Joyce’s Weblog

The United States of America is a unique and special country unlike any in the world from its beautiful scenic countryside to the generous people who live here. We have unlimited freedoms from our founding fathers who came to carve out a new world free of the tyranny of their former country. They fought wars to maintain that freedom and in spite of the odds the country has survived, one nation under God, welcoming people from around the world to share what we have and what we stand for.

As a child growing in up the 1950s there was a lot of talk of the American Dream. In my neighborhood it was owning a home, a car and having enough money to feed the family and pay the bills. It was a simpler life and many of our neighbors and family members were World War II veterans and survivors of the Great Depression. The adults in my young life often reminisced about those terrible days, but because America was a great nation full of determined, resilient people, the country made it, then went on to win a war against evil men in other countries. There was intense national pride and patriotism and a confidence that the American Dream was indeed attainable again. There was optimism and hope.

We have gone through ups and downs since then like the Vietnam War as well as 8 years of a charismatic president named Ronald Reagan. But once Reagan’s term ended it seemed that our country really began to change. Anger came into the country as well as dissatisfaction. Simple things were not enough. We elected officials who were finger-pointers and name callers and their constant negativity made both parties ineffective. We became servants to politicians who do what they think is best even if it isn’t what the people who elected them want. Through their laws they attempt to legislate our behavior and herd us like cattle toward their ideology.

In this country we are guaranteed the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I’m sure when our founding fathers penned those words they meant something totally different to them than they do to us now. There were no cars, industrialization, technology or climbing the corporate ladder. I believe their American Dream was much more basic than ours is today. They had come from a country with one church and without much freedom and these men who were truly visionaries had three very simple desires: to worship freely, to live life the way they wanted and to be governed democratically.

I believe their dream can be narrowed down to one word: choice. They wanted to choose how they worshiped, how they lived and who ran their new country. They traveled a long, dangerous distance to start a government not just for themselves, but for the future.

I believe we need to take back that choice and the main way we do that is by voting. It is a God given right as well as given to us by man and our constitution and not to vote says it is all right to give over our great land to a few who would like to dictate to us, a free nation, how to live and yes, how to worship. To be an American is to use our right to choose who will represent us and many of us have failed to get off the couch and let our choice be known. We cannot give up our ability to choose who will govern us.

As time has gone on from the 1960s I have seen the tide turn in America. We are now run by a group of politicians with socialist ideals, who would never have to worry about the rising price of food and gas and who want to experiment with our country toward more European methods, the very countries our forefathers escaped.

But how did this happen? We put them there. When we didn’t vote we said we didn’t care about America anymore and when we use our right to choose to do nothing we are still making a statement and a decision we have to live with. We are deciding to yield our freedom of choice to someone else we may not agree with.

I’d like to see a revival of the basic American dream. We need to define what that dream is for each of us and go after it. We can no longer allow a “whatever will happen” attitude to lull us into apathy while the country we love continues to veer away from having values, morals and the innate goodness we have enjoyed for many years. Little by little we have looked the other way while our freedom to live that dream has been whittled away in the names of freedom of speech, global warming, global economy and separation of church and state. Slowly, the purposes of our founding fathers and our constitution are being changed to please the minority not the majority of people and we have to decide what we will do about it. Each of us individually is giving up the original American Dream of having a choice when it comes to determining the course for our nation.

It is time to stand up and be counted. America is at a crossroads between our democratic past and a socialistic future. It will take a little research and effort to find the people whose beliefs are closest to yours. But if you are glad you live in a country where you can go to the church of your choice on your day of worship, if you are sickened by the lack of morals and values in our land and if you are ready for a change, it is time to reach for your own American Dream and make a choice. Choose to vote.

Hi!  I am a middle aged woman who is retired and has some thoughts about what I see going on in our world today.  I tend to be on the conservative side, a Christian, and someone who would like to think something i may say would make a difference in another person’s life.

A few years ago I was just becoming comfortable with computers and thought blogs were kind of silly.  But as time has gone by I have become more involved with the internet and I realized I too had something I want to say and this is great way to do it.  So as I begin my blog journey, I will talk about things that are concerning me and even my ideas of how things could be changed.  I feel like this a new adventure in my life and I can’t wait to start!