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A Dearth of Tolerance
Oh, how strange a world we are living in today,
When in this great Nation that we call ‘home’,
That greatest of all our freedoms, most dear,
The sacred freedom of speech and of the press,
Is so little regarded and so heavily oppressed!
Resolved to stand in the center, a moderate,
I find myself attacked from both right and left,
Both shrill and accusing of the other’s sins,
Finding neither room nor occasion for debate,
But in their venom spouting and espousing hate.
Are we following the lead of extremists foreign,
Who brook no differences, no objective debate,
But glory righteously in hate and bloody killing,
Shouting death to all who believe another way,
And despotism, of their making, o’er all earth?
What would those who poured out life’s blood,
To secure and preserve freedoms dearly bought,
Think of this generation of contentious factions,
All righteous in their own eyes, their own creeds;
Close-minded, vitriolic spouters of extremism?
Did they all bleed in vain, only for us to destroy
All they gave so much, so dearly, to secure?
Are we the last generation to see freedom dear,
To turn our backs as that tattered banner waves,
As it flutters to the ground, forsaken, despised?
Is extremism, now, required of all the denizens
Of this once great land of the brave and the free?
Are moderation, compromise, understanding, to
Die on the alter of Godless, sacred sophistry,
As from our Maker we ignorantly, piously flee?
Is the art of listening and hearing now extinct,
As all shout out blind obedience to their cause;
Consideration of their dogma in light of day,
A betrayal of their ‘divine leader’s’ wise say;
Common sense to history’s ash heap consign?
Awaken, America! Those who still hold freedom,
Dearly bought, dearly preserved, a sacred right
Of those born beneath the banner of the brave;
Fight, fight, that our forebears not be dishonored,
That our land continue a beacon of liberty to be.
Shall we forsake democracy’s voice in government,
The right to petition and be heard, to stand in
Opposition to mindless, milling crowds, heedless
Of that which they neither value nor understand;
A pathetic reflection of those who paid the price?
Fight to preserve the right of your vilest enemy,
Freely to express their ill-advised, false idolatry,
For in their freedom lies your freedom, too;
Suppressing another’s view, meet suppression,
A tyrant’s heel upon your now-enslaved neck.
Oh, you say, it is not so, freedoms do yet endure!
Yes, endure, but how long will intolerance suffer,
To hear the hearts and minds of those opposed,
To ideological perfidy, to the shackling of ideas?
Let me breathe free, or die defending fair Liberty!
"Give me Liberty, or give me death!"
- Patrick Henry |
