“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
John Philpot Curran
The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man’s basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act – and if necessary, to suffer and die – for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.
Haile Selassie
(sparrow / Savannah, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)
As I turn on the news each evening or peruse the electronic news feeds, I am constantly reminded, by the headlines of the day, of the perilous balance of liberties and freedoms–the same liberties and freedoms that we have grown blindly accustomed to. The freedoms that the Western World always seems to take for granted.
Our liberties, of which we merely assume are enjoyed around the world, those that are threatened on a daily basis, as the simple freedom of living is put to the test across the globe.
The freedom to worship.
The freedom to vote.
The freedom to choose an education—or not
The freedom to work as one wishes.
The freedom to live where one chooses.
The freedom to shop as one desires.
The freedom to dress as one pleases.
The freedom to travel openly.
All of which we take for granted—assuming to be our God given right.
We take as a given of simply being. . .
But oh how tenuous is the balance which the world hangs between. . .that of tyranny, oppression and death.
I do not propose that we of the “free world” are to be the police of the remainder of this world, nor are we to necessarily impose our form of belief upon others. . .but oh how I wish that those in this world, who continue to impose violence upon woman and children, those who impose death upon their fellow countrymen, those who wish death upon the innocents, or those who live to destroy our way of life, could / would understand that thuggery, death, violence, coercion, manipulation, torture, are not the answer.
May we be mindful to remain vigilant rather than rest in our complacency. . .
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