By Hobie Morris
“These are the times that try men’s souls.” – Tom Paine, 1776
Of America’s far more famous Founding Fathers, this simple country man believes his friends and neighbors in Brookfield will more closely identify with the mold-breaking political radical and rabble rousing writer Tom Paine. Paine’s inflammatory writings proved to be the red hot coals that ignited the colonial revolt against an increasingly tyrannical England. In life the often vilified Paine marched to the drum beat that only he heard.
Paine didn’t tolerate despotic governments in any form. As he wrote, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”
A Revolutionary War hero, Henry Knox, could have been writing about my friends and neighbors when he wrote “we want great men [and women] who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged.” Tom Paine put it a little bit more graphically. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Most Brookfielders prize their freedom and independence above all. Years ago, then-President Ronald Reagan warned all Americans that “Freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.”
Many of us today are witnessing the incredible growth of government and the serious contraction of our freedoms. Thanks to effective Orwellian double speak, far too many Americans have been desensitized to the steady erosion of our freedoms.
Our successful Revolution in the late 18th century was the first to reverse the course of government. In three words, WE THE PEOPLE became the drivers of our government. We, in theory, tell the government what to do, where to go, how to go, and at what speed. The power flows from the people to the leaders and is not dictated from the leaders downward.
In my humble estimation, the Nov. 8 presidential election is a tragic sham. The people, you and I, will certainly not be electing the next president, although we have been cleverly hoodwinked to think that we do. In reality, whom we elect of either party will make no difference. Both candidates will blow hard on what they will do for the people, but, in reality, the people’s needs will be thrown to the dogs and at best, we’ll get tidbits from the table of plenty—enjoyed by the monied and powerful. So who are the people who hold the power and wealth? Among them individuals and corporations who make fortunes turning America’s homeland into a war zone; the military industrial complex; the security and industrial complex; the surveillance and industrial complex; fat cats on Wall Street; monied elite from the Defense and technological sector; foreign nationals whom we are indebted to the tune of trillions of dollars, etc. As you can read, the above aren’t you and I.
Our elections have become a farce. America is at a crossroads. Do we continue on towards an increasingly despotic government or do we the people become the new revolutionaries and wage a historic battle to reclaim our democratic birthright? It’s time to stop whining and complaining and waiting for someone else to do the hard work of reining in a runaway government.
As Tom Pain wrote “tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” American history has shown it can be done by Brookfielders, people in your community and concerned Americans all across this once great democracy. Fighting for democracy is an obligation for all of us.
But these are only the off the “cave wall” musings of a simple country man and his beautiful, patriotic, revolutionary-thinking wife Lois.