If you don’t know what you want,” the doorman said, “you end up with a lot you don’t.” ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 5

All of my life I have had the good fortune to be an American.

I wasn’t born somewhere else and came to this country looking for something better. I haven’t traveled extensively only to find that there is no place like home.

I am a good old patriotic American through and through.

I am also not part of the lower echelon of our society that did not take advantage of what little the system had to offer. I am intelligent, with a decent education, a job, kids, wife, dreams and hope for the future.

However recently, I find myself questioning the very basis of that which I hold dearest to my heart and soul. The legitimacy of the actions of my culture and society on the world that have occurred in my lifetime is most certainly under scrutiny. Saying that my paranoia of an omnipresent uber-controlling government has gotten steadily stronger over the last ten years would be somewhat of an understatement.

Now don’t get me wrong… I am neither advocating nor suggesting that I am ready to stock up on the guns and supplies before heading off into the Appalachian mountains to stand against the tyranny that is slowly enveloping our country.

I have lived through Ruby Ridge, and Waco, and Elian Gonzalez; if the guys with kevlar, ski masks, and automatic weapons want you, there is no hiding from the inevitable. Besides when thoughts of that sort cross my mind I think to myself, “Would Davy Crockett run to the hills? How about James Bowie, Teddy Roosevelt, Stonewall Jackson, John Adams, or any of my other heroes?”

Would their first reaction be to take to the hills or take to the streets? I think the latter however that is but my interpretation of great men with purpose.

So instead of seeking the solace of shelter in the waiting boughs of a hidden forest lair, I step out into the glaring light of the international stage and with me I bring the skeletons of a vengeful and fearful empire teetering on the edge of either global domination or historical oblivion.

Think to yourself good reader, is the actions of our society as whole so unimportant to you that you would gladly trade your honesty and integrity for another gallon of gas or the latest shiny trinket at your local discount department store? Does the blood of nearly Five Thousand of our neighbors, coworkers, friends and family members wash away the lies that caused them?

Five Thousand…

Five thousand voices, minds, and souls ended forever because of an insatiable lust for power and international dominance borne in the hearts of but a small number of men and women in our country who believe it is their right to make our country into what they envision for us.

“Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” The bard was a man of much strength and an infinite mind,and now he calls forth from the grave that which we fear to speak ourselves.

Do you not believe a Muslim has the same rights to his own life? Do they have the right to not be used as a scapegoat by some massive governmental entity obsessed with protecting what it envisions as their national interests? What is it exactly that Iraq did to deserve this?

“We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them.”  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 19

If the lies we were told were true…Saddam had actually played a role in the 9/11 plot, or there really were weapons of mass destruction, shouldn’t we have finished this conflict already? Have we not toppled the evil regime and placed the country back into the hands of its people to do with as they please?

Or have we become complacent and lazy in our duty as Americans to reign in the leash of power that was given to us by our founding father. Many things have changed from the days of idealism and rebellion that was the forge for creating our great nation, but one thing has not…our duty as citizens to defend the honor and security of our country from threats both foreign and domestic.

One of the great military and political leaders of our time, Dwight D. Eisenhower once spoke of this vigilance,

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. “

This wise council was given by a man who not only helped to defeat the greatest threat the world had ever known but was actively facing off with the rising tide of a threat so dire that the entire world teetered on the brink of apocalyptic annihilation. Despite the Soviets consolidating power world wide, and holding the second largest nuclear arsenal; President Eisenhower counseled us the people to watch for and defend against the unwarranted power grabs we see as a common place event around us. I don’t believe we listened and allowed ourselves to be seduced by the trappings of commercialism

Do you want to be lead about on a leash? Do you like being the cog in the machine? An unassuming, permanent monetary source who’s only function in life is to live, die, pay taxes, and buy crap you don’t need just because you are told it will make your life easier?

I think you do…Because if you didn’t you would wake up tomorrow and have to question the very basis for the violence are society is wreaking on the rest of the world.

Time to wake up America, time to put away the childish things we use to cloud our minds and fight back against the things that frighten us the most. Like not being American anymore…

“You buy furniture.  You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life.  Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled.  Then the right set of dishes.  Then the perfect bed.  The drapes.  The rug.  Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 5