Years From Now - Freedoms Lost

Years From Now - Freedoms Lost
Posted by Gordon on January 14, 2010 at 10:30am

Years from now how will we look back on this period of time; with pride or with remorse? When we look upon our great grandchildren as they sleep in their beds will we be proud of what we have handed them as an inheritance? Will they have a life of freedom and opportunity, in a free society, in which they can engage and be all they can be in which ever endeavor they choose? Will they have freedom to have fun and look forward to their days off and weekends, or will they be wards of the state governing their every move? I remember the things I use to do growing up, things I took for granted, never thought twice about doing, many are considered illegal now. The older you are the more freedoms lost you will remember, freedoms removed from your grasp, freedoms, sadly, not even considered or thought about in this generation. Isn’t it time we all made that line and said NO MORE??!! Isn’t it time we started reaching out for those lost freedoms and do everything we can to restore them? It’s up to us, the kind of people we elect into office and the kind of laws we allow to be passed; we can sit on our duffs, watch television, ignore the news and what’s going on around us and be herded like sheep to the slaughter or we can get involved. You owe it to your children, hell you owe it to yourself, to restore this land to a country governed under the framework of our founding documents and set in motion by the hard work and suffering of our founding fathers.

I thought I would list a few freedoms lost as an example but the list kept getting longer.
How many once held freedoms can you sadly add to the list?

Riding in the back of a pickup truck with the wind blowing through your hair, laughing and having fun

Jumping on a motorcycle without the thought of needing a helmet

Sitting in a vehicle without the thought of needing to buckle up

Holding your baby in your arms in a vehicle

Smoking wherever you wanted

The freedom to speak what’s on your mind or make jokes, some may remember the one about the
number of p------ it takes to screw in a light bulb

Things that kids use to say when together, think, you remember, I can’t even print it here

Freedom to speak without the worry of offending someone in some way or another and having the threat of charges being brought against you

Starting class with the reading from the Holy Bible, a different child every morning would take their turn

The Ten Commandments posted wherever desired

Reading the Bible in government offices on your lunch hour, or brake, or to have it out on your desk

Bringing your rifle to high school in the morning and dropping it off for NRA class at night, try
something like that now

Shooting rats at the dump

Burning leaves in the fall when ever you choose, burning paper in a barrel in your back yard without fear of a citation. I remember how on Christmas it was my job to take the paper and gift boxes out to our 55 gallon metal barrel and burn them

Freedom to own a recreational vehicle and have it parked in the driveway without fear that some persnickety neighbor is going to turn me in to law enforcement for having an “RV” parked in my front yard

The freedom to fish where I want without someone telling me that I’m to close to the falls or some other restricted area

The freedom to hunt in open country areas. I remember the thrill of pheasant hunting in an orchid, fat chance of doing that today

The fun of kids getting together and driving up and down the main drag with music blaring to the roar of their well tuned high performance engines; that will get you a ticket today. Now they show commercials of guys being excited at driving a four banger

The ability to bring a can of soft drink on board a plane, or medicines like insulin without having to get special permission, or things like blood testing kits; now, without very special permission you can’t even take such a thing inside the restroom to do a blood test, thanks to damn fool terrorists

Now, because of the fear of some lunatic with a bomb, we must give up our very dignity if we want to fly

Talking on the phone without the fear of someone listening. During the days of party lines that was a common occurrence, now someone else may very well be listening

The freedom to drive, walk or make a call, or pay to go over a road or bridge without being caught on camera

I use to have a great pocket knife that I carried everywhere I went, in school, shopping, you name it, try it now, on school grounds you would be considered a domestic terrorist. Grade schools use to have Halloween parties during their afternoon period and the kids would dress up, I remember in the first three grades little boys would often come as cowboys with their holsters and toy cap guns, think of that today in this country where children are kicked out of school for just drawing a picture of a gun

Owning guns without having them registered

Buying rifles and shotguns through the mail and having them delivered to your door. Buying guns without a waiting period

I remember watching television without it costing a cent. All that was required was an antenna to be mounted on the roof, a lead wire from it to your television and an outlet to plug your television into, free T.V.

I remember being able to tell a lady that she looked nice without fear of sexual harassment charges

Riding a bike without a helmet


The list just never seems to stop. You will each be able to add your own, soon there will be nothing left.

I’m not advocating freedom without responsibility, that is doing whatever one pleases in complete disregard for the rights of others. I am simply pointing out a very simple fact that we, as a people, have lost many of our freedoms. Some have been taken under the guise of it’s for our own good and we have, like children, allowed it to happen.

"It is up to us ... to work together for progress and humanity so that our grandchildren, when they look back at us, can truly say that we not only preserved the flame of freedom, but cast its warmth and light further than those who came before us." --Ronald Reagan