In consumerist America, little of the passionate fervor of our forefathers remains to spur us to daring action. We have no battles to fight, no tyrant overseas to overthrow, no independence to gain. Most of us have access not only to the basic necessities of life, but a tremendous array of options to fill every spare moment with entertainment and pleasure.
The thrilling cry of revolutionary Patrick Henry might well resound with the faintly-humorous pun of a lumberyard's advertising board leading up to the celebration of Independence Day:
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME A DECK
It could be rather an amusing pun, if it were not a little too close to the truth.
Yet surely, you might say, we would not surrender our freedom for so little as a deck?
Perhaps not a literal deck. Then again, perhaps we would give it up for something smaller—a cell phone perhaps? A tax cut? A free lunch? A popular opinion? A like on a Facebook post? Do we really know much we would sign over our freedom for things so worthless even when it means turning our backs on those things we know deep down truly matter?
The more we surrender our liberty bit by bit for the smallest of things, the more we bind ourselves to the forging of chains for which we can blame no one but ourselves. Fear speaks louder than reason.
Will we throw overboard the metaphorical tea of our oppressors and shout for liberty or death? Or will we rather choose our own security and see any revolutionaries about as a dangerous threat to the life of pleasure we have chosen?
As for me, I stand with Patrick Henry, if in a battle of an entirely different nature: give me liberty or give me death!
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