ARE WE A "SIT-DOWN" NATION?

SPECIAL POST

When you stop and consider it, you have to agree that this nation no longer stands up for anything. We don’t stand up against violence along our southern border, we don’t stand up against illegal aliens crossing our borders and becoming burdens on our society and we don’t stand up against the Ahmadinejads and Jong-Ils of the world. Instead, we bury our heads in the inevitable quagmire of “political correctness” as we shuck and duck our way through challenges that we should be facing head-on.

It’s no wonder that we have lost esteem among other countries, nor is it a wonder that we have lost our own sense of identity and purpose as a nation.

Given the fact that our ship of state is floundering, we need to pause and ask ourselves just when the country started this downhill slide. Frankly, I think it started with George H.W. Bush and that it has been escalating itself ever since under Clinton, Bush II and now Obama. Obama seems to exemplify the problem, but he did not originate it. One thing is certain: neither Kennedy nor Reagan would have allowed this country to get itself into the mode that it is currently in.

Is it a healthy mode? One might argue that avoiding conflict at all costs is worth the price we pay. But, history has proven that the weak get trampled on and, if you are perceived as being weak, you’re asking for it. That does not mean that you have to be the bully on the street. Surely, we should be keeping our noses clean and out of the businesses of other countries except for the basic issues of human rights. But, we should not allow the bullies on the street to run all over us, either.


Deal from a position of strength. That is a philosophy I learned from an ex-wife and it has proven itself to be correct time after time. Others respect your position of strength and tend not to challenge it. In the course of human events, mutual respect should be the cornerstone of the day. We have allowed our perceived strength, gained at the close of World War II, to erode into perceived weakness and that is the reason why others do not hesitate to cross our borders illegally or to spit at us on the world stage.

As Americans, we have lost our pride as a nation by allowing the erosion of our national perception. We need to spend more time examining what is going on with our country and less time wondering whether or not Lindsay Lohan is going to end up in jail. It’s basically our responsibility because it is, after all, our nation, and we need to be the ones in charge of running it.

The next time we step into the voting booth, we need to be prepared to make our choices based on what is right for our country in the long run as opposed to the sheer emotion of the moment in time.