The Enemy Within

January 18, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment

While our nation is struggling to protect itself from terrorism, another enemy just as dangerous to our freedom is almost imperceptibly enslaving us from within. This sirenic enemy is not human but it manifests itself in the material things we use every day of our lives. It is our custom homes, our SUVs, our new furniture and clothes, our big-screen TV’s and our computers.

This insidious enemy of our freedom is all of these things — bought on credit.

According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, there was one bankruptcy filed for every 73 households in 2003, a new record and a 99% increase since 1993. The Federal Reserve indicates that household debt hit $8.9 billion nationally in 2003, also a record high relative to disposable income. Americans now spend $1.22 for every dollar they earn.

What is the difference between a family with two wage earners struggling to pay off the credit cards, mortgage, and car payments, and the slave toiling under chains? It’s true that the family simply enjoys a higher standard of living than the slave. So is that what America has been reduced to; prostituting our freedom for material consumption?

It’s also true that the slave doesn’t have a choice for freedom, which is precisely what makes our situation so pathetic; we are not being placed in bondage externally, we are choosing our own slavery.

Talk to any red-blooded, flag-waving American and he’ll tell you that America is the most free country in the world, even as he calls his wife to tell her to do another balance transfer on the credit cards. He’ll point to our economic prosperity as proof that we are the greatest country in the world, without realizing that our prosperity is mostly a credit-induced facade, a house of cards ready to fall at the first sign of weakening faith. He’ll abuse the political freedoms that he claims to cherish by voting himself yet another material benefit, happily provided by power-hungry politicians who are more than willing to spur on the artificial economy by inducing more easy credit in exchange for votes.

It matters not whether we are conquered from without by terrorists or communists, or from within by falling prey to the siren of debt-induced materialism. Either way we are in bondage. Our Constitution does not provide us our freedom; it simply provides an external structure that allows us to choose internally to be free or not. It simply gives us the opportunity of freedom.

So if you’re a freedom-loving patriot who is ready to fight and die for America, land of the free, home of the brave, don’t flaunt your red, white, and blue flag on your brand new truck purchased on credit. Prove your patriotism by living within your means. Let your financial statement validate your love of liberty.