The Long Goodbye

                                               
To some, sixty days is an eon.  To others, just a blip in time.  No matter, in 60 days or so this blog will likely end.  The date just happens to coincide with the next Presidential election, and, if Barack Obama wins, this blog will end also.  Should the American people decide that they want to go in the direction our President is taking them I'll accept it and understand that our country's adherence to moral law, contract law and Constitutional law is no longer something our country's citizens value any longer.  Maybe the majority of Americans truly believe that laws are no longer necessary, or that we can pick and choose those which we want to enforce, or obey.

With an Obama win I will also be convinced that Americans no longer care about a "national morality" nor the belief that those who work hard, play by the rules, and give something back are to be admired, but instead, are to be considered silly chumps.  An Obama win will mean Americans no longer consider the integrity of our borders is meaningful; that those who violate our immigration laws are more highly valued than the 5 million immigration applicants waiting patiently in line.  An Obama triumph will signify to me that a $16 trillion dollar national debt (and annual trillion dollar deficits) are of little concern.

I guess what will most break my heart will be that Americans chose the soaring but meaningless oratory of a community organizer weighs larger than those families who testified to the life long love and kindness Mitt Romney extended to so many in his church and in his community.  While someone in Chicago organizes efforts to funnel more federal money to a violent ghetto, Mitt Romney was drawing up wills and pronouncing the eulogy for a 14 year old boy, or he and Ann were taking in kids while their parents sat with their loved ones in a hospital ward.  While Barack Obama was seeking a "new reality" on pot and cocaine Mitt Romney was working with families who were suffering the ills of a drug-addicted child.

But my reason for ending this blog goes deeper than that.  Each morning I wrote an essay on a variety of topics that I thought might stimulate you to think,  or words and thoughts that might touch your heart.   I have now written over 500 of these essays over the past 20 months with the heartfelt hope that you might read my words, pass them on to ten other folks, thus exponentially growing my readership to a level that might be meaningful.  I believed that my words would, like a stone tossed into the water, ripple out to greater distances and to an ever-increasing world of readers who might rally strongly to the crusade to restore an America where hard work and moral responsibility are rewarded, to an America where her citizens recognized their responsibilities as citizens and spoke up strongly for right...and against what is wrong.

My goal, when I started this blog, was to achieve a readership of at least 1,000 readers a day.  I have failed.  There are simply too few who read my blog, or take the time to stop and leave a comment, or to have recommended it to others.  To the few who have done so, I thank you.

Perhaps there are too many blogs and too few readers.  Perhaps there are too few left to care about the path we are on now.  Maybe my ideas are just too old-fashioned and no longer relevant to the America of today.

To those who dropped by for a visit I say, "folks, I tried".  I think my favorite quote of all time was the one Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense some two hundred and thirty years ago.  Paine was speaking of tyranny; the tyranny of a British monarchial tyrant who presumed to know what is good for us; leaving us to obey...or die.  Now the tyranny is even more perilous for it is the tyranny of those who take, those who refuse to give something back to their country, but choose instead, to take what one can, before it's all gone.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated

So...I'm not ready to leave just yet.  I've mounted my humpbacked steed, stood in the stirrups, sounded the trumpet, and am now looking back over my shoulder, back toward the shelter of tree line, hoping to see Americans who still care emerge and join me for the charge up the hill.  So far, all I've seen are a few stragglers who show up to see the aging Don Quixote flailing at windmills, his ear cocked in hopes that reinforcements are on the way.

Alas, I hear no rumblings nor the thunder of oncoming chargers and am left to contemplate my own abandonment of the battlefield.  My joints ache and these old eyes dim a little more each day.

But I'll tighten my hold on the reins, unsheaf my rusty sword, and wait just a bit longer...it's the honorable thing to do.  Until my blog ends on November 6th,  I'll call this time of waiting "the long goodbye".

Note:  After I cease to write any new blog articles, the 500 plus articles will still be available for viewing.  Also, beginning today I will no longer be posting links to my blog essays on Facebook or Twitter or Craig's List.  Those who want to continue reading will have to sign up by email if they wish to continue reading any new blog essays.