8 25 03

Is
this a great country or what? Where else in the world can you
have it all? You want power outages and discussions on what
needs to be done to refurbish our electrical grid system, head
to the northeast. You want to voice your opinion as to whether
or not a copy of the Ten Commandments should or should not be
displayed in public, get on the road to Alabama. Politics your
game? Bless your heart; you might want to move off to
California. They are in the middle of the biggest food fight of
all out in that state. If you watch the news on a daily basis,
as I do, you can easily get depressed wading through hours and
hours of negative reporting until you suddenly stop and look at
it from an entirely different angle. Bear with me a moment. Look
back at the governments over the years that have fallen, France,
Russia, and Italy and on and on. What do you think the citizens
of those states could argue about before the fall of their
governments? Most likely, not much. In pre-revolutionary France,
you’d probably have you been put into prison for speaking out
against the ruling powers. That was certainly the case in
Communist Russia, wasn’t it? How many thousands, perhaps
millions were sent away to labor camps or executed for having a
voice in opposition to that of the government. Talk about
tyrannical governments; ask someone who lived in Germany while
Hitler was in power. They’ll tell you about family, friends and
neighbors who just disappeared in the middle of the night for
some obscure reason or other.



Thank God, we don’t face those problems here in the good old US
of A. We may not agree with each other on anything, but both of
us can stand up and say what we feel, any time of the day and
not go to jail for having said it. Walk your way across this
country of ours and you’ll find that just about everyone has an
opinion different from your own about something or another. You
may get most people to agree with you on most issues, but I’d
venture if you look long and hard enough you’ll find something
that you don’t see eye to eye upon. No, we all have differing
opinions when it comes to how the government should be run, how
our taxes should be spent, how our schools should teach our
children and even what God we should worship.



I know what I believe in and I’m free to tell you that you’re
just plain wrong if I want to and there isn’t anything you can
do about it. On the same hand, if I don’t like what you say or
the God you worship, well so much for that as well. What’s good
for the goose is certainly good for the gander as they say. If I
can dish it out, then I have to be prepared to take it as well.
Goes with the territory.



I may think those folks in California are nuttier than
fruitcakes and you may think Elvis is really dead, but isn’t it
great that we can disagree without either one of being
threatened with jail? Even if I think you happen to be wrong?



Think about it, wouldn’t this be a terrible place to live if we
were all forced to think the same? While the news we get may
predict doom and gloom, I choose to just look upon as an
exercise of the rights to liberty which we enjoy in this great
nation of ours. Even if we choose to disagree over the events
over in the Middle East, don’t we have to look beyond the
current events and near future to determine the long term change
which will eventually take place in that country? No, my friend
we may disagree with each other on what is happening over there,
but I’d bet my last dollar that truth to tell, the majority of
those folks would love to be able to voice the same objections
you and I see each and every day of our lives. Once they realize
the possibility of that liberty, then watch and see what
happens. Have a good Labor Day. Comments go to
www.pearyperry.com