This is a Right, Right?

So, I am very disturbed. I have been observing and hearing things in these last few weeks that have really got me a little irked. Oh by the way, these past couple of weeks have been really crazy for me, because I have started my college classes, my baseball season is in full swing, and I just took the SAT last Saturday (1/23/10). So sorry for not posting, but I really had no time. Anyway, back to what is disturbing me.

It seems like people have an extremely warped perception of what a "right" is. So let me start by telling you what a right is. A right is something the you are entitled to. Something that you deserve to have just by living. Ok, now that we have that, allow me to read you all your rights.(no you are not under arrest)

You have the right to: life, meaning you have the right to live. Liberty, you are free to live your life, work, and worship however you wish. The Pursuit Of Happiness, you are free to pursue what you believe will make you happy. Those are your rights as Americans. These rights can be taken away though. If you break the laws that were put in place to ensure justice, then you forfeit your rights, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently.

So you got all that? Those are your rights. That is all there is in the world that you have a "right" to have. Not a house, not a phone, not a car, nothing else. Everything else is a privilege and a gift. For some reason though, people think that they have a right to a lot more than Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness. And they are wanting the government to give it to them. People want the government to give them health care, pay for their college, and even help them pay their electric bills.( Those are all things that people in my American Federal Government class said they wanted the government to do for them.) It's pretty sad isn't it? How did we get from Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness to Health care, college, electric bills and everything in between?

Let me add though that I am not against the acquiring of wealth and property. I am TOTALLY for it! I just don't want the government giving it to me or doing it for me. And you shouldn't either. Hard work, ingenuity, and self-reliance are things that should define us as Americans.

People thinking that they are entitled to all of these things and wanting the government to provide it for them only creates one thing: dependence. If you rely on the government to do everything for you, then you give them the authority to rule you. You can't call them dictators, because it's you who put them there in the first place. That's what we are doing as country.

Let me illustrate with something that is closer to home for most of you. Your parents provide for you, they shelter you, they clothe you and therefor they make the rules and they have authority for you. Right now, the government is acting as our parents and although I would not encourage this for teenagers under their parents authority I think it's about time we started being a little bit rebellious. It's time to take back our country and put the power back where it belongs: in our hands.

We can't do that though if we are trusting in politicians to save us. It's "In God We Trust" not "In congress we trust". We need to get back to our Christian roots, put God in his rightful place at the center of our country, and start working to better ourselves and our country. It's the only way out.

I know most of you reading this are Christians and this is nothing new to you, but you affect a lot of people you interact with, so start sharing these things with those people. Help them see the truth and show them how they can change. I think if we all did that we would see the America we used to know emerge from under the veil of corruption that is choking it.