It is difficult to admit and even more difficult to deal with the situation taking shape in our nation. After 240 years, the wheels seem to be coming off the democratic republic envisioned and put in place by our founding fathers. The founding principles of our country, the Constitution, and the rule of law have been undermined and trampled on in the last few years.

Abraham Lincoln understood the importance of our Constitution by saying: “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

There is simply too much division and discord in who we should be as a nation. I believe we are near the warning made by former president Ronald Reagan. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” I keep hearing the president say, “that is not who we are.” However, we surely aren’t the country he is trying to make us either. If the silent majority doesn’t show up at the polls this go around, things could deteriorate very quickly.

It is disturbing to me the number of young people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts flocking to rallies for a professing socialist vying for president. Are these children just naïve as to what socialism represents or is it the pie in the sky promises being made by these misguided spin doctors? What they don’t seem to understand is there is a price to be paid for losing their freedom. You have to wonder what freedom means to them and what have their Marxist professors been teaching them. Freedom once lost is rarely ever regained.

The definition of socialism is “a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Gone is free enterprise and the ability to own and operate a business of your own and prosper according to your ability and efforts. Winston Churchill said it best “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, … its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Socialism has been a miserable failure everywhere it has been tried, and at the expense of its citizens.

It is up to “we the people” to fight for, and protect our freedoms and way of life as have our forefathers. There has been far too much blood shed defending our freedoms not to. Abraham Lincoln stated it this way in the Gettysburg address: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”