This week has been so exhausting, I don’t even know where to start. I feel like I am watching the nation I love morph into something unrecognizable and it breaks my heart.

This is not the America I knew.

In the America I grew up in, no one was “too big to fail.” Tax cheats were not awarded with lucrative cabinet jobs. Presidents didn’t dishonor service men and women who gave their lives for this country by stopping the trial and dropping charges against known – admitted – terrorists. Presidents didn’t “abandon free market principles to save the free market” (what the #$%& does that even mean?).

In the America I grew up in, the media actually did its job, which was to inform the public of important issues in an objective manner. Their role (and I’m talking about journalists here, not opinion commentators) was to be the watchdogs of both parties in government on behalf of the people. Now they have by and large become the cheering section for the liberal agenda (and yes, if they were cheerleaders for conservatives I would still be disturbed, they fail the public when they let bias skew their reporting in either direction).

In the America I grew up in, contraception was not considered economic stimulus (because less people means less cost). Trillion-dollar stimulus packages were not thrown together behind closed doors under cover of darkness and voted in a rush under the pretext of impending doom. Trillion-dollar bills that would enslave generations to debt were not even in the realm of consideration. Stealth socialized healthcare provisions were not slipped into stimulus bills to avoid open debate on the issue.

Presidents were respected and conducted themselves in a manner worthy of that respect. They were not treated as messianic figures and didn’t seek to be. America believed in freedom, liberty, and capitalism, and wasn’t afraid to stand for its principles.

Maybe my memory is wrong. I’m not trying to sugar-coat history, and admittedly I’m only in my 30′s so there is much of this country’s history that I don’t remember. But at the end of the day I grew up in a free America, and that is the America I want to leave my children.

What scares me the most is how quickly we are moving (falling?) down the slippery slope toward socialism. This country has fought against socialism and it’s cousin, communism, for so long because it goes against everything we believe in. And yet, here we find ourselves apparently welcoming socialism with open arms because we are afraid. Our leaders in Washington have chosen not to lead. Rather than reassure Americans that even though times may be tough we will get through it because that is who we are, they play chicken-little, cry that the sky is falling, and promote fear and panic because it serves their agenda.

This isn’t the first time we have been down this road. The events surrounding the Great Depression of the 1930′s are similar in some ways to today, and eerily enough, both the Bush and Obama administrations seem bent on repeating the mistakes of Hoover and FDR. Spend, spend, and spend some more, expand government and restrict freedoms. Normally we the people would resist such attempts, but we are less likely to do so when reduced to a panic by our leadership and the MSM.

It is time to stop being afraid. We need to take a hard look in the mirror and be willing to stand up and say NO.

No, I will not give up my freedoms in exchange for a promise of security. Benjamin Franklin said that those who would give up liberty for a little security will deserve neither and lose both. I believe that is true, and I say NO. The price is just too high.

We owe it to our children to stand firm and fight for our principles. We owe it to them to find a way to appeal to the common sense of Americans, to let them know they are not alone, to stand together and make sure America remains the land of the free, home of the brave.

Obama and his supporters in Congress tell us that without the spendulus bill right-now! we would inevitably face an economic “catastrophe.” I don’t believe that is true, but if it is, then so be it. I would rather risk facing a depression and emerge with our freedoms intact, than give up the heart and soul of this great nation and be forced into socialism.

This country isn’t perfect, but it is great. It is, and has been, a beacon of freedom and hope to the world, and I want to keep it that way. That is the country I want my children to inherit.

Cross-posted at Eternal Vigilance.