"Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!"

Well, my English class can be pretty fun once you get used to it... After having read Patrick Henry's "Speech to the Virginia Convention" (the one with "Give me Liberty, or give me death!" marking the end of it), they had us write a speech, a "Call to Action." Well, as easy subject as drugs, poverty, crime, military involvement, etc. usually are, I have trouble convincing myself of any one set of convictions towards them. So, what really ignites my ire? Arrogant punks that walk around museums and high-five the Thoth, temple-guarding baboons from Ancient Egypt. Seriously~ So, I wrote about that. It is a little, er, odd. But, then again, I can't really write speeches, and speeches are best interpreted and read aloud by the author. But, anyhow, I decided that I would share the rough draft of my Call for Action here. Enjoy all of me and my strange quirks. (Who else would choose to write about this sort of thing? Using guilt-powered speeches on poverty tends to be so much more common...)

Ladies and Gentlemen: how many civilizations have flourished since this world first came into being? From ancient times to the present, cultures have risen to power, blossomed in the spring of their existence, and then met with a sudden and usually violent demise. Today, we collect their pots and coins, the story of both their golden ages and of their darkest hours, and then store them in grandiose museums. The stories of their lives, the golden masterpieces they have left behind, to be remember by, are plastered into books and pounded into the minds of our children in school. Even so, why does it seem like they never learn to respect it? The do not have to like it, but would restraining themselves from playing paddy-whack with a sculpture be too much to ask? Some buildings have withstood the test of time with a surrealistic and melancholy elegance, speaking of times during which people hurried along their lives, pausing only briefly to glance up at the awe-inspiring beauty around them. Other monuments embody the ideals of that age, or the standard of wealth. Others attempt to cover up shady businesses, hoodwinking a people into thinking themselves rich, when, in fact enemies were swarming from all sides. Still, the steadfast majesty of these relics seems to transport us into those days, linking the past with the present in a dreamy hazy.

Overall, it seems like we are not only indebted to these past wonders, but should also guard over them and preserve them. Why then, should our generation find themselves so arrogant as to high-five a temple-guarding Baboon from Ancient Egypt, or casually shake hands with the callous marble Roman emperors? The people of our time sway the pendulum of history towards a carefree life of ease and of indolent, arrogant pleasure. Any time we open a history book we are reminded how mankind always aspires to create a beautiful society, even if only to be crushed mercilessly and with savage brutality later on. So why now, now that we have been able to salvage and restore these priceless artifacts, these golden keys that open up the sealed door of our past, why are they being jostled about? receiving high-fives from every arrogant punk that wants a souvenir picture of him patting the royal stone lions?

This disrespect for what humanity has achieved is another reflection of the moral deterioration of these recent generations. This mocking attitude illustrates how lax discipline has become--in a general sense. Slowly, not only respect but all moral values are entering a slump, spiraling downward into a dark abyss of near-anarchy. We must stop them. For the sake of our world, and for the generations to come, we must!