As Europe started to slide down the precipice of carnage that became World War I, the Foreign Secretary for Great Britain Edward Grey declared in what has become one of the most prophetic metaphors of all instance; “The lamps are going out all by Europe”. Just recently, the historian and syndicated author Mark Steyn starkly famous that “Today, the lights are going out on liberty all by the Western world.”

So why is it that post-20^th century societies seemingly invite and seem ineffectual in preventing the elimination of their way of life?

The reply, the cause whether you will, is traced to the individuals of those societies. As the famous Irish orator John Philpot Curran correctly pointed out, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”.

But although that truism is a rather popular quote, it is not an entirely accurate representation of what Curran really said. To wit:

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition whether he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

Hence, we find our reply in the highlight on the individuals that manufacture up the society.

We’ve experienced right here on Marco Island how not only the indolent but all of us have become prey to the active. The struggles of the recent past showed us that there were but perhaps a handful of folks that did anything continually, eternally vigil whether you will, a few others that at least wrote consistently hellfire emails to the soon after version of the syndicate in capability, and the rest complained on the way to the buffet. And just in the final two weeks we saw hundreds of emails of how the “can’t we just get along, kumbaya” crowd was taken for a ride by the special interest elites via behind the scene control of their stooges in the present governance. These transgressions on our liberties simply happened considering the ability brokers were active as the citizenry afforded sparse attention.

Make no mistake about what

is in store for us locally whether the syndicate continues its bent on commercialization at the expense of the residents. And assemble no mistake about what is in store for the entire country whether the socialist agendas compose it to the White House.

At both levels, many complain, very few do anything of substance. The requirement of eternal vigilance applies to all of us, namely universal vigilance, for without widespread omnipresent vigilance, we are thereupon subsumed into servitude to the prevailing evil as punishment for the guilt. Sadly for some of us that are in fact eternally in a state of vigilance, it is an ill deserved punishment, dealt to us from guilt by organization.

Every day in every community in what’s left of Western democracies the majority is the indolent – a majority living in the final vestiges of liberty they themselves created for having broken the covenant with God. Too few of the vigilant remain to take on the fight continually, into perpetuity, sans help, bludgeoned by the corrupt, bankrupt by the viral spread of amerikapitalism, and drowned by the capability of the entrenched iron triangle.

And as we found in the very recent history of other countries, giving up a utopia is not something that is tough to do – actually, it is incredibly easy; simply do little, do nothing.

Sadly, we don’t need to look to other countries for examples on how our liberties have been eroded – we can simply look at our own towns in that country. From massive local projects undertaken on lies and subterfuge, to the political correctness doctrine where our right to free speech is gagged by threats emanated from the sludge which is the legal system, to the loss of private property rights through the prostitution of the eminent domain clause of the structure.

Without universal vigilance, get ready for universal health care. And in Marco Island, without vigilance scrutinizing every move of the special interest-directed governance bent on inane follies such as procuring their own electric utility, consider the words of Edward Grey as the lights here go out – literally.

Original post by Mario R. Sanchez, Ph.D.