Soft as nails

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannise them will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious or otherwise, to put shackles on sleeping men. - Voltaire

There is a perspective that is being expressed with increasing frequency in conservative circles. It is a perspective that runs the risk of being accepted due to the simple repetition of its presentation; repeated often enough it becomes familiar and comfortable. A July 6th World Net Daily lead in to their 'subscription only' Whistleblower magazine underscores the title page of the July 2009 edition, headlined "Soft Tyranny: Exposing Obama's revolutionary agenda". The underlying premise that there is anything soft about the tyranny unfolding before us is fundamentally flawed.

We have a President that has told us in his own words that he wants to bankrupt energy producers that don't produce the right kind of energy. We have a President that has told us in his own words that he wants a civilian security force as powerful and well supplied as the US military. The vast majority of the US population opposed the massive bail-out spending in recent months, but the oligogues in Washington moved forward with it. The vast majority of the US population opposes illegal immigration, but the oligogues in Washington insist on legitimizing illegal aliens with amnesty. The vast majority of the US population opposes Cap-and-Tax, but the house pushed it through in defiance of the will of the people. Tragically, this is just a small sampling of examples.

The softness that we see in America today does not lie with the tyrannical government that consistently, and knowingly thwarts the will of the American people. The softness that we see in America today is in the American people themselves. When the subjects are compliant, how can one know how soft the tyranny is, or if it is soft at all? It is not the fact that Obama and the current cabal in Washington came along that allowed this modern tyranny to descend on the United States. Our history is replete with warnings that tyranny is waiting just beyond the gates for the moment when we the people let down our guard. Tyranny is constant, not transient. It does not come and go depending on the results of elections in a free society. Tyranny is an ever present danger waiting for an opportunity. There is no question about when, or if tyranny will come. The tyrants will come, every time, without exception, when the people fail to remain vigilant.

We have become a nation of people like those to whom Samuel Adams spoke when he said "If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." It is sobering to ponder what the founding fathers would think of the descendants to whom they entrusted their legacy.

No, the premise underlying the assertions is simply wrong. Tyranny is not soft or hard; it is just tyranny. Tyranny will take everything it believes it can get away with and it will be emboldened by every expansion it achieves. We are seeing new levels of tyranny in America because we have developed new levels of apathy as a people. The limits of neither the tyranny nor the apathy have been fully determined.