The Mullethead Manifesto

I posted this on Myspace 9/11/2006, but I want to share it with all that read my ramblings

I want to take a moment from my usual apolitical self to share some thoughts with you all this evening. Today was a moment where some of us paid tribute, some of us relived horror, some of us missed loved ones lost, some of us recounted tales of “where were you”, some even politicized and took advantage. Most of us went about our daily lives with a mere voyeuristic interest, basically apoplectic, and more focused on our own struggles, whether make the house payment, pay the cellular bill, or debate chicken or fish tonight. All of which shows the strength of America, our resilience, and our prosperity.

Five years later, our economy booms, affording us untold luxuries that some have even deemed necessities in our narcissistic culture, and those that care to work have found work, and if they don’t like their work, they have ample opportunity to seek the resources to change their fortunes should they care to shoulder the burden. In no other time or civilization has it been so accommodating to the common man. This should teach us the power of Freedom, and Liberty. We control our destiny not by stars, superiors, or government programs, but by hard work, vision, passion, and the pursuit of our self interests to support ourselves, and those we care most deeply about: spouses, children, and family.

This Freedom and Liberty never came to us for free, and the price to keep it has become, unfortunately in my view, taken for granted. Besides the text book recitations of our Forefathers’ struggles with feudal oppression from abroad and this Nation’s own struggles to find a common path from 1777 on through the Reconstruction of the 1860’s, the past century alone should remind us of both the sacrifices in blood from two Great World Wars to protect Freedom, along with the economic struggles through the Great Depression to even keep American families alive, let alone thrive as we do today in the shadow of their suffering. On 9/11, the New York Police Department, the Fire Department of New York, the Port Authority, and untold numbers of unnamed volunteers summoned the same courage that Americans for centuries have displayed by reacting to the aggression thrust upon them. Not out of malice, but of preservation, compassion, and survival.

Which brings me to my point. We now face a challenge of our own time, our own generation. Sure, its roots can be traced back to the earliest Crusades, and its modern precursors can be traced to the early half of the 20^th century. It’s a war of ideology, our Freedom vs. their intolerance. Protecting us are volunteers who cherish Liberty and Freedom. Fighting them are psychopaths that hope to become martyrs and seek a holy paradise beyond our earthly existence. Life means nothing to them, only Glory in their death. Freedom and Liberty then are distant, irrelevant concepts in their eyes.

God Bless each and every soul that fights to defend this country, to serve it in any capacity, and to devote their time and efforts to protect Liberty and Freedom. And God Bless each and every one of us that go out into the world to fulfill our dreams, to provide for ourselves and our loved ones, and to create opportunity not only for ourselves, but for our fellow Americans, which continues to make our nation prosper, and thrive. That strength and prosperity reverberates across the globe, and then back to us.

Woe be it to those that would stop us, threaten our Freedom, and threaten the very fabric that makes this civilized world as a whole thrive.

And woe be it to us to lose sight of this fact, lose our steely resolve, and appease those that would end our Liberty because they most certainly will try. That was their message five years ago.