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The
Republic's Survival
by Robert Teesdale, to his young son
http://www.Teesdale.com
16
November 2000
To my dear son,
In the final days of the
twentieth century, our Republic stands with fatal and dangerous pause on the
brink of infected rot.
When I was your age I, too, spent my days in happy play and painting; in the
love of my mother's arms and in the wonder of fresh knowledge. I knew nothing of
the sport of Men, and of the plays they made for power and control in the world.
I, too, depended on the strength and protection of my parents to handle the
issues of national life that I was a bare innocent in the path of.
Today, on your first day of school, I am at home writing this letter with a
heavy and worried heart. Our Republic is no longer the unified bulwark of
freedom that it once was. The dignity of office... the respect for law... and
the commitment to spreading the shining and brilliant love of freedom that we
based our lives upon, has slowly but surely been transformed into an ignorant
and careless abrogation of our duties and responsibilities.
I look to the future of our nation, and I am grim in foreboding for the threats
that you will face. They will be very different from mine.
When we feared the sudden incandescence of nuclear suns dawning across the land,
it was in the knowledge that our Republic was united still, and facing the
dangers of outside hate with a solid and unswerving heart.
I fear that on the morrow, when your day has arrived and you must take up the
mantle of leadership, that you will face these dangers hamstrung by the death of
the Republic that enabled freedom to grow and flourish across the world.
The fall of nations can often be traced to the casual and careless abandonment
of duty and responsibility which often accompanies prosperity and peace. I pray
that I will be able to teach you this, and to instill in you an understanding of
the true nature of Men, and of the myriad tangles they weave in the grasp for
temporal power.
The rebirth of America will lie on your shoulders, and on the shoulders of
friends who share today with you the laughter, the games, and the happy shouts
of childhood. In your future those shouts will transform into the screams of
war, and the games will become the manipulations of authority that accompany the
struggle for control.
You must, my son, strive to attain an understanding of these things as you grow
into a man. For the life of our Republic, and the nation for which we stand,
cannot survive otherwise.
We see new Senators calling for the dismantling of our Constitution, and for the
change of our representative government into officially sanctioned mob rule. We
see our leaders commit disgusting crimes in the face of our people, and explain
away the consequences by the definition of simple words.
I see the active promotion of ignorance in America, and the willing destruction
of our nation so that partisan attachments may be solidified.
My son, you must grow in the knowledge that our freedom is more important than
anything.
Your liberty and rights are more important than your safety, and more critical
to your happiness than wealth or comfort.
I pray that you will never feel that they are somehow guaranteed to you by the
beneficence of other men.
The Republic cannot survive without this understanding.
And the light of freedom that seeds hope in the hearts and minds of billions...
the promise of America, and the fundamental justice of free conscience and rule
of law that we swear by... cannot survive without the Republic.
So as this millennium draws to a close, I pray that you will find this
knowledge, and this strength, to maintain the principles of America in your own
life - and in the future of our shared nation. There is no better struggle, and
no more essential one to the race of Men.
I love you very much. And I pray, too, that my own example as your father can
pave the way for you. I will stumble from time to time, as we all do. But on
this one matter you must never flinch:
Your liberty is not negotiable.
All my love,
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