George Washington was speaking to troops of the Continental Army who were becoming agitated that they had not recieved pay..., even for years after the Revolutionary War had ended..., soldiers who fought bravely, sometimes with little more than rags on their backs and feet and bayonets in hand,  to free this country from the British Monarchy. They were patriots, every one, who asked only that the congress do what they had promised and provide the soldiers with back pay and pensions.  The congress could not pay the soldiers because the states refused to send the money . Washington pleaded with the army for patience as the government worked out a way to pay the soldiers.

 

I bring this up now, only because lately we have been treated to the high demagoguery of a potential lapse in military pay as a reason why an impasse over reducing the burdens placed on the people of this nation by massive government overspending , should be reason enough to stand down from any uncompromising position.  In other words, those who wish to stand firm and resolute against the moral and ethical outrage of our government's unconscionable additction to monolithic debt, should back down now if it means any immedate problem with delivering military pay. The President and the congressional Democrats have employed a tactic in fomenting fear and panic in the families of our courageous military heores in order to divide the country, to play the burdens on the private workforce of our nation against the rightful pay of soldiers who defend us.  We need to see this as the false choice that it is.  There is no need to compromise the rights of either of these groups of citizens.  The Republicans, who have always been staunch allies of our military men and women, have proffered a bill in congress to fund the army through September of this year, in a stand alone measure.  The President, the Commander In Chief of our armed forces, who should have the best concerns of our front line defenders of liberty at heart,   has proven his disloyalty to our men and women in arms by refusing to even consider signing such a bill. 

 

There is no more time to relent on the rising burden that will weigh upon future generations like a mountain, the solvency of our country must not be held hostage to politcal gamesmanship.  The fight to stop the endless overspending, dissolve the debt, and free our nation from a future in which we are chained forever to the millwheel of the federal government , working to feed that monster night and day until we have no time to feed ourselves and our families.., must start now, and must be one of no further compromise. 

 

- Mike Silverman, Milford MA