Wallace, Stirling Bridge, and Us.

The search that found the music linked yesterday (see below) led me to scan other music pieces, and in looking for them, I came across some clips from the movie "Braveheart"

Let me say right up front that I know it is "just a movie". And I will also admit (with boundless pride!) my Scottish heritage, and that I still find piping music to be unmatched in making me think beyond myself, and making me look at the real heros in our history.

Having said that, listen to William Wallace as he speaks to his countrymen, who are looking at the English army, an army that outnumbers them, outclasses them in weaponry, and is far more experienced in the art of war. And those countrymen, just "guys next door", don't want to fight and possibly die; they want to go home to their wives and families, back to their farms and hearths. But Wallace has seen something that they are missing. He has seen freedom from a ruler who cares not about them, who sees them as servants and slaves to his every want and need. And Wallace has seen that freedom as a goal worth fighting for, and even worth dying for. His talk to them rings out.....yes, you can choose to go home and live. But somewhere, sometime before you die, you will wish that you chose differently, that you saw freedom and decided to fight for that freedom, to put it all on the line for a greater good.

It isn't medieval Scotland; it is the 21st century in the United States of America. We are not standing on the battle field of Stirling Bridge; we are sitting in front of our computers. We aren't carrying broadswords, shields and dirks; we are more likely carrying cell phones and I-pods. But we ARE looking at an assault on our country and our freedom, just as real as was Edward's assault into Scotland. We have suits in Washington having taken over corporations and banks, now aiming at health care control. We have "leaders" in Washington spending our money, money we will never see or have any control of because they take it before we even have it, both current money and money going generations into the future. We have "experts" predicting a warming globe and blaming it on us, and seeing as a solution yet more money taken from us, all in spite of absolutely no evidence showing human-cause warming, if there is any warming at all! We have a government that now acts as a nanny for almost 50% of the population, and wants more and ever more power over those it is supposed to be serving. And this government is never satisfied; it constantly grows and grows, spends and spends, and takes and takes. Our defense against this oppression were 3 of the most powerful pieces of paper ever written and signed, the Deceleration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. But after over 200 years, they are swept aside or simply ignored as the government continues to roll on, growing and taxing, taxing and crushing all before it. We are marching inexorably down a road that can only lead to ruin, a road traveled many times in the past by many countries and societies, all of whom failed and collapsed. The road we used to be on, the road laid out and built by the founders of this great country, the road paid for with the suffering and the blood of all those who fought for its survival, the road that we have to find again and set out upon, the road that leads from the Stirling Bridge of our time, is there for us, if we have to courage to look for it and take it as our own. The choice is ours as it was for Wallace and his army: go home and be satisfied with our servitude or stand up like men and say "FREEDOM".