column, maybe you’ll like his latest booklet: The Civil War: (The Truth You Have Not Been Told). Life continues to expand for this prolific writer and guardian of TRUE American history.