Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia Ben Franklin famously told a woman, “We’ve given you a republic, madam — if you can keep it.”
Here’s a meme, from the present day, showing how and why we’re losing that republic:
I am going to ask people to do the math … If your town or state pays you to turn in your guns, they are paying you with the money they took from you (in taxes). So, they are giving you your money for your guns … ?! Hmmm…
And it’s literally true. State and local governments — the “nicer” ones — are permitting people to hand in their guns in exchange for money paid for by taxes. How amazingly absurd!
It shows how stupid people are to fall for it. It shows how stupid elected officials are for expecting people to fall for it.
Most of all, it shows the impact of the death of critical thinking on the population. Because once critical, objective thinking is gone, the basis for any republic based on individual rights goes away with it.
All those years ago, when Ben Franklin wryly warned the woman about “giving you a republic — assuming you can keep it”, he must have been implying that citizens have to earn their liberty and freedom, if they’re to keep it.
The meme invites the reader to consider how stupid it is to surrender your freedom in exchange for money the government took from you (by force) in the first place. Recognize the idiocy, self-contradiction and self-effacement implicit in such a policy. It’s staggering to the point of absurdity.
And yet, sometime soon — the next time we have a Democratic President and Congress, no doubt — that will be the policy of the government: to pay us, with our own money, for surrendering our rights. And that’s if we’re lucky. The true-blue Commies and statists who now dominate the Democratic Party undoubtedly have far less kind and gentle treatment in mind. Especially for deplorables and dissenters.
Arm yourself wisely. And I mean that both literally and intellectually.
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