As our great nation gets set to celebrate our shared 244th birthday, I think it is only fitting to take a moment to reflect on why and how we have gotten this far, and the ways in which our Flow community really is just a microcosm for the bigger country we all so proudly share. Look around our Flow, and you will find so many veterans who proudly served our nation. So far, we have collectively sacrificed somewhere around 1.3 million precious lives in defense of our American ideals, such as Liberty For All and our Constitutionally Guaranteed Freedoms. That's the how - let's please look at the why:
Our entire nation is founded on the very principle of dissent. Almost 250 years ago, a bunch of "divisive" (๐๐๐) thinkers got together and decided that being lorded over by the British really was not such a great idea. We ended up fighting our first 'official' war over the concept that we are all entitled to certain basic freedoms; costing us somewhere around 25,000 souls when the total population was only around 2.5 million. We sacrificed over half a million lives between WWI and WWII, and suffered almost 1.5 million wounded warriors in those hells alone. Rightly or wrongly, we fought in Korea, we fought in Vietnam, we fought in the Gulf, and we are still fighting in places like Afghanistan and Yemen ans Syria. I have personally seen us also endure numerous "smaller" incursions - both some well known to the good folks and some not so much. We share a demonstrated history of literally laying down our very lives in defense of the concepts of American Freedoms.
But, here on our Flow, we are very unfortunately faced with the shameful situation of a certain tiny group consciously putting forth a concerted and collaborative effort to very sneakily erode these American Freedoms right out from under all of us by:
1.) "Elections" with one hand-picked official "candidate";
2.) Endorsing the theft of property and the limiting of Freedom of Speech through silent inaction;
3.) The incessant use of yellow journalism and obvious, unconcealed censorship;
4.) Blatant and attempted-to-be anonymous defamation of dissenting fellow Members;
5.) Repeatedly spreading 100% baseless, horrible lies about dissenting fellow Members;
6.) Happily taking fellow Member's dues, but refusing to provide politely requested information.
This list could go on and on for days.
But all of this is horribly wrong, isn't it? If our local or state or national officials engaged in this outrageously deplorable conduct we would be up in arms, wouldn't we? These are precisely the actions of other "leaders" whom we have stood up against and sacrificed our lives for, so why should we be willing to accept this in our community? We really should not, right? And we definitely should not sit passively by while some individuals spit in the faces of those who gave all they had for our basic freedoms, should we....?
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