17-year-old Andrew Barrows invokes the spirit of the Founding Fathers to question America’s current direction.
Andrew Barrows
Activist Post
I want to start with some quotes from past presidents of the United States Of America, as well as important activists who discussed freedom and oppression.
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves. — Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. — Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free. — Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. — George Washington (1732-1799)
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
The list goes on and on and on, for more
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Now I think to myself, all these people — historical leaders who will be talked about for as long as American history exists, had such wonderful views on freedom, and great ideas about how the country should be run. In fact, they are so wonderful we still talk about them hundreds of years later.
I think about the American Revolution, and how many people have fought and died to make America, and what the American Revolution was all about. I constantly ponder the thought of, “I really wonder how past presidents would react to the way America is now.” I can imagine Abraham Lincoln or George Washington being brought back to life to experience modern America for just a day. But I can’t begin to imagine his facial expression when I would tell him:
Yeah, since all of your wonderful truth speaking, caring about the people, and doing what is right and fair to give people extraordinary documents dedicated to freedom…America has really gone down hill…and I mean…really down hill.
Being a president today actually means who’s the best liar on the stage. It is like a highschool talent show. Each person goes on stage and tries to convince the audience to like them, and whoever lies the most wins. They are just puppets who can’t really do anything. Congressional approval is 8% and WE the people don’t actually get a say in what happens. The mega rich call the shots and huge companies actually control what the government does while the middle class and poor get robbed blind.
After I would study his confusion…I would continue…
I’d start it off like a Kelly Clarskon song,
SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE (I won’t list all of the changes of course, but the recent very important ones)………
(After explaining what a phone and the Internet is). Gives the government the power to read my emails, my text messages, track my phone, follow me, tap my phone calls, install a tracking device under my car to know my exact location. In short…violate my privacy completely.
A bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the Net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites — they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”
The bill grants power to the military to arrest U.S. citizens on American soil and detain them in military prisons forever without offering them the right to legal counsel or even a trial. This isn’t a totally new thing: “dirty bomb” plotter Jose Padilla spent three-and-a-half years as an “enemy combatant” until he was finally charged. But Padilla’s detention was unusual and sparked a huge outcry; the new provisions would standardize his treatment and enable us all to become Jose Padillas.
Than I would probably make him watch this video on YouTube: “A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945” by Isao Hashimoto
Than I would explain having a gun, missing fingers, or 7 days of food at your house = YOU ARE A TERRORIST
You know, at this point he would probably be on his knees with a huge headache.
I’m sure eventually he would say something like “Why are the people allowing this to happen? And what happened to people fighting for what is right?”
Than I would explain the Anonymous Internet group and the Occupy movement and protests. I think he would be pretty happy and would get up off his knees.
BUT than I would show him videos of what is happening when people are trying to protest and spread truth. I would start probably with this video
or this video:
It’s really hard to choose which video of police attacking innocent protesters expressing their Constitutional rights I would show because, honestly,
YouTube is filled with them. So I would probably just let him browse around for a while.
Now at this point I would imagine he would pretty much scream or yell that everything that past Americans had fought for to create has been literally bashed by the people who are supposed to enforce it, and has been turned around and used against the people instead of protecting them.
Than I would get Paul Revere out of my time machine/life regeneration thing and Paul Revere would jump on his horse and ride through the city streets of Boston yelling “The British aren’t coming; they are already here!”
Would our Founding Fathers be disgraced at what America has become? Is everything they fought for now becoming useless?
Andrew Barrows
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