by Dan Eichenbaum

If I were to ask, â€œWhat is Freedom?â€, each of us would probably come up with a personal definition.Â Our founding fathers would probably have defined Freedom as the absence of external coercion.Â You notice that I said â€œexternalâ€ coercion.Â Our founders understood that moral character and righteousness were essential elements of self-governance.Â While crafting a document that guaranteed the absence of external coercion, they demanded of themselves and expected of us the â€œinternal coercionâ€ that comes from a personal moral compass, a conscience.Â The Constitution removed the external coercion that is necessarily part of an oppressive government.Â The Constitutional Republic it defined can only endure over time if the citizens are governed by an internal morality that demands honesty, character, and charity in their interactions among themselves.

Without question, the disintegration of the moral basis for government is responsible for the progressive and relentless loss of our individual Liberties.Â We are ruled, not governed, by a gang of interchangeable thieves and liars who sacrifice principle for political expediency and run for office for personal gain.Â Our federal government disregards the Constitution, sacrifices individual liberties, and ignores citizens who demonstrate peacefully for a redress of grievances.

Now, we gather in groups and go to meetings to complain about legislation that steals our liberty and to condemn the greed and corruption that infests the halls of government.Â We march in Washington to protest a federal bureaucracy in which faceless, unelected pencil pushers create and fund rules, regulations, and entitlement programs whose purpose is to buy the votes necessary to keep the incumbents in power.

Where were we when the intellectual elitists and their power-hungry progressive friends used subterfuge and lies to circumvent the principles of the Constitution in order to undermine the dignity and sanctity of the individual?Â Where were we when they enacted legislation that permits our government to steal private property from one citizen and give it to another based on the deception called social justice?Â And where were we when they turned â€œWe the Peopleâ€ into the collective â€œWeâ€ instead of individual free citizens of a great nation?

In 1808, John Adams said, â€œWhen public virtue is gone, when the national spirit is fled . . the republic is lost in essence, though it may still exist in form.â€

Sadly, our nation as it exists today, is a flimsy shroud that barely conceals the moral emptiness inside.Â We can no longer claim to be the Constitutional Republic that our founders gave to us and that generations of proud Americans fought to protect.

While we closed our minds in a state of ignorance, men motivated by greed and a lust for power commandeered the ship of state.Â While we satisfied our personal cravings for luxury and ease, the moral certainties of right and wrong became relative and elastic.Â And while our current leaders reject the undeniable truth of American excellence, the spirit and sovereignty of our nation is purposely being eroded to achieve their global agenda.

The Constitution, my fellow citizens, has not failed us.

Rather it is we who have failed the Constitution.

I am very worried about the future of our nation.Â I am worried that our children will not have the opportunity to prosper that we all had.

I am afraid that on some day like today twenty years from now, a man just like me will stand in front of a group like you and say, â€œAnd there arose in America a generation that knew not freedom.â€

Is that slow descent from freedom to slavery acceptable to any of you?

That is why we must rekindle both in ourselves and in others a passion for the Constitution and the individual freedom that it guarantees to each of us.

That, my fellow patriots, is what I demand of you.

If our nation is to survive, each of you must become a missionary for the Constitution and for Liberty.Â Tell the story of our nation to your family and to your neighbors.Â Most importantly, teach your children and grandchildren about the greatness of America.Â Talk to them about the Constitution and the men and women who sacrificed everything so that we can live in freedom.

Hold them in your arms and say to them, â€œThis is the Constitution that Thomas Jefferson gave to me so that each citizen of our great nation can live in Freedom.Â This is the Constitution that George Washington gave to me after I spent the winter with him in Valley Forge, after I crossed the icy Delaware River on Christmas eve and defeated General Cornwallis at Yorktown to win our freedom from tyranny and oppression.â€

The price of our failure will be paid for by the slavery of future generations.

Dr. Dan Eichenbaum is a practicing ophthalmologist in Murphy, North Carolina, and a founder of the Cherokee County 9-12 Project. Visit his website at http://drdansfreedomforum.com/

Copyright 2010 Dan Eichenbaum