OPNION: Conflict Of Freedom

By Roger Madon

There has never been a conflict in this country as great as the one facing our nation today other than the issue of slavery in the 19th Century which was ultimately resolved by a civil war.

In the first half of the 19th Century the country struggled with half the nation supporting an economic system that required that labor be performed by human chattel, the ownership of human beings, and the other half rejecting it as immoral and in violation of the Declaration of Independence.  This latter group relied on the Declaration’s pronouncement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, which among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  

Today the nation is united in this precept.  However, today this nation is divided once again.  One half the nation believes that if we don’t change our spending habits we will become a third world country, a nation which we will no longer recognize as our own.  The other half believes that the country should continue to provide the current level of benefits and have those benefits paid for by those whom they define as the “rich.”

What will ultimately resolve this great debate this time will not be a civil war but rather the election of 2012 by the overwhelming votes of a free and liberated people.