Opinion by Martin
History is replete with paths that mankind could follow. Some paths would lead people along a walkway
in the sunlight with the creation of great civilizations with architecture,
works of art, literature and exploration.
Other paths would lead people along paths of darkness with all of the
attending murder and mayhem, destruction of those great civilizations, the
architecture, the artwork, literature and the enslavement or death of the
citizens who lived there. Some people
made the choice to walk on the light side, some chose to walk in the dark and
some had nary a choice.
Back in history, children would be told
by fathers and grandfathers stories about the having fought in the Revolution
and then going back to fight the British again in the War of 1812 which ended
with the Treaty of Ghent and solidified the United States as a Nation on the
face of globe. He would tell me that the
British became absolutely overbearing in their desire to completely control the
daily life of the Colonists and, although about 1/3 of the population didn’t
care one way or the other about the choices facing them, 1/3 supported the
Crown because they were making money, and 1/3 felt we had nary a choice other
than to go our own way out of which came the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
We have made many mistakes, some of
which can be labeled as “growing pains” and others because of free choice. One of the worst was slavery where Dutch,
English, Spanish businessmen or others would pay Arab slavers to go into the
darkness of the African jungles and raid villages for captives who were then
sold to planters in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands as laborers. The Arabs also purchased victims of native
tribes who wiped out competing tribes and their villages. Many of these captives were sold to “brokers”
in the Southern States who then sold them to plantation owners from
Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and other states across the South. Where we could have ended slavery early in
our formative years, we did not. The
slaves had no say in the system in which they found themselves because they had
nary a choice.
As the people fanned out across the new
continent, they encountered the indigenous populations who really resented them
being there. There were killings,
atrocities and mayhem on both sides but the sheer number of pioneers moving
into the west spelled the end of the Indian nations and as some of the
newcomers stated later, “we really didn’t want to kill them or destroy their
way of life, but we had nary a choice.”
We fought wars with the Indians, the
Mexicans, the Spanish and each other.
Our Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression, was fought originally
over States Rights and later, the Right to own slaves
Our cities grew larger, more populated
and because the residents continued to move into the cities because of jobs and
we were forced to build skyscrapers, buildings that reached toward the clouds
because the land was just too expensive because we had nary a choice.
The European Kingdoms were in decline
and their ruling families wanted to maintain to maintain the prerogatives that
they had held for several centuries. In
1914, in the City of Sarajevo in Yugoslavia, the old ways died along with Franz
Josef and his wife Sophie. Europe went
to war with one ruling house pitted against another and through the
machinations of the Allied Nations, the United States was dragged into the
First World War in 1917 remaining until November 11, 1918 because we had nary a
choice.
On September 1st 1939, Adolph
Hitler sent his troops into Poland after already having seized land from France
and Czechoslovakia
with no response from Allied Nations.
Hitler had made a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in exchange
for the eastern half of Poland to which the Russians happily agreed. The United States managed to remain “neutral”
until December 7th 1941 when the Japanese attacked the naval base at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and then we entered the war because we had nary a choice.
We reached out for the stars and, at the
end of the 1960s, man walked on the moon for the first time. As we reach
farther and farther into space, there is a chance that we will meet other
beings who may or may not look like us.
By the time that happens, will we have grown enough to accept others or
will we revert to our history and kill them because we have nary a choice?
Today we are facing a political decision
that will define the course our Nation takes for the foreseeable future. Will we continue down the path to
self-destruction be electing a person to the Presidency that we know is a
criminal, an enabler to murder, who has continuously lied to Congress, Law
Enforcement, and worst of all, the American People or do we elect a man who has
supported Liberal ideals and supported politicians on both sides of the
political spectrum to benefit his businesses, who has now decided that he is
going to run for the Presidency claiming that he is a Conservative.
It is up to each and every one of you to
decide which path you wish to follow.
Will you follow the pathway to national destruction and complete
dictatorship or will you vote for a political unknown hoping that he really is
an American Patriot who will bring us back from the brink.
It is up to you because you have “Nary a
Choice”!
