Virtue Magazine

Our forefathers paid for their liberty, and the liberty of generations to come with their own blood. Are we prepared to do the same? To defend our liberty no matter what the cost? Or will we sit and let the blood payment go to waste?

If we are not willing to defend our liberty, what then? It seems as though we aren’t willing – we deny the right to live to some. To others we deny the freedom of religion, and still to others the freedom of speech. As to those who still have their freedoms, not all use them well. As has been seen in ‘Newsweekgate’, the press sometimes views their freedom as the ability to say what they will, even if it is lies. But at this loss, this abuse of freedom, we seem to do nothing. There is no large outcry of protest in defence of the liberty we once had. Can it be that we are seeing what Senator Amidala saw in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith? Will we be able to say with her the lines she uttered to Senator Organa? ‘So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.’

Woe betide the day when we must watch as the last of our freedoms slowly crumble away. At what point will we rise in defence of our liberty? When will we echo Patrick Henry’s words? We must wake up! We are accomplishing nothing by sitting here and watching our liberty go to waste. We must truly want either liberty or death, and if the former, we must be willing to pay the cost.

Let me leave you with this. Learn what your liberties are. Cherish and treasure them. Know that you will not have them free of charge. There are those out there who are jealous of the freedoms and liberties granted to the American people, and they will stop at nothing to destroy these freedoms.

It seems that so often it is those who actually had to work to become citizens of our nation care most about it. Those who live here their entire lives take their liberties for granted. They know they have them, they always have, certainly does that not mean that they always will? Yet on the other hand we have those who had to actually put some effort into gaining the benefits to being a United States citizen. And as such they hold their rights in high esteem… for when one must work for something the reception of it is all the more joyful.

Therefore, I encourage you to hold on to your liberties. Protect them from those who hate what freedom stands for. Honour them, cherish them. You know not if you will have them forever. And in doing so, in protecting, treasuring, and using your liberties, you will prevent them from dying with thunderous applause. For if they die, we will be worth no more than the citizens of the Galactic Empire under Palpatine, enslaved to do as whoever rules over us wishes. Stand up for liberty, and let freedom ring!