In his first inaugural address, Ronald Reagan said, “I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do; I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”
The sun may someday explode. An object may collide with earth and wipe out human life. No matter what we do, we all eventually die. Sometimes, our fate is inescapable. But Reagan was speaking of that fate to which we succumb, only because we let it happen.
Doing nothing is a guarantee of a fate from tortured imagining. I also believe such a fate will fall on us if we do too little. I believe such a fate will fall on us if we move too slowly, if we can't stay focused, if we lose heart, or if we ever declare victory and stand down in a never-ending war of ideas.
I also believe such a fate will fall on us if too many of us wait for someone else, a human hero or perhaps God, to come to our rescue. Surely, the hand of Providence must have been at play to bring great liberty-seeking men together at the same time onto this land of abundant resources. Those men created the United States of America, in a time when the world sorely needed it. Given the odds of such a thing ever occurring, given the power of the forces against them - with full respect for the genius of the founders and the bravery of our country’s first citizens - the result surely seems miraculous.
But everything that has happened since then suggests we are now on our own, each with responsibility for the future, each with a role to play. The founding of America certainly had its human heroes, it's magnificent statesmen. But those heroes had a great multitude of lesser-known and unknown heroes, in the trenches, fighting the battles, living and dying for their country.
What Reagan referred to as fate is an inevitable factor of circumstance and action; it will befall us, but we affect its design, its timing, and its impact on our lives and the lives of those around us. If we chose to succumb to tyranny, through our incompetence or our inaction, or through distracted ignorance, the light of liberty could go dark for a millennium.
A thousand years of darkness (a Reagan phrase) will be twelve lifetimes; billions of Americans will live out their lives across those years. Generations of your descendants will be among them. The “if” and the “when” of darkness’ descent is up to us.
Here is a word of warning: you might be among those billions … because it could come quickly.
It’s too easy to think that the worst of times is a future thing, out beyond a point where it can harm us or our loved ones. What foolish thinking that is. Just look at liberty’s downward spiral in recent decades. Recognize the reality that no President can fix America in two terms. And remember that great leaders are often followed by terrible leaders.
I once opined, “If Obama followed Bush, then the Devil, himself, may be our President, after Trump.” Not being a particularly religious person, my meaning was not biblical, but politically tyrannical. And now we have President Joe Biden. His presidency may not be the downfall of America, but it will do great harm to the cause of liberty, prosperity, and peace. His first few days in office suggest abundant evidence for that concern.
A great number of Americans believe a massive conspiracy of voter fraud led to Biden’s election. I am one of those people. It is a disheartening possibility, which may lead to an alarming reduction in liberty-loving citizens going to the polls on future election days. It is easy to think that casting a vote which does not count is a pointless endeavor. It is reasonable to think that part of the original leftist plan was to cause voter distrust in the election process.
Whatever we decide to do individually, let’s not abstain from the still important, still critical, exercise of casting a ballot. Good people are working on the issue of election integrity. A viable solution may be some distance in the future. We need to support that effort by continuing to cast our ballots for whoever we believe has the best interest in American citizens and the future of our country.
Something is rushing toward us … and it’s bad, really bad. It does not have to destroy us, our liberty, our lives … but it can … and it will, if we don’t stop it … if we don’t accept individual responsibility for our fate.
It’s good to try to understand the issues facing us right now. It seems impossible to have full faith in what we think we know and what we learn from others. And sometimes it is even harder for us to define our personal role in saving our country. However hard that struggle might be, we must do it.
We must determine for ourselves the rightness and wrongness of things. We must come to terms with the ambiguity of our times. We must decide what our role should be, and once decided, we must proceed with the understanding that the future of America, the future of every citizen, the future of our families and of ourselves is dependent upon how successful we are.
America’s fate … our fate … is in our own individual hands.