I was watching the Patriot on demand the other day. Man I love that movie. Say what you want about Mel Gibson, but one thing is for sure, he knows how to put together a movie!
One of the most powerful aspects of the movie is the fact that Mel Gibson’s character (Benjamin Martin) has settled into his ways. He has fought his war (The French and Indian War) and was so ruthless that people in other countries are familiar with his warrior ways. Ben has a family, he lost his wife in death, and despite being upset by the oppression from Britain over 3,000 miles away he decides that war is not the answer. He is dead set on keeping to himself, even opting out of the vote that commits Charles Town to the fight. This is all until the battle is brought to his front yard robbing him of his son and his home. After the death of his son and what seems to be the imminent death of his oldest son, Benjamin Martin feels that there is no other option besides joining the fight.
As I watched the movie I could not help but to realize that Benjamin Martin paints a very clear picture of the citizens of the United States. Just as he had used his family, his home, and his past experiences to become apathetic I see Americans becoming the same. My generation did not face the attacks that my grandfather’s generation faced at Pearl Harbor; we have not seen wars and battles that claimed thousands of lives in a single day. No one alive in America or around the world today had to face the oppressions that our forefathers faced from Britain, the French, and other nations that desired to rule and own this country. We are not familiar with the struggles that it took to get our country where it is today, where it was 50 years ago, even a century ago. We do not understand what Americans went through fighting amongst and against each other, putting families against families and friends against friends in the Civil War. For the majority of us, the way we see it and have it is the way it’s always been. Sure we have to get out and work to pay the bills and to get the next best thing, but we have not faced the struggles of a developing government, the building of a nation, or the passions that drove the founding fathers of our nation.
We’ve read about how the Declaration of Independence was formed, we’ve learned and studied about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but we cannot comprehend what it took to get our country to those documents, laws, and guidelines. For the majority of us, we have never faced the religious oppression that the Pilgrims risked their life to avoid.
America and her people lack passion. We have become apathetic; in fact most of us were born into that apathy. We are ashamed to fly the red, white, and blue. We shy away from expressing ourselves politically. We believe politics and religion should not mix. Not that politics should dictate a single religion to the people and force them to conform to a single following, but that a person’s beliefs and convictions can guide their decisions, and that all men are free to practice their religious rights anywhere at anytime without fear of arrest or expulsion or other punishments. The separation of church and state was formed so there was not a single governing church and that the people were not forced by the government to follow that single religious following. It was not to say that Bibles cannot be taken on school property or religious practices cannot take place in government offices and in political arenas. Separation of church and state was not formed to disallow the 10 Commandments from our court rooms when it was the very foundation of those commandments that helped form the very laws and governing of our country. We’ve allowed apathetic people to teach us and to train us in their apathetic ways. Unfortunately it took a tragedy on 9/11 to bring patriotism back to our country. People flew the American flag on their cars and at their homes for weeks. Everywhere you looked you saw the American Flag and America represented. The banner that represents our freedom and our liberty that was paid for at such a high price flew proudly. Where is that patriotism today? We’ve forgotten what that tragedy represented, the passion that it inspired, we were more interested in being politically correct and apathetic than to be passionate for a cause, the cause of freedom and liberty!
I heard someone on the radio comment that the people have lost control of our government. We have allowed politicians on both sides of the isle to set a bad precedence for the way our government operates. Too many things are done in secret. Policies are made without clear and understandable explanation to the people. Politicians run their candidacy for public office promising certain things whether it is conservatism or liberalism, only to deceive the people they are to represent. Yet, because we the people of the United States have become so apathetic, lacking any passion for our cities, states, and our country we sit back and let the politicians have their way. Abraham Lincoln said this, “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
My favorite part of the Patriot is when Benjamin Martin finds a flag in his oldest son’s (Gabriel’s) bag after his death. Gabriel found the flag torn, dirty, and trampled after a lost battle. The scene shows a wounded soldier snarl at Gabriel and claim that it is a lost cause, referring to the cause to bring freedom and liberty to America from Britain. Gabriel just looks at the man and places the flag in his bag. Throughout the movie Gabriel works at repairing the flag to a useable condition. As Benjamin Martin pulls the flag out of his son’s bag he can see the work that Gabriel put into it. He saw the patches of new cloth to repair the tears. Benjamin was about to back out of the final depicted battle, one of the most important battles because of the loss of his son, but it was the flag that convinced him otherwise. It was more of a picture of passion. Gabriel was always more passionate about the cause of freedom than his dad was, that’s what drove him to fight the battles, repair the flag, and ultimately sacrifice his life. He was far from apathetic, he was full of passion! As the wounded and the depleted army of the Americans was heading to the battle, in the distance you can see something start to appear, everyone turns around to get a look…its Benjamin Martin and he’s carrying the American Flag leading the men into battle…you can see it and hear it in the men’s voices they are now ready to fight the battle before them.
We need some people that are full of passion that will stand up for the people of the United States. We would be foolish to think that we are safe from the tyranny of terrorist, that we are safe from the oppression that the socialist and communist in our country want to put us under. We need some people that w
ill stand up and let their voices be heard. We need people that will wave the banner of freedom and liberty to wake those who are asleep in our country. We need voices that will protect with passion what our forefathers created and built with their passion, sweat, blood, and tears. We need people that will ignore all of the danger that is around them in order to pick up the flag from those who are retreating in the battle to lead the charge forward.
The rights that we have been given were not just given to us. They were not just written on a piece of paper without a purpose. They didn’t just happen, instead they were planned and thought through; they were created with a moral standard and backbone. They were formed to protect the liberty and freedom of mankind with the idea that God was at the core foundation of all that we did. Our forefathers feared and honored their creator God because they realized the battles and the obstacles they had to overcome were not done by their power alone but through the help of a higher power. The men and women who want to amend and change our Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the very core foundations that this country was founded on are doing so with the lack of understanding and experience that those who wrote them did so with. Our forefathers had close personal relationships with God, He was the very one that made them passionate. Now that we have allowed just a few people to almost completely remove any remembrance and acknowledgement of God from this country, we have thus in our apathy allowed our nation to become godless. If we continue to allow a godless, moral-less, backboneless society to change what our forefathers fought so hard to build and to create, we will have allowed them to do so in vain, their blood, their tears, their lives will have been offered in vain.
Now is not the time to retreat, but it is time to stand. One of the final scenes in the Patriot is where Benjamin Martin ignores all of the gunshots around him, the sword fights, and the battles. He sees the line breaking and a flag bearer retreating, so he grabs the flag and he start yelling with all he has to hold the line, hold the line, hold the line…he charges and urges everyone to push forward. He gets to the top of the hill and he waves the flag, doing all he can to spur the soldiers forward, to not give up, to keep the passions burning, to win the battle. Right before it looks like Benjamin Martin is going to lose his life to his arch enemy the camera switches to a view where you can see that American soldiers running past him and pushing the enemy back…Benjamin’s face seems content with what appears to be his final fate; death. He sees that his efforts to lead his people to victory, even if he lost this little battle, was not in vain. The Americans were going to win the war.
I urge you on this 4th of July! Stand. Fight the fight to protect this country from the apathetic and godless people who desire to destroy what our forefathers and our families have sacrificed greatly to build. As the people of the United States let us take our government back into our control and make sure that the people we elect do as we desire. We are common people, but we are not stupid. We know what we want and we know what is best for our country. Let us never allow apathy to set into our hearts and into our lives. Look back, think back, do whatever research is needed to have a clear understanding of where our country has come from and what it has endured so that we can preserve what she is. Happy Independence Day! Charge Forward…
Nick