Why have we given up on Freedom?

“They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!” screamed William Wallace in the blockbuster movie Braveheart.  This was the moment in the movie when William Wallace was rallying his Scottish countrymen against an insurmountable task of defeating the oppressive British Army and the words nicely summed up what was important in life to him and his countrymen.

I wonder, in these times where we seem to no longer either stand for or up for anything:  “Would the movie Braveheart or any of the other epic movies about man’s struggle for freedom from tyranny be as successful”?  Based on the attitudes and unrequested opinions of the media and the people I see and hear from every day I would answer this question with a resounding “no”.

Here are some examples of the vanishing of our freedoms or our beliefs in freedom that I have observed and have to wonder just how we got to this point.

First of all, does no one realize just what nationalized health care will do to our freedom to choose medical care that is best for ourselves and our families?  Instead of insurance companies competing with each other to provide the largest variety of medical options at the lowest costs, we are going to be given a one size fits all medical plan.  In this plan a bureaucrat appointed by some political figure will decide for the doctors what medical treatments they can offer you for any of your particular ailments.   Expensive medical procedures will never be approved by the bureaucracy and therefore much of the American innovation in health care will slowly die away as profits from innovative new drugs and procedures decline.  On top of that, your choice about when and where you can have a medical procedure that is approved performed will be non-existent.  In other socialized countries, you may have to be on a waiting list for months just to get in for the most basic medical procedures.   Has anyone even thought of the fact, that you could be sitting on a list for months to get a procedure behind 50 other people that don’t work and contribute no money into this health care system?

Why are we ignorantly standing by while our president down plays or ignores everything that our country has done to promote freedom in this world?  The United States in the past 50-100 years has done more to promote humanitarian justice, and personal freedom throughout the world than any other entity in the in history.  People of many countries live in freedom now because  the United States stood up against dictators on the principle that freedom is an ideal worth fighting for.  Now our President is sending pokes and hugs from his Facebook page to every murderous dictator in the world and saying he’s sorry for the years of grief we gave them for treating human life with no respect.

Traditionally the left in our country have been the ones that stand against censorship of things such as pornography and explicit lyrics in music.  However, they are now the same ones that are pushing for laws to watch everything we do in our daily lives from our phone calls to our Internet usage.

And… What about our right to work hard and prosper?  Isn’t that the basis for what freedom means?  Those that work hard should reap the rewards while those who sit around, smokin’ their shit and playing video games all day should not attain the wealth that the rest of us have worked for.  Well, that’s all changing, in the eyes of the left, prosperity is an evil that must be done away with.  The theory behind it is that all people no matter what class, education etc should have the same level of wealth and be able to lead the same lifestyle.  Basically, those of us that do earn enough should make sure that we pay for the others to live as comfortably as we do.  Is this freedom?  Answer… No.

I could go on and on about the changes we are undergoing that will take away the freedoms that have made us the best, strongest, most innovational country in the world.   But I’d love to hear what you think first and maybe continue this from there.