In 1775, as the Revolutionary War loomed near,  Patrick Henry’s keynote speech summed up what became the most basic of American values, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” How is it that 245 years later, we Americans, with ease, in just a few months time, have willingly handed over this cherished liberty so many colonists died for to escape the oppression of England’s monarchy?

Since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in March 2020, we have watched a rapid deterioration of the individualistic American spirit. Neighbor pitted against neighbor, children deprived of the basic human necessity of interaction with other children and the right to an adequate education. Sick people required (by law?) to die alone, with not a single loved one at their sides. Funerals canceled, so that not one person can accompany us, even as we transition to the afterlife. People with untold disease and chronic ailments, deprived of the ability to undergo surgery and medical treatments necessary to diagnose, treat and cure their ilness. People deprived of worship and the resulting personal interaction that is essential to the human condition. Millions of people have lost jobs, careers, life savings and thriving small businesses built of sweat, tears, and on occasion, a little blood. Much of our God-given liberty guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, gone, deleted, erased…with the stroke of a pen held by manipulative and powerful bureaucrats and politicians, along with their minions in the media. All without any resistance! The ease in which we Americans, the most giving and charitable society in the world, walked headlong into compliance, putty in the hands of a government either doing their best to be all things to all people, to preserve their political power, or possibly a more sinister motive. We have welcomed their quest to take one more huge step to deprive our individualistic society of its basic freedoms—freedom to associate with whomever we please, wherever we please, freedom to speak our minds whether or not we’re using facts, or simply exercising our freedom to have an individual opinion of others’ “facts.” All this taking place while violent riots go ignored at least, and at most, considered “essential” to the health and well being of rioters defending the rights of “black lives.” At the same time, the thousands of blacks lives being slaughtered in our inner cities go completely ignored. What confuses me most is how the complete and utter destruction of our economy is justified over a mutated virus of the common cold that is most virulent and deadly, but no more deadly by percentage of infection than the seasonal flu. We are expected to buy into our isolation justified by the urgency of “saving lives” while being expected to ignore the millions of lives being lost as a result of systematic destruction of the greatest and most free society in the history of time.  If there was ever a greater social absurdity in my lifetime, I cannot recall it.

Anyone, anyone who deviates from the “you must have murder in your heart if you disagree” narrative, becomes the subject of personal destruction through social media, through manipulation of search engine criteria, and through conversations with our neighbors, who like Nazis, will give us up for some favor or to protect themselves from the “Cancel Culture.” We dare not voice our opinions for fear that we, our families, our friends, our neighbors, our business associates, our livelihoods, will be destroyed by those with the power to do so. It’s as if there have become two distinct versions of Americans, the first using our government to oppress the other half, and the other half deluding themselves into believing this cannot happen in the America in which they were born and raised. These sad souls insist that the “silent majority” will eventually rear its powerful head to set the record straight. To me this is a fading dream of an America that used to be, an American dream that becomes weaker as we wake to our new reality.

Since the insanity began in March 2020, this entire scenario has reminded me of the 1998 Pixar movie, A Bug’s Life, a story of triumph of the many over the corrupt, powerful few. The hero, Flik, a dejected and ostracized ant among a colony of millions, demonstrates in simplistic form just how a multitude of individuals, each of them weak while standing alone, become powerful in numbers. They don’t accomplish their feat by violence, but by simply standing up to oppose their corrupt oppressors in massive numbers. With their newfound courage, they say, “No!” to the grasshoppers who previously had power over the ants only because the ants willingly handed over their power.

I’ve lived a good, long life, filled with good and bad decisions, but in the pro and con list of life, I’ve emerged relatively unscathed, mostly due to my intelligence and critical thinking skills, my ability to exercise free choice, free association, free speech. Along with the freedom to bear arms, these freedoms equate to much of the “liberty” Patrick Henry spoke of so long ago. As I told my children countless times while they were growing up, “There are only two things for which I’d sacrifice my life. The first is to exchange mine for my childrens’, and the other is to refuse to relinquish the God-given liberty guaranteed to me by the U.S. Constitution.” Hence, I shall adopt Patrick Henry’s credo, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

The questions I ask of all who read this is, “Are you with the grasshoppers, or with the ants?”