One of my Facebook Page users posted that video with a plea, “Lady Liberty, I’m crying for our country’s future! There’s no quick fix but could you blog us some solid hope here?”

My answer was “Yes, I can do that. Take heart, Patriots still walk among us.”

I started Lady Liberty 1885 because, like many of you, I had something to say. I had a growing concern for what I saw happening around me in this country. I was frustrated and feeling beaten down by, what seemed to be to me, a very leftist minority in this country that somehow were managing to control the maze that is the rat race we all are running each day. I found myself writing in a journal-like manner about what I saw happening; raving each day on my personal Facebook page with links of what I considered to be the slicing and dicing of the country I knew and loved.

Then it happened.

A friend ‘de-friended’ me because she couldn’t take my ‘racist and extremist rants’ and that ‘I better get used to it’. I turned that over in my head for a bit. By ‘it’ they basically meant Socialism. It dawned on me right as I was trying to write an email to them to apologize that I had nothing to apologize for.  Indignation swept through me like a wildfire. It occurred to me that my entire adult life I had been driven into a corner by people like her trying to slap a piece of duct tape on my mouth with the label ‘Political Correctness’ on it. I resolved in that moment that I had been ridiculed for my political beliefs, my religion and my traditional values for the last time.

It was at that very moment I pushed back. I sat straight up in my chair and I said to myself “NO MORE.” I knew instantly I had to stop second guessing myself based on cues from people who seemingly wanted to ‘help me for my own good’ yet at the same time were willing to hack up Liberty, and anyone getting in their way, to do it.  I sent them an email and told them exactly what they were: They were a traitor to this nation, its founding principles and to freedom itself. I went on to tell them it was not their job to tell me what to think, say or do – nor for them to ‘save me from myself’ as it would seem liberals keep trying to push all the time. They had no shame in forcing their personal world view on me. They used it like a weapon and it was in that moment that I reclaimed the proper use of Shame from them. It was a false shame that they and others had heaped on me for years.  As you can imagine, that email was not well received.

I then started looking hard at those around me after losing that friend. I was suddenly hyper-aware that this nation was in trouble but as I looked around I found I was not alone in this realization. There were other out there like me who have had enough. Many others and they were standing up and saying “NO MORE”.  I began to find encouraging signs that the real heart of this nation was still beating. It worried me that it had only taken a short time of this nation sleeping instead of keeping vigil for us to lose our freedoms in increments. The seeds of socialism sown over a few brief decades were now rising through our ground like blackened seedlings.  This country was waking up to see these twisted roots forming around a tree of ‘Hope and Change’ by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.

'The American People will never knowingly adopt Socialism, but under the name
 of "Liberalism" they will adopt every fragment of it.'
- Norman Thomas in 1944, 6 time Socialist Party Presidential Candidate.

He’s been called the ‘Great Divider’ by many and in some ways that is apt. He’s made clear the line in the sand in this country. He’s polarized this nation in a way no President ever has and in doing so, exposed a malignant underbelly of socialistic movements. Fragmented and un-unified as they may have been in the past, they are beginning to coalesce in front of our very eyes. I think a lot of people have had a hard time really putting their finger on the root of the problem and the fact that this country is facing its next big test. The Constitution, our Freedom and our Liberty are under attack. It is not like in the past, where a foreign power is threatening us in some way, but instead the threat is now from within our own borders. It’s coming from our own citizens, our neighbors, our friends and in some cases even within our own families.

Those who see the threat have been labeled as extremists or racists and as violent people or as bigots. This is an effort to silence them, but Freedom, like life, finds a way to exist and thrive. It will be not be silenced. There are those who will not stand by while their country is besieged. These people refusing to lie down and take it are not just the Glenn Becks, Sarah Palins or Rush Limbaughs. They walk among us. It’s the man protesting free speech outside a courthouse. It’s the woman speaking out against discrimination. It’s the guy down the street running for local office to try to make a difference. It’s the people flocking to Facebook pages like Lady Liberty. It’s you, reading this article.

Freedom and Liberty come at a cost and require constant vigilance. We are a young nation, relatively speaking, and have fallen negligent in our duties. The basics that were once taught in our schools are being abandoned. The persecution of those who believe in God has now become apparent in everyday news. A loss of values, personal responsibility and of principles has occurred and in their place are things like social justice and political correctness. Perhaps we are entering a time when our nation will see a new civil war. One waged to preserve what others have fought and died to protect. I can think of no passage more fitting to remind us of what we stand to lose (and to keep) than Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the  last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Let the words of Lincoln and these Patriots wash over you and bring you faith that our country is worth fighting for – and there are indeed people fighting for it. The American Dream does not need to be ‘rebuilt‘, but instead remembered and protected. As I say so often, keep the information flowing. Stay connected – if you reach one person with one piece of the truth of what is happening around us, you have effected change, defended this nation and shown the Light to others. As often as possible, endeavor to be that Light that has been shunned for so long from our lives to those around you. May God grant us the strength to act instead of remaining silent. May those who have gone before us light our way in defending our Liberty and our Freedom.

You, my friend, are not alone.