What a country … (at least it is so far)

As we drove to Church this morning, I was reminded what a great country we live in.

We left the house (that we chose to live in) in our car (that we selected from among hundreds of possible choices). We drove on streets that were paved (using money we paid in taxes) and passed at least ten other churches to arrive safely at the one we had elected to attend a few years back (since it met our needs and was most aligned with our personal views and beliefs).

The local policeman was parked on one of the side streets and he did not stop us from turning into the Church parking lot. No government officials were waiting at the top of the steps to check our papers and we went to our Sunday School class to participate in a lively discussion about John. After class, we went to the choir room and robed up. Up in the sanctuary, people came in and sat where they wanted to and when the plate was passed later gave of their own free will. I am pretty sure from the empty pews that no one was forced to come and worship with us.

After Church, we got back in our car (which is not a government mandated ecologically friendly car) and drove to the mini-mart where I could select from five newspapers. I chose the local one with the farm reports and the heated talk about imminent domain. The farms here are still pretty much family owned and the imminent domain is to help put in a roadway that will replace a dangerous one that exists now.

When we arrived home, the flag out front was riding nicely on the wind. It’s always a beautiful sight for me. Red, White and Blue. I checked the TV news for a minute (you can probably guess which station) and noticed that the other 230 channels all still worked. Then I shut it off.

I cooked chicken on my gas grill using vegetable oil and a salt based seasoning. Salad and stuffing made up the remainder of the meal and it wasn’t even an afterthought until just now that we decided what to buy, how to store it and how to cook it without anybody’s help whatsoever. The meal was pretty good.

After supper, I finally sat down on the porch and read the news. Mostly tame stuff other than the one column by the left wing columnist on the editorial page. He would like to see me not have the freedom to vote my beliefs because I am a middle aged white Republican conservative. He’s pretty unabashed about his opinion. I am glad he can have his opinion printed in the paper. I’m pretty sure he gets to vote how he wants to as well.

When you look at all of the above, you start to get a little understanding of why some of us like freedom so much. We pay our taxes, we work as hard as we are able, we volunteer for groups that do good things, and we do it all without a large government conglomerate telling us how to do it all.

What should you be worried about? Once a government can make you do anything (in exchange for whatever noble benefits behind the effort) they get the feeling they can dictate everything. It will be subtle at first and all of it posted in the light that it is the “right” thing to do. But sooner or later, they will find something right about every fundamental change they want to carry out.