There are those that claim that ours is a sick society, that our government is sick, that our country is sick, that we are rich. Maybe they're right. I submit that I am sick. I am sick of having policemen ridiculed and called pigs, while cop killers are hailed as some kind of folk heroes. I am sick of being told that religion is the opiate of the people, but that marijuana should be legalized. I am sick of commentators and the columnist canonizing anarchists, revolutionist, and criminal rapists but condemning law enforcement when such criminals are brought to justice. I am sick of being told that pornography is the right of a free press. That freedom of the press does not include being able to read the Bible on the school grounds. I am sick of paying more and more taxes to build schools when faculty members encourage students to either tear them down or burn them.
I am sick of Supreme Court decisions which turn criminals loose on society while other decisions try to take away my means for protecting my home and my family. And I am sick of pot smoking entertainers who deluge me with their condemnation of my moral standards on late night television. And I am sick of being told that policemen are made dogs and should not have guns and that criminals who use guns to rob, maim and murder should be understood and helped back to society.
I am sick of riots, marches, protests, sick of hearing the same phrases, the same slogans, the cries of people who must chant the same thing, like zombies, because they haven't the capacity for verbalizing thought. And I am sick of those who say I owe them this or that because of the sins of my forefathers when I have looked down both ends of a gun barrel to defend their rights, their liberties, and their families.
I am sick of cynical attitudes towards patriotism. I am sick of politicians with no backbone. I am sick of the permissiveness, sick of the dirty, the foul mouthed, the unwashed, sick of the decline of personal honesty, and human sincerity. Most of all though, I am sick of being told that I'm sick and that my country's sick when we have the greatest nation that man has ever brought forth. Yes, I may be sick but if I'm only sick, I can get well. I can help my society get well and my country get well. Take note all of you. You will not find me throwing a rock or a bomb, you will not find me under a placard. You will not see me take to the streets, but you will find me at work, paying taxes in the community where I live. And you will find me contributing my time, money and personal interest toward helping churches, hospitals and other establishments which have shown the true spirit of this countries determination to ease pain, suffering, eliminate hunger and generate brotherhood. But most of all, you will find me at the polls. There, if you will listen, you can hear the thunder of the common man. There all of us can cast our votes for an America where people can walk the streets without fear.
And may I add, yes, America has her faults, but I have been in 137 other foreign lands, and I would not trade the good old U.S.A. for all the others combined. In many of the foreign ones I have visited, I was the envy of the people because I had had the privilege of being born an American. In some of them I saw the people lined up trying to get visas to get out of their country, but America is the only one in the world that people are lined up trying to get in. I still say, "AMERICA! LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT."
-Dr. J. Royce Thomason (originally printed 1975)
Comments