Governments are toppled in the Middle East. Economies crumble throughout Europe. Oil and food prices rise. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on. Russians are murdered in Moscow. A congresswoman sits in a hospital fighting for her life. A family lays their nine-year-old daughter to rest. The jobless rate remains stubbornly high. News of slain police officers stream across the bottom of our TVs. Russia develops a nuclear warhead that can penetrate any missile defense system. Iran seems to inevitably be on the path to a nuclear weapon. Our own economy seems to be teetering on a precipice all the while trying to shoulder the burden of a massive debt.
As violence seems to be on the rise, some may be at a loss about what to do. I don't know if every generation feels like the world is crumbling around them, but the news has not been very encouraging lately. I can't even imagine what our grandparents and great grandparents felt during WWI and WWII, but we can learn one thing from the recent bouts of unrest in Greece, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries. It is that the people control the situation. They set the tempo and they hold the tone. Governments may be able to quell rebellions, but what does that do besides put it off to another day? America is not immune to hardship. We are one incident away from allowing ourselves to be turned into a police state or falling into chaos. If unrest spreads to Saudi Arabia, one can only imagine what would happen to fuel prices. If some of the fears coming from the right about the dollar come true, what would happen to food prices? If we continue on our interventionist path in the world and piss enough people off, what will happen? It does not take the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, four airplanes and the loss of 2,976 people to paralyze this country. A few well-directed attacks could bring this country to its knees if we let them.
This country can only be thrown into unrest if we let it. We as Americans need to realize that we are not like the rest of the world. We have something different here. We, a raggedy group of farmers, defeated the most powerful army in the world to gain our freedom. We righted the wrongs of slavery with the blood of more than 600,000 Americans. We allowed man to touch the clouds. We beat back the armies of Hitler. We left the footprints of a man on the moon. We defeated the Soviets in a war of ideologies. We are the most successful nation this world has ever known. We do not use violence to force our opinion on our neighbor. We don't cut off someone's hand for his or her religious views. We do not sacrifice what others have bled for so you can have a safer plane ride.
Freedom is not easy. It does not come without sacrifice. The moment you think you are secure in your freedom is the moment it is about to slip from your grasp. America will most likely be the victim of another terrorist attack. We will most likely suffer another Great Depression. We will have hardships, but the moment that you let the others dictate your movements. The moment you sacrifice your freedom for safety. The moment that you think violence is the remedy for the problem at hand. That is the moment we have lost and the blood that has been spilled in the fight for freedom will be in vain. That is the moment that we have proven Ben Franklin right in his doubts about the ability of man to rule himself. They wish to change our lives, and we must not let them. When food and oil prices rise. When we lose lives to terror. When the rest of the world is plagued by unrest and violence. The only way America and freedom can survive is if individuals commit themselves to nonviolence. We must ask our neighbors if they need help. We must not be afraid to join hands with those people we barely know.
As I prepare for my second deployment to Afghanistan, I pray that people understand their responsibilities to the preservation of freedom that they have here at home. The military is not the most important defender of freedom. All of the individuals who call America home are. I pray that people realize that every day they wake up they must make the conscience decision to preserve freedom. To not fall prey to the temptations of a safer country at the expense of freedom or the ease of violence rather than discussion. The military has its own sacrifice to make. We know what we have to do, and we know the price that we may have to pay.
The people must realize what their sacrifice will be. This may be seen as a tipping point in history or it may be forgotten in a few months' time. I pray the latter, but that tipping point is inevitable and so is the choice that we will have to make. Let's make the choice that proves Lincoln wrong when he said "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide."
Read More
How one professor and her classes are preserving Oxford’s Black history
By Sean Scott | March 20, 2024Jazma Sutton, an assistant professor of history, teaches The Black Midwest (HST 350Q) and Black Women in America (HST 450D) classes. In both courses, she has students working with the Smith Library of Regional History and Miami’s archives to document and preserve Black history in Oxford.
Miami faculty members recount Freedom Summer in new documentary
By Luke Macy | February 25, 2022After seven years of work, “Training for Freedom,” a documentary highlighting Oxford’s involvement in the Freedom Summer of 1964, premiered on PBS Western Reserve on Valentine’s Day.
“Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic”: History in the making
By Alice Momany | August 29, 2021In March 2020, Miami University’s archives launched “Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a collection focused on life during the COVID-19 pandemic.