There is no denying that we are living in a time that will affect the rest of history. America is being tested, perhaps the greatest test we have ever been given. The country that our founding fathers built is being challenged, and its documents — born from a stand against tyranny — are being torn down in an attempt to overthrow and undermine the freedoms passed down to us.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” philosopher George Santayana once said. Sadly, too many Americans cannot remember what they were never taught in the first place.
They do not remember the courage of the men and women who uprooted their whole lives, searching for the freedom in which we live.
They do not remember the tyranny that drove the patriots to establish a new country.
They do not remember the soldiers who shed their blood so that future generations would inherit a better world.
They do not remember the call of liberty that rang throughout the world:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
But liberty never comes without a price, no matter the generation, and liberty that is not loved will soon be lost. Americans, apathetic to the precious freedoms we have been entrusted with, have also forgotten what a world without these freedoms looks like. Evil is at the door, and every day fewer and fewer of us have any idea how close we are to the fall of our great nation.
Several young Germans were in a similar place 80 years ago in 1943. Calling themselves the “White Rose,” the group consisted of Sophia Scholl and her brother Hans, along with other friends who were Christian political activists. These young people had the courage to stand against Jewish oppression and Nazi policies while most other German Christians remained silent.
“Why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanized state system presided over by criminals and drunks?” the group asked in their third pamphlet. “Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right – or rather, your moral duty – to eliminate this system?”
Several members of the group were taken into custody after Sophia was caught flinging leaflets from a top floor over an atrium inside the University of Munich for the students to read. She was sentenced to death by guillotine for her resistance. The group’s writings would eventually be used by the Allied forces to stir the hearts of the people of Germany to resistance.
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually for a righteous cause?” Sophia asked shortly before she was beheaded. “It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go,” she wrote. “What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted?”
Sophia’s words from the past are calling out to us, and it is not too late to heed their warning. Resist. Do not back down. For the sake of all the generations that have gone before and all those yet to come, we cannot allow fear or apathy to sear our consciences and stop us from doing what we know to be right.
Have we in present-day America forgotten our moral duty to our country altogether? Are we doomed to repeat history and allow our freedoms to be stripped away, or will we, like our forefathers, rise up and give ourselves to a righteous cause?
Repeating history does not have to be our doom. We can repeat it by taking our cues from brave men and women who stood for freedom. We can repeat it by taking a stand against tyranny and fighting against the abuse of power.
I know that the call of freedom still lives in the hearts of Americans, and I believe if we can muster the courage to stand for freedom in the face of tyranny, like those in the past did, we can preserve all that is great about our nation for generations to come.
Lauren is a wife, mother, and writer with a passion for boldly speaking truth. Writing and speaking for over a decade, Lauren has reached millions worldwide. She is known for her Biblical approach to controversial topics and humorous approach to counteracting the lies of the world. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @laurendemoss.
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