Thomas Paine once said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” I would go one step further in that these are the times that try “good and noble people’s” souls. Fellow Patriots, we have entered a perilous time in our history, the chapter not yet written but clearly the outline evident. I echo Paine’s call to appeal to reason, to common sense, to put away your prejudices and presuppositions as I offer simple facts that are as bare as a newborn babe. We can no longer “turn the cheek”, or capitulate to a mob of malcontents. Our nation may be fractured, but not broken. Which means there is still great hope in Her revival of unity and purpose. But the hour to unbind Her from the rope that chokes this country is at hand. We live in a time where opposing opinions are no longer respected. Where our voice is further being suppressed or censored. We live in a time where we cannot even debate great issues of national concern to reach a consensus, to move the country forward as ONE. The very question of freedom, individual rights, equal justice under the law, and opportunity are in peril. America stands on a tethered tight rope that is splintering and splaying, the abyss the only alternative should it tear apart. The word “united” becomes an afterthought. Our Forefathers, who sacrificed everything to make us free and independent, relied on those who would follow to continue their vision, but in our current state, we are witnessing the dreams and ambitions of our forefathers vanish. The hope that is the beacon to the world, snuffed out. The following sentiments I speak freely and “without reserve.”
So true to the “Declaration of Independence” or Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention” or Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, there is a time in a person’s mind where their toleration for usurpation, constricting of liberty, stripping of individual rights, and other assailable acts exacts its toll and the soul cries out, “No more!” Our sole aim is to arrive at truth and to uphold the responsibility to which we hold for God and country. Our means to celebrate individual liberty, God-given rights, and the pursuit of happiness is being drowned out by a tidal wave of historical revision, treasonous ideologies, and a new social religion. This tidal wave intends to darken our land and erase the ideas, the values, the faith, the love, the patriotism built on great achievements and yes, even mistakes of good, noble intended people. The judgment of those who wish to erase any notion of our history and founding exist upon a bevy of half-truths, misinformation, and warped sense of time and place, rejecting any sense of context, proportion, or perspective. The appeal to look at history through a lens of today belies any sense of reasoning or scope. The implements of their war on our country are not arms, for it has been said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” So they use clever words masked in lies and obfuscation promulgated by a soulless and complicit media, and through the eyes of academic know-it-alls who have little sense of the actual world around them. The noted professor who knows so much that he keeps but one jacket in his closet because his mind is cluttered with vaults of “knowledge” that to make a decision is stifling and paralyzing. They have infiltrated and infected nearly every institution we revere and respect: education, media, the judicial system, the military. To them the Constitution is written in pencil. Their aim is not to create a better United States, on the contrary, the only purpose for the application of united is to have One Party rule disregarding the hopes and dreams of millions who continually see this as the country of freedom, opportunity, individual rights, and justice. The utopia they envision is a world that will not exist because they exhibit the very things they loathe: hate, bigotry, racism, race and ethnic based identity, censoring, ignorance. Their world is an illusory attempt to make real what cannot be made real. Their ministry is the ministry of man where God is no more and never was. The universe of these people is filled with objects of fantasy and galaxies of the imagination. They swim in the cesspool of their own righteousness. Hearts empty, void of any true Patriotic blood. Party first, people last, always. Their means of compassion is a means to control. Their operation of goodwill is to hold asunder those they “lift up.” Like the mutant character “Rogue”, they suck the life force out of everything they come in contact with.
For years we have stood by relatively quiet, amiably compliant, busily making a life, and what have we for such conciliatory behavior - a hateful, fomenting, virtue signaling minority of unhappy people who have wriggled away the will of the people to the will of the most mindless, galactically stupid, unrealists to walk this earth. We have capitulated in order to appease, but the insatiable hunger of the predator cannot be satiated. We have deceived ourselves into this false space that only knows the bounds of its own creator. Their violations have been great. We have been spurned, called contemptible, liars, racists, bigots, and every “-phobe” associated with mankind. They think we are weak, unable to wage this battle, uninformed idiots of great magnitude, an ignorant adversary. How long do we stand by and watch the disintegration of all that we hold dear? Our parents have flaws, but we love them. We recognize our imperfections; the blemishes that mar Her beauty. Every country of note has its scars, some more than others. We do not hide our scars or wish them gone. We acknowledge them so as not to make the same mistake that caused them in the first place. We understand the human failings of our forefathers, but we recognize the greatness of them as well. Those who hold them in contempt are but jealous, intellectually inflated, gratuitous narcissists who deem themselves smarter than them. Hah! It’s easy to challenge those who are not here to defend themselves, so we must defend them for them, their posterity, and their contributions heralded around the world by countless millions of admirers.
For those who discount, discredit, and/or disgrace our flag, we know your intent. The ceremonial fold of the flag disturbs you. It is an honored tradition, and it often represents the fallen who helped to defend her so she may wave proudly atop any flagpole. It infuriates those who wish to unfurl their own version. The unity of her stars captured in a frame of blue, or the contiguous stripes even to one another with none having dominion over the other appear to cause those who wish her gone to turn away as if they are face to face with the Almighty Father who “Shed his Grace on Thee.” The flag is the left’s kryptonite and they wish to destroy her at all costs. Change the flag, change the country. By God, do not let them!
There is no longer time for debate or hope if we wish to continue to be free. We cannot ignore or abandon the noble struggle of this human experiment and deny ourselves the continued grace and glory that is innate in all. The object of our fight is freedom. The plight of our struggle is liberty. The outcome of this glorious battle is the pursuit of happiness. The lamp of liberty burns brightly when good people stand united in the preservation of Her ideals and rejects the misguided ideology and fancies of those that would extinguish that flame of pride, loyalty, love, equality, opportunity, and individual rights. This battle cannot be won with hope or trust in the powers that be, for they have abdicated their duties many times over. No, this war will be waged in the communities that wish to preserve, protect, and continue to pursue those ideals that made this country the beacon of hope She is. Do not stand idly by as the storm of radicalism and misguided promises swarm the land like voracious locusts destroying everything in its path. These people are termites and they eat away at the foundation of our freedoms. President Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
The sun shines brightly on our cause. It illuminates the continued pursuit of creating a more perfect union. Posterity for future generations must be won NOW! There is no reconciliation with radicalism or the ideologically demented. It must be stomped out with an emphatic unity call to defend our ideals and principles. We must wholly reject the notion that for the sake of progress that we yield our freedoms, our thoughts, our principles, our rights. As President Truman echoed, “We were not built on fear, but on courage, imagination, and an unbeatable determination...” It was not built to surrender to a false god of wokism or diabolical cabal. It was not built to supplicate ourselves to a small number of sad, unhappy, disgruntled, and hateful group of people. We defeated tyrannies around the world, fascism, naziism, socialism and the like. We cannot in good conscience allow the defeat of such greatness and contribution to come from within. And this storm does not stop at our shores. If it is successful, it surely will infect any Western Civilization that allows it to fester and gain momentum. If America represents the standard of what Western Civilization has for centuries been trying to build, surely Her demise will have worldly ramifications. Oftentimes as our history has exhibited, we are first in, last out when it comes to worldly contributions, assistance, and protection. Should She falter, who would protect the vulnerable? Will this new revolutionary mob of radicals protect the vulnerable? With what, money? Hopes? Adoption of “woke” policies? Their record of failure is on exhibit in virtually every major city in this country. The continued evidence of destruction lay in the rubble of inner cities, fractured families, untold violence, drugs, and failing education. That recipe of destruction is on full display. Pockets of prosperity designed only for those in charge. As they revel in their high rise, high priced conclaves of excessiveness wholly protected while those who suffer the miscarriages can only meander by and hope. Or the collapsing education system, once the harbinger of opportunity and hope, continues to fail minorities or the disadvantaged at nearly every turn; money being their remedy rather than addressing the root of what is truly missing: faith, family, and opportunity. The collapse of greatness is front and center, and if we do not stand united in Her cause, then we witness our own failings and look at our children with a forlorn sense of disappointment. I cannot in Godly conscience abandon my duty to continue the legacy of living and pursuing the ideals that made this country exceptional in so many ways. Paine said, “The Almighty has implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings, for good and wise purposes.” Let not that fire be extinguished. The robbers and thieves of “wokism” must be brought to a civil and communal justice. Much of the world has given away its freedoms and what have they to show? Millions desire to come to our shores because we are that LAST HOPE for mankind. If we perish our freedoms, we perish our honor and God-given rights.
If we fail in our mission to save this country, to preserve Her uniqueness, to continue to be exceptional in words and deeds, and to showcase Her unbridled contributions to the world and humanity, then what has the rest of the world to hope for? If the final flame of freedom be extinguished, the world plunges into a darkness of tyranny, tribalism, and destruction. The result being man’s regression not progression. Liberty and freedom keeps the world honest. Our pursuit to create a more perfect union is worth fighting and dying for. No country has a more diversified portfolio to offer the world. No country has a more diversified yet unified populace. No country can grant the wishes, dreams, hopes, and faith that we offer. We have dressed ourselves in a Patriotic uniform that fits all who wish to don the wardrobe of America. We cannot allow the Patriotic uniform to be torn away from our possession and cast into the fire of destruction. My fellow Patriots, do you have the will? We must be warriors for Liberty. We must be valiant in our attempt. I say STAND and FIGHT! The cause for Liberty is never too great. The loss of Liberty grave and permanent.
Scott A. Reighard
