Have You Forgotten?

Deborah Venable

07/20/03

Looking back through America’s short history we can easily see a pattern that clearly shows our biggest disasters were the results of negative foreign influences. Why is this fact being obscured by everyone from the most liberal to the most conservative among us? While you ponder that question, keep this one in the back of your mind: who stands to gain the most from this fact being obscured or outright forgotten if you will?

At no time in my half century plus memory, nor through any of my research reaching back beyond that point have I ever seen Americans so torn in their beliefs - torn, inconsistent, and/or apathetic. I will venture an educated guess that never has such a large percentage of Americans been ignorant of so much of America’s accurate history. Therein lies the reason for this repeating pattern not making itself known to such a large number of Americans. Not just a failure of the education system, mind you, but a deliberate camouflaging of the facts has made it possible to maintain the ignorance that is threatening to lead us into the all-time worst disaster yet. Meanwhile, conservative minds are joining liberal minds in an all out assault on the one thing that could and should unite patriotic Americans in a positive move to re-embrace our lost freedoms, our culture and our heritage. In the words of a popular song, “have you forgotten?” America has many enemies. America, the culture, the history, the ideals, the freedoms and success of the philosophy of America – all have many enemies. We, the people of America, have many enemies. Most of these enemies are foreign in their philosophy (if not in their residence) and are not interested in seeing anything about the original America survive.

I am absolutely amazed at the number of Americans, patriotic and otherwise, who still believe that the American Civil War, a.k.a. the War Between the States, was fought over slavery. Nothing, and let me repeat that, nothing could be further from the truth. It did not matter which side won that war, slavery was a dying institution in this country long before it was fought, and if it had been allowed to die a natural death, the racial problems that have existed since would not be an issue today. There is such an abundance of information that backs this up, not the least of which is pure common sense. I bring up this issue now because we are still paying a terrible price for the artificial end to slavery and the foreign meddling that caused Americans to wage all out war on each other so long ago. All the while our education system is still teaching our children that this horrible war resulted in freeing the African slaves. Freeing them to what - generations of discrimination and minority-ism that has their descendents believing they are now owed a living?

Human rights atrocities were not the driving force behind the foreign meddling that caused America’s Civil War. Citizens of the world were not appalled that slavery was being utilized in the society and economy of nineteenth century America because it had been and was being utilized all over the world, and Africa was not the only source of slaves nor America the only consumer. In fact, there were far more American citizens, who ended up fighting on both sides of that war, who were against slavery and actively working to end it than probably existed elsewhere in the world. Are America’s children learning this fact in school today? No. They are being desensitized to the horrible events which caused brother to turn against brother, the Constitution to be ignored, and government to trample individual rights and property like no other time before or since in American history. They are being admonished to scandalize the heritage of half the American citizens – the half whose ancestors fought on the losing side of that war. Meanwhile it is all but forgotten that there was a much bigger motive to stir the pot in America and make her war on herself – a foreign motive because America was too successful in too short a time to suit some folks. Call it economic or even political, but don’t figure that human rights had very much to do with that war.

By far one of the most honorable military officers of the American Civil War has been painted in such a negative fashion, as well as the flag he fought under and the cause he supported, that American children are not taught about his nobleness, his honor, or his intelligence. The Rebel, Robert E. Lee, will be the focus of the new Patriots’ Corner Page in just a few days right here at this site. There are few Americans, past or present, who have exemplified the term “patriot” to the extent that this man has, yet he was not even officially repatriated until long after his death.

Check back in a few days and get to know Robert E. Lee like you may have never known him before.

Fast forward from the disastrous effects of foreign meddling in American affairs, which resulted in the Civil War, to the far more direct assault on America, which resulted in three thousand innocent deaths and a devastating effect on our economy from which we are still reeling. The enemy in both cases was foreign. Both instances resulted in American citizens turning on each other and causing far more destruction than any enemy could hope to cause us directly. Take, for instance, the current conspiracy theory that the September 11^th disaster was actually orchestrated by the puppeteers of the eeeeeeevil Bush administration – WOW! This one was almost too easy for the real enemies to pass off on an all too gullible American Christian (and otherwise) public. Why was it so easy to convince patriots from both political poles that such a plan was instigated only after all branches of our federal government had begun to take on a so-called conservative majority? One has to believe the very worst about this country to buy the theory that Bush orchestrated it. Bush – a self-proclaimed Christian and one who comes off as the real deal to many Christian Americans, even with all the controversial theories about his evil intentions, does not meet the necessary criteria for evil in my book. In order to believe that theory, I would also have to believe that one hundred forty plus years ago Americans turned on each other strictly because half wanted to own slaves and the other half didn’t. I would have to believe that America was not a very special place at all and that the Founders were just a bunch of ordinary fools!

Have you forgotten? America’s enemies are foreign in their philosophy, in their allegiances, and in their spirit. They always have been. Those who would have us believe that America’s interests do not trump the interests of an imagined world utopia where Americans become slaves to failed political philosophies, and our founding documents are continually trashed in favor of some kind of evolving world government are the enemies. They are the enemies to not only American heritage but also to a truly free world. There has never been nor will there ever be a better model for freedom than America in her original design. Anyone seeking to change that design is either woefully ignorant of enough knowledge to know the consequences of their actions or they are the freedom lovers’ deliberate enemies.

Freedom has a price because it has great value. If it were something that was not valuable, we would expect it to be given to us. The problem is that too many expect just that. Therefore, the solution lies in reminding everyone just how valuable freedom really is. Let us not get to the point where we no longer have it before enough can remember. Remember the freedom you enjoyed before September 11, 2001? Remember the freedom that could have been enjoyed before that terrible war that forever changed America in the eighteen sixties? The freedom that would have allowed black slaves to be emancipated voluntarily, with their unalienable rights never again questioned, was stolen from them by a majority that had other motives cloaked in their supposed interests. Just as our country was put on notice that we were no longer immune from a devastating attack that would target innocent citizens in the thousands, our laws and our religious heritage were set aside to accomplish even greater losses in individual freedom.

Have you forgotten when America was unquestionably one nation under God and morality was allowed to express itself in society without fear of legal retribution? Well, have you?

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