Originally appeared in America’s 1st Freedom magazine, February 2015.
President Obama’s remaining term may be the most dangerous two years our nation has faced. Over the next 700 days, we face a fight for the soul and survival of America as we know it. And I need you to do your part, as a member of the NRA, to help me fight it. Here’s why:
With no more elections ahead, Obama is now free to impose his true agenda—as he said, “to fundamentally transform the United States.”
He hasn’t let the law stop him. Even before he had the “flexibility” that he told Russian President Vladimir Putin his last election would give him, Obama acted above the law.… the Second Amendment is the only freedom that has expanded while others have retreated.
He rewrites laws after they’re passed, as he did with health care, to score political advantage. He refuses to enforce laws—for example, by refusing to prosecute armed, violent criminals. When he can’t rewrite laws, he makes up new laws through executive orders that far exceed his authority.
Now, with no elections ahead to keep Obama in check, God only knows how he plans to complete America’s “transformation.” And he has plenty of allies to help him.
In the federal courts, Congress, the Washington bureaucracy and many state legislatures, a new political creed is gathering strength. They don’t see our country or Constitution as exceptional. They want to hand over America’s sovereignty, strength and freedoms to their fantasy of a globalist, collectivist, one-world utopia.
Instead of wishing other countries were more like America, they want to make us more like the rest of the world. Which means a lesser, weaker America. Less freedom. Less adherence to the principles on which this country was built. Less of everything that makes America the most profound expression of human freedom the world has ever known.
Instead, they want more of what people come to America to escape—more taxes; more regulations; growing, self-serving government, and all the corruption and abuse that go with it.
Too many politicians believe their ends justify their means. But their means and their objectives are exactly what America’s founders intended to reject and prevent.
So if Obama and his allies succeed even further in their “transformation” over the next two years, the America we know and love may cease to exist.
Why Only We Can Stop Them, And Why We Must
By almost every measure, America has grown weaker in recent years. Our economy withers as our national debt skyrockets toward insolvency. Meanwhile, we continue to spend far more money than is available, even as the American economy has been surpassed as No. 1 in the world for the first time in more than a century.
Our national defenses are being cut to the lowest levels in generations, and this is occurring as our enemies continue to arm and expand their militaries.
Our southern border remains largely unguarded, left wide open for anyone—including terrorists bent on death and destruction—to march right in. Meanwhile, our government has turned the country into a surveillance nation, seemingly spending more effort to monitor the activities of its citizens and political opponents than terrorist groups.
Freedom of speech, our right to privacy and other keystones of our Bill of Rights are under silent, chilling, ongoing attack. At the same time, a chattering political class, aided by a dishonest national media, plays games with the very tenets on which our great country was founded, putting us all in danger of living in a land we don’t even recognize.Our national defenses are being cut to the lowest levels in generations, and this is occurring as our enemies continue to arm and expand their militaries.
In fact, only one freedom has grown stronger over the past several decades. From the Right-to-Carry revolution, to the “Castle Doctrine,” to two landmark Supreme Court decisions upholding your right to own guns, the Second Amendment is the only freedom that has expanded while others have retreated.
The credit for that goes to you and every NRA member. In the long run, we’re the only ones on which freedom can truly count.
To keep firearm freedom, we’re obliged to protect all our freedoms, since all freedoms depend on one another. If laws banning Americans from speaking their minds silence our free speech, how can we defend firearm freedom—or any freedom at all? The Second Amendment may be our first freedom. But if it becomes the last right we have, how free and secure can we hope to remain?
As America grows weaker, her enemies grow stronger and our founding principles face death by a thousand cuts. Never before have the Second Amendment—and the NRA that protects it—been more important and necessary.
Over the next 700 days, Barack Obama and his gun-hating, freedom-fearing, big-government allies can make profound, toxic and permanent changes to our country. Only a strong, united, growing NRA can stop them. In fact, only you can stop them.
As head of this organization and as one who shares your love for what makes America the greatest nation on earth, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to renew or upgrade your NRA membership now. This critical point in history is not the time to sit out the next battle.
Help us fight to defend the liberties that guarantee “We the People” remain free—not just in our right to keep and bear arms, but in the freedom to engage in political speech, the right to privacy, and all the interdependent freedoms that form the sacred constellation of American liberty.
Help us take back the America we know and love.
I’m counting on you.
