From the January 2005 Idaho Observer:

Concede the nation; inform our people

Nine-eleven did it. Since the morning after, it has been obvious to many, myself included, that our nation has been irrecoverably lost. Not a day in the last 1,200 or so has gone by without some official reminder of how free our people are no longer; and how utterly depraved those in positions of state and federal authority have become.

Once revered by the peoples of the world as defender of freedom and the dignity of the common man, the U.S. is now the nation enjoying the pinnacle of global scorn for its universally-televised violations of human rights and abuse of military might. The U.S. can no longer lead a humanitarian relief effort without arousing well-deserved global suspicion as to its hidden motives.

Here at home our nation’s leaders don’t even pretend to hold fair elections any more and have decided the best way to handle civil liberty is to imprison it. With the world’s largest and fastest growing prison population, over half of which are either innocent or convicted of non-violent crimes, we can no longer refer to The United States of America as "the land of the free."

Try to write your congressman or pass a needed initiative that isn’t instantly emasculated by the sitting legislature if you desire exercising your futility muscles.

Our nation is gone and our leaders have left us with debts that can never be paid. At this time I must announce that I have conceded the nation: What no longer exists cannot be saved.

I will never, however, concede our people. With my last breath, I will inform them. There is no doubt in my mind that we are being taken somewhere as a nation and that we have almost arrived. History has shown that all nations eventually fail. The United States’ time has come, that is all. There may be no stopping evil men from destroying our nation, but we can strengthen good people so they can be equipped to build from U.S. ashes a just and honorable society.

If history is our guide, the fall will be chaos—political, social, economic and spiritual chaos. What we are able to accomplish now in the minds of our people will directly affect the magnitude of death, destruction and misery the people of our nation and our planet will be forced to endure after the crash and whether or not the institutions of civilization will be rebuilt in the image of decency or despotism.

At first, conceding the nation feels pretty horrible. "America—dead? She can’t be, we must save her! How can we give up on America—what would the Founders think?"

Visions of how we have betrayed the trust placed in us to defend our freedom and fight for the freedom of others torture our thoughts. But after awhile, when emotions subside, the path becomes clear. The Founders even told us that the tree of liberty must, from time to time, be fertilized by the blood of patriots and tyrants and that, when government becomes bad, we must throw it off and reestablish good government.

It is a relief to know my job is no longer to save a fiction, but to inspire minds of my countrymen with thoughts and ideas that give them strength and fill them with resolve to be noble, reverent beings instead of mindless, bickering slaves.

Turning slaves into sovereigns isn’t easy, but its what we have to do because there is nothing left to save us but each other.

I find that comforting somehow. (DWH)