TIME TO RESTORE OUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS

  “Those who would give up their liberty for their security deserve neither.”

  —Benjamin Franklin

  “We are never more than a generation away from losing our liberty.”

  —President Ronald Reagan

  Can I tell you how much I have hated the last two years with this never-ending if-the government-can-help-it-PANDEMIC? I am tired of the endless panic porn that the elites have been pushing on us. Nothing stands seemingly in its way of pounding us into fear of ourselves, fear of others and fear of fear.

  We have a virus that has altered our way of life. We have seen government leaders take on more and more power and liberty away from us. I don’t like this new normal of theirs. Our leaders just keep telling us to follow their orders because they have our best interests at heart.

  I look around and I see public education going down the tubes. Last year they kept many kids out of the classroom. For many students, they are only following behind in their learning; as for their social emotional needs, the same thing if not worse.

  Our economy took a major hit with lockdowns and shutdowns and the like. How many folks lost jobs and how many aren’t working today? Government keeps sending us free money to do nothing and nothing feels good, the more nothing you do.

  Thanks to all this we get Russian-like food shortages, soaring gasoline pump prices and Bidenflation. However, all these crazy liberal Democrats and uber-progressives, all they talk about is spending more and more of our money on whacko spending plans or pushing climate change and the need for fitting our infrastructure.

  This past Sunday, January 23, I was over in Boston’s North End at the Prado – better known to tourists as the Paul Revere Mall – for a freedom rally hosted by Boston First Responders which was founded and led by Boston Police Officer Shana Cottone, who is fighting the vax mandate ordered by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Cottone and as many as 200 other citizens united against such government mandates stood their ground and together.

  As Ben Franklin warned back during the American Revolution, those who were willing to surrender their liberty for protection actually deserve neither. It was true when he said it and it remains true today.

  Most people throughout our history have been uncomfortable in raising their voices and just put up with injustice. It takes heroes willing to risk things like the freedom fighters back during the civil rights era when defying the law could really hurt or kill you.

  Back in my college years, I turned into a campus activist and writer. I marched in protest against U.S. Vietnam War policies. In 1974, after college, I continued marching in the streets over forced busing in Boston and what I considered an unjust federal court order.

  In 1981 in Charlestown, I helped my neighbors in taking hold of the Winthrop Street firehouse where Engine 50 was stationed. We as a people together took the building and apparatus hostage for 30 days before Mayor Kevin White decided to keep both the firehouse and engine company. Had folks just given up in the fight, this firehouse would be luxury housing today.

  My claim to fame as a street activist was a few months after that firehouse was reopened when both East Boston activists joined by Charlestown folks blocked the Summer-Callahan tunnels at rush hour in hopes of saving another fire apparatus in the East Boston community. I ended up becoming infamous as a member of the “Charlestown 7” who got arrested that evening along with East Boston protesters. As an amusing aside, exactly four years after getting arrested for my act of civil disobedience, I was appointed a police officer for the Massachusetts Mental Health Department, where I would serve for the next 28 years before retiring two weeks after the Boston Marathon Bombings.

  I still stay in the fight, but in more recent years I have used my writing as a form of protest when necessary. I still can march if needed or attend protest rallies like the one on January 23 at the Prado and then spread the word in my political commentaries like this one here.

  In closing I repeat what President Reagan so eloquently put forth, that we are always just one generation away from losing everything we have, which is why people should never be too afraid of standing up for our liberty guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights.