We are a far cry from Patrick Henry’s infamous cry, “Give me liberty or give me death,” which highlights one’s ultimate willingness to put all of your skin in the game. Today’s cry is more of a whine, “Give me liberty and kill anyone who gets in the way of my conception of liberty.” This is a cowardly cry of putting another’s life and liberty, their skin, into one’s own lethal game. America has long been comfortable with using war and violence as an extension of politics, or even as the original sin or “necessary evil” at the foundation of politics. This grand bargain for our own hides, taken out of others’ hides, is the cowardice of raw power, not the courage of one’s convictions. True democracy cannot come from the barrel of a gun.
Of course, today’s moral dilemma “for the soul of America” is the U.S. sponsored genocide by Israel in Gaza, which appears easier than creating potential electoral risk to allegedly saving our democracy; or is that saving our alleged democracy…
Get Over It
Her democracy was over
A barrel
Of guns
That hollowed weigh
Of plenty
Of American patriots
And if you listen close
You could here
Patrick Henry roll over
In his grave saying
“Give me liberty
And give them death”
