Friday, August 12, 2016

Nary a Choice

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”!

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