"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
- James Madison -
This is my first elegy.
All too often these days, I mourn the loss of my childhood dreams and expectations, many of which were based on the specious notion—so oft repeated in the schools of my childhood—that I lived in "a free country."
To my great sorrow,
I have since learned how untrue that is.
An Elegy for Liberty
Image courtesy of Luke Stackpoole and http://unsplash.com
~An Elegy for Liberty~
by Duncan Cary Palmer
While headed for the boneyard
To sit and mourn a while,
I took thought to remark my world
So changed from when a child!
Signs announcing strictures
Oppress like some disease.
The stench of propaganda
Is wafted on the breeze.
War on this and war on that,
Designed to terrify,
Curdle all volition
Until none dare ask why.
Chartered "To Protect and Serve,"
A citizen's best friend,
"Law Enforcement" now the beat
The task, to apprehend.
Choose between a leafy weed
Or thousand dollar pill?
Procure a shaman's signature;
Bend to the tyrant's will.
Purple mountains, amber grain,
The dirge eclipses truth
While legislators' pens bleed laws
To fetter us forsooth.
Ivory tower geniuses
Wield complex arguments.
Obscurantists with PhDs
Befuddle with intent.
"Quantitative easing."
"Your fair share," "Do your part."
Talking heads have turned deception
Into a high art.
Call them not "sheep," that noble beast
Whose name should not belong
To whom from puppet media
Receive their Weltanschauung
Zombie ignoramuses
Demand our guns and bread,
Incognizant their excesses
Our revenue have bled.
Who then slaughtered Liberty
As Jacob by Esau?
'Tis you who venerate the State,
So red in tooth and claw.
Now that I've come upon the site
Of Liberty's last breath,
I'll sit here on the ground and tell
Sad stories of her death.
FIN
Who then slaughtered Liberty?
Image courtesy of Maarten van den Heuvel and http://unsplash.com
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