Happy Birthday America

Time for a new look at Common Sense

Our hearts go out to the valiant young Iranians as they are slaughtered by a repressive regime that probably stole an election. Their emails and Tweets reach out for help and support and get a tepid response from Washington.

As Americans, we identify with underdogs. Our cultural memory instinctively knows when it’s time to stand up for what’s right and roots for those who do so.

Unfortunately, that memory is starting to dim. Our moral compass spins with no sense of direction. We’ve become anesthetized by a pop culture that turns gruesome killing into video games and deifies entertainers and athletes whose exploits would earn them prison terms instead of fortunes in a sane world.

Though many of us profess pride in our freedoms and try to live moral and decent lives, it’s hard to swim against the tide.

We get our information from carefully crafted sound bites. Today’s mainstream media mavens may well be just too intellectually lazy to ask the hard questions. There is little doubt that they have forgotten that the primary duty of the media in a free society is to protect the people from government.
The scary part is that too few of us have even noticed or care that the media is now the mouthpiece for government instead of its watchdog.

Far too few people want to think for themselves. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are only too glad to step in and fill that void. As voters ignore elections in disgust, leaders are chosen by a select few with a narrow agenda.

Those who fear for their constitutional rights are often ridiculed.

Gun owners who take their second amendment rights seriously are perhaps the best example.

At the monthly luncheon of the Goochland Republican committee on Tuesday, June 30, area gun owners confronted Lynwood Cobb, the chairman of the party’s seventh district, about his decision to hold the annual Republican Roundup at the Innsbrook Pavilion.

The event, used to attract new members to the GOP, has been held at that privately owned facility, which does not permit firearms, for several years.

Cobb defended the choice contending that the location and amenities provided by the Innsbrook Pavilion are not available anywhere else in the area. Private property owners, he said, have the right to decide what sorts of activities are permitted at their facilities.

While on the surface this seems like a reasonable attitude, it also looks like a way for the Republicans to have it both ways with the firearms folk.

Republican legislators tend to support gun rights, but the party all too often tries to keep gun owners out of the limelight lest they be labeled gun nuts.

We will never know what might have happened if some students at Virginia Tech on that fateful day had been allowed to carry firearms in their backpacks.

Instead, the actions of a deranged student are cited as justification for diluting one of the most important rights guaranteed by our Constitution.

Perhaps if the Republican Party sponsored family events where responsible gun owners were free to attend with a firearm on their hip, others could meet people who understand that with rights come responsibilities.

If gun rights are taken away, can other freedoms that we take for granted be far behind?

Two hundred thirty-three years ago a group of influential men gathered in Philadelphia and signed a document that changed the course of human events. Though the signers are venerated by history, many of them faced personal ruin for their action in their lifetimes.

One of the precursors to that momentous gathering was the publication of a pamphlet, an ancestor of the blog, called Common Sense by Thomas Paine in January of 1776. It soon sold over 100,000 copies in a country whose population was about three million.

Paine, tired of the abuses of a distant king aided and abetted by a greedy parliament, was unabashedly in favor of independence. He outlined his perception of grievances in detail. Many of his sentiments could apply to our contemporary situation.

Read it for yourself at: www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense. It’s a long read. Print it out and take it to the beach. Think about it.

As you watch the local fireworks show on the Fourth(visit the county website at www.co.goochland.va.us for detailed information,) recall the words “rockets red glare” from the Star Spangled Banner. That was written when Baltimore was under attack in the War of 1812.

We were attacked eight years ago. Except for the people of New York who deal with the gaping wound at the foot of Manahttan, the rest of the country has gone about its business, but we are still at war.

Listen to the words of the Declaration of Independence, which will be read at the Goochland Farmers Market at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Try to imagine you are a farmer hearing the words for the first time on your normal market day.

Is anyone ready to stand up for what they believe in today? Or, do we just go along to get along?

Will the greatness of America go out with a whimper rather than a bang? Unless we are watchful, our cherished freedoms will erode, drop by precious drop, until they are gone. Will we even notice?

It’s past time to pay close attention so the land of the free and the home of the brave will endure for a long time to comep.