Values & Principles, Provide Strong & Brave Leadership!

America at the tipping point, Part 2

Posted By Chuck Norris On 09/07/2014
We said on Sept. 11 that we’d “never forget.” But when our president has a no-strategy strategy for stopping Islamic extremists, isn’t Washington sidestepping our commitment of remembrance in addition to their duty to protect our land and liberties?

Indeed, they mock those who gave their lives on that day that changed America by the fact that, 13 years after Sept. 11, we still don’t have an out-of-the box strategy for outwitting radical Islam.

Christine O’Donnell at the Washington Times was right on when she wrote last week, “With just a week’s notice, Mr. Obama had an immediate strategy for dealing with the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., yet even with a year’s notice, he didn’t have a strategy for the violence and unrest in Syria. Isn’t it a priority of the federal government to present a ready defense against foreign enemies?”

As Hot Air also reported, “America has no strategy, but ISIS does: Biological terrorism.” When a Dell laptop allegedly linked to ISIS was intercepted in route to Turkey from Syria, its contents revealed “a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic from infected animals,” according to Foreign Policy magazine.

It’s been said that one of the reasons the world – indeed, the U.S. – repeatedly finds itself in these perilous pickles with its adversaries is that we keep cycling from valuing liberty over safety to valuing safety more than liberty.

Chris Stewart, who, together with Ted Stewart authored “7 Tipping Points that Saved the World,” which describes how radical Islam came within a hair’s breath of taking over the world in 720 A.D., was interviewed by the Blaze and asked this very point about the relation and reversal of valuing safety over liberty.

The Blaze asked Stewart, “What if we don’t really appreciate freedom as much as we think we do? Even today, average people are more concerned with safety and stability than they are with liberty.”

Stewart answered, “It’s a good point. I believe it is human nature to look around at the world today – or the world our parents lived in yesterday, or the world we assume our children will live in tomorrow – and say: well, this is the normal state of the world. Things don’t change. One of the main points of [our] book is to point out how extraordinarily unique self-governance, liberty – whatever definition you want to give modern freedom – is in this world. You can talk to historians who specialize in this area. They believe that maybe 4 or 4 ½ percent of us have been able to control our own destinies and lives.”

He added, “So it is easy to just assume that this is the normal state of the world. But we have example after example of nations that have enjoyed freedom and then saw it recede, or, for reasons you mention, collapse. There are the former Soviet bloc nations: once the Berlin Wall fell most of them marched quickly towards freedom. But since then, many of them fallen back and are increasingly turning away. It’s been documented that there are only 22 nations in existence right now that have been democracies for over 50 years. I think that fact should shock people. For more than two generations there have been only 22 nations that consistently embraced freedom. I think it illustrates pretty clearly that what we have is fragile and that it isn’t necessarily going to last.”

Our founders – like those who have fought our wars – valued liberty more than safety. And so should we. They risked everything for freedom and their republic, trusting in God as they did. Our founders wrote, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Sept. 11 can still serve as America’s pivotal and big wake-up call – one that even preserves our liberty and republic – as long as our leadership doesn’t slumber in safety while remembering it. But on the eve of another Sept. 11, it’s paramount for all of us to recall (indeed, remember) the costs of indecision and forgetfulness in critical times like these as well as the power of courageous leadership to deliver us.

As I pointed out last week in Part 1, history repeatedly shows us that the only way to divert America’s imminent threats and political stalemates is by strong and brave leadership – the type shown by courageous souls in critical moments of war or crises like Sept. 11. Rather than a president who values safety over liberty, we need a president who values liberty over safety. We need men and women of valor once again to rise up and fight for the mantle of freedom.

President Ronald Reagan spoke of that type of fearlessness on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, when he asked: “What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.”

May God grant us the same type of mercy as we bravely face foes like ISIS who will do anything and everything to harm our people and bring down our Republic.