For some folks, keeping up on politics and current affairs is fun.  It’s what they use to show people how smart they are.  We all know people like this; they love to talk about various economic systems and wax poetic on the plight of the ‘middle class’, and they talk about political strategies like they’re an overpaid talking head on some bought-and-paid-for network of shills pretending to be journalists.  They are people who find some sort of pride in their labels, picking and choosing the parts they like as if they’re at Wendy’s getting a burger.  Give me the lettuce and tomato, but not the mayo or ketchup.  And light mustard only, please.  Can’t have too much.  I’m a pro-choice Republican, they say.  I’m a moderate, they will tell you, as if it is somehow a point of pride to say that you have such a weak belief system that you can’t even choose a side.   “Independent” has come to mean pretty much the same thing, and it seems Libertarians just really want to be able to smoke pot and not wear a seat belt while they’re out trolling for hookers—which, by the way, according to them should also be legal.  Libertarians are all about liberty, they’ll tell you…except for those pesky, parasitic things called unborn children. Oh, and screw Israel too.

Sounds like I’m generalizing!  I’m being Rude And Intolerant!  I’m Not Being Inclusive!  I’m not honoring the Big Tent!  If you’re already offended this early, then do yourself a favor and go back to whatever stupid website you were surfing, because you can’t be helped.  The rest of you…read on.

The really sad part about the Right is, Republicans and so-called conservatives take their little two-category label of pro-this and anti-that and wear it like a badge.  They’re a special Republican because they “support gay rights” or “support a woman’s right to choose” or whatever else, completely oblivious to the fact that they’ve even picked up the buzzwords they’ve been told they can say.  They talk like liberals, but don’t you dare say they aren’t Republicans and therefore patriots.  They don’t even understand what patriotism means.

We have become so watered down that even our standards are worthless.  All of our beliefs have caveats, all of our morals have exceptions.  Everything that we once stood for as a nation has been slowly, steadily perverted and twisted.  We never leave our men behind…except we have.  We win our wars…except we don’t; we withdraw and give up.  We stand up to evil…except when we allow it to visit the White House as an honored guest—or we elect him.  We stand for freedom…except when we allow our own government to spy on our every waking moment and action.  We believe in hard work and personal responsibility…except we keep funding programs that encourage the absolute opposite.  We believe in religious tolerance…but don’t you dare say the name of Jesus Christ in a public place unless you’re cursing.  We are all about liberty…until it becomes something costly.

We have lost our compass.

The problem with losing your compass is that you cannot get to where you need to be without one.  A large majority of the country knows we are on the wrong path.  We are fully, utterly lost.  Our government is so completely out of control that scandals are merely blinked at and given a few days of media coverage.  We live in a total surveillance state, overtaxed, overwatched, overgoverned, over-controlled.  But hey, it’s okay because we have luncheons and GOP events.  We go to CPAC and we get together to talk about the future of the Republican Party and we talk about How To Leverage Social Media.  Our kids can’t even read well enough to understand the Federalist Papers or explain the events leading up to the Revolution, but we think we’re ready for anything that comes because we watch The Walking Dead.  We have learned to live within the ever-shrinking parameters that our government allows us to.  We have no morals, no standards, no guts.  The Left dictates the terms, the conversation, everything.  And we let them.  We’ve even gotten to the point where we think we’re now more compassionate and more tolerant.  No, we’ve just gotten more wussified; so much so, in fact, that the new trend is to run around calling the Founders “sinful” or even “terrorists.”

How pathetic are we?  I’ll give you a hint: very.  Don’t think I don’t include myself here….there’s enough blame for us all.  That’s not the point I’m making, though.  Here is my point:

We do not have to be this way.

We do not have to be sheep.  We do not have to shuffle along to the slaughter.  We can stop this train.  A Republic, if you can keep it.  We can change the course we are on.  We can stand up, rise up, meet the threat head on and say NO.

It’ll require you to step outside your comfort zone—way out.  It’ll require you to have some serious conversations within yourself about what is important to you, and what you are willing to stand for.  It’ll require you to sit down with your family and find out what they believe, where their heads are at.  You’ll have to maybe cut back on the Starbucks and start putting that money toward extra food, or building a water collection system.  You’ll need to be willing to spend less time hitting the Facebook Share button and more time planning for various situations.  Less time at the grocery store and more time making your own food.  Less indulging yourself with TV and more reading about our history and what liberty requires.  Less leaving your kids to raise themselves and more schooling them yourself in what duty and sacrifice are. It means that you quit caring about what some narcissistic wench on Jezebel said and start caring about bigger things, like how you’re going to mobilize your neighbors to set up security for your neighborhood in the coming crisis, or how you’re going to protect your children from the potential for pandemic.  It means being ready; the kind of ready that means you can let go of all the material stuff, all the shallow self-absorption your life is normally full of. The kind of ready that Washington required of his men.  The kind of ready that being an American requires of you now.

It also requires you to stop thinking that your “political activities” mean a thing.  They don’t.  Unless you’re willing to stand on a line and say “no further,” unless you’re willing to put it all on that line, then it doesn’t matter how many luncheons you go to, how many candidates you support or petitions you sign.  You’ll still end up in the same place—and if you’ve been paying attention at all, you know in your gut what’s coming.  If you are not willing to support and fight for liberty candidates who are also willing to stand on a line next to you, then you are part of the problem.

It’s work to be a patriot.  It’s work to defend liberty for yourself and others.   It’s scary to face down a threat to our freedom, to remind the government that it answers to us—but it needs to be done.  And we need you to help do it.  The only defenders of liberty are us.  The only thing standing in the way of our nation’s destruction is you and I.  Stand up.  Change your priorities.  Think.  Find people in your area who believe that strongly as well.

We are the very last line of defense.