An apology to my descendants

Dear children and future grandchildren:

I want to apologize to you.

You're inheriting a national debt of inconceivable proportions. The currency will be inflated to the point of worthlessness. And your government will be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

The America that I grew up knowing will only exist in your history books - that is, if they haven't been revised or outright banned by the time you would want to see them.

I tried to stop it, but I guess I didn't try hard enough. I conscientiously voted for people who supported the Constitution. I worked. I paid taxes. I did my best to provide for me and mine. I did not "live off the government" nor rely on the government to provide me with food, shelter, a job, and money.

I held aloft the Constitution and unashamedly supported people who thought like Bob Barr, Ron Paul, Neal Boortz, and Barry Goldwater.

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests, " I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." [Barry Goldwater]

Your health care will be rationed. In your "golden years," you'll only be treated if the government decides that it's cost effective. I probably won't live to be as old as my parents and grandparents did.

Americans of your generation will be dependent on the government for subsistence - partially, if not completely. Government will supply the housing, the jobs, and who knows what else.

Dissenting opinions will be suppressed... you won't be able to speak out if you don't agree with the way things are being run. In your lifetime, the suppression will be called "fairness." In my day, we had a constitutional amendment to protect our freedom to disagree.

Maybe there won't even be a constitution when you reach adulthood.

For all of this and much more, I apologize. It is my generation who did this. We killed America.

We took the Constitution - the framework of our government - and essentially burned it to ashes. We spat in the faces of our ancestors who fought and died to secure the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.

America was once a place where a person could work hard and carve out a life for himself or herself and his or her family. The opportunities were unlimited. Success was rewarded. If a person worked hard and happened to generate some wealth, then that person was lauded. He or she was told, "well done" and was left to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor.

Today, that same person is considered a monster.

What was once the land of opportunity is now the land of entitlement. Everyone here believes that he or she is entitled to money, property, and benefits, but nobody is willing to work and pay for such things. They believe that the government should automatically provide these things.

Today, the government is taking measures to provide... but at such a cost.

The price for the entitlements? Freedom. Liberty. America.

My children and grandchildren, I sincerely hope that life is bearable for you. I hope that somehow you still have access to unedited history and archives. If you do, please read the original US Constitution. Read the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Andrew Johnson, and Samuel Adams.

And keep this in mind:

"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" [Dosteovsky's 'Grand Inquisitor']

Through our own fault and of our own free will, I and my generation have made you - children and grandchildren - the slaves.

I hope that you will rise up and break these chains that we have so carelessly thrust upon you.

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