Brian Ray challenges Americans to pay the price of resisting government dictates

Are you passively encouraging tyranny, or resisting and pushing back?

You and I might talk big as if we were freedom lovers and believed in the God-ordained jurisdictions of individual, family, church and state. But are you and I passively encouraging and increasing government and corporate tyranny, or are we assertively pushing back and saying no to their wrong rules, mandates and orders?

I recently made a decision not to go to Ireland in January. It was hard. I really wanted to go. I had three presentations accepted at a significant conference, and I would be able to present new research, get more notoriety and advance the work of the nonprofit I run and a good cause. It was a hard decision and cost me something. It didn't "feel" good, but I did it. One of the main reasons I decided not to go was to prevent two different nations' governments from wrongly repressing and controlling me.

Where will you draw the line with our various governments intruding into our personal lives, over which only the Lord God has direct jurisdiction? How and when will you speak up or resist our civil magistrates and businesses that are working to quash our freedoms?Are you passively encouraging tyranny, or resisting and pushing back? Are you allowing repression to grow, or are you pushing forward for freedom? This is a serious matter, now. What cost are you willing to pay to say no? To not take certain benefits?

Are you part of the problem, or are you helping with the solution?

Keeping our government-recognized and God-ordained duties, rights and freedoms takes work. It will cost you something, if you really believe in them. Let's consider what many have said during the past 20 months:

Oh, I'll just get virus tested to attend this or that event or enter a store. After all, it's just testing. After all, it's free. After all, they say that I can later write an opt-out note so that no one shares my information. Really?!

No, it is not just testing. It is passively allowing the government (or a business) to take, bit by bit, your freedoms. Why do you want the State controlling what you may buy or sell based on whether you get a particular medical test? Or inject substance X into your body? Whether you get to attend event Y? Why do you want to cooperate with government officials – who are supposed to be public servants, not public masters – doing that? Why do you want to encourage the State to squelch more of your 220-year-old American freedoms?

No, it is not free. There is no free lunch; nothing is free. Either the government is paying for the testing – by forcing some of your neighbor's hard-earned money out of his hands (taxes) – or some giant corporation is paying for it – which means the customers actually pay for it. Either way, do you want to support and participate in more socialism, statism, communism, and fascism and more profit for big drug-making companies? You say you don't believe in these things, but are you voluntarily participating in them?

No, you cannot take back your personal information. Do you think that once your name, birth date and virus test information is in a spreadsheet and given to government agents (or a business, e.g., restaurant) that you can ask for it back, and agents will go into myriad spreadsheets and databases and backups where your personal information – that may have already been sold – resides and carefully delete it? You are dreaming if you think so.

You say, "Oh, they already have my personal information." Have you already given up on freedom? I pray not. Are you saying you want to surrender more freedom and privacy for more enslavement? Now is the time to stop this. There is no need to keep participating and submitting to unnecessary infringements on your and your neighbors' freedom. There is no need to get injections and medical tests you don't need and let the government and businesses control you more.

Look at once-free Australia. The citizens waited too long to resist, and now they are essentially under house arrest unless the government tells them they may go out to buy food, or go visit their family or friends. Some are being taken away by force and being put in what are essentially internment camps. In some other nations, it is not quite that bad – people are "just" being told they are required to be vaccinated to go into stores to buy and sell. Oh, and by the way, this is the current law in Los Angeles, one of the largest cities in the supposed "land of the free and home of the brave."

Why are you submitting to anti-biblical and anti-U.S.-Constitution government controls? Why are you not resisting? Why are you not pushing back? Why are you letting the power-mongers and profiteers control you when you don't have to?

Is it because there is a price to pay? A cost? Because if you don't submit to these controls you cannot go into some stores or attend some entertainment events? Are you willing to pay a price? Are you willing to count the cost and resist before it is too late in your state/province and your nation?

Are you being seduced by soft totalitarianism despite the fact that you think you are not?

"And this is the thing about soft totalitarianism: It seduces those – even Christians – who have lost the capacity to love enduringly, for better or for worse. They think love, but they merely desire. They think they follow Jesus, but in fact, they merely admire him. Each of us thinks we wouldn't be like that. But if we have accepted the lie of our therapeutic culture, which tells us that personal happiness is the greatest good of all, then we will surrender at the first sign of trouble." – Rod Dreher, "Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents"

Have you and I learned from history? We say that it can't happen here. No?

Pastor Martin Niemöller (of Germany, who had a personal meeting with Adolf Hitler) is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

That is how most totalitarianism and fascism happen, bit by bit, little by little.

Why should we fight to retain and restore freedom? Because we all, in free nations, fundamentally know this is good and right. Liberty is an unalienable right, and we were all supposed to be taught this long before we finished high school. Remember, governments and most government officials, don't love you.

It is your right to choose how to serve and love others. How and what to buy and sell. Where and when to travel. More freedom gives you more options to use your creativity to serve others. Governments are not wise, and they should not be telling you and me how to serve others, what to buy and sell, how and where to travel, and how and when to go take care of others in person.

What do you want to leave behind for your children and grandchildren? Are you ready to resist, to push back, to be courageous and have it cost you something?

Have you drawn a hard and liberty-honoring and biblical line yet? It's time to count the cost and pay a price.