How do you tell a cynical millennial that there is still hope and promise in America? How do you persuade a young person who sees a tattered American dream that there are ways to reinvigorate this country? How do we convince a young American to realize that "if freedom is lost here there is no [other] place to escape to?"

How do you explain to a generation of students who have never learned about socialism and communism that these ideas are inimical to what the Founding Fathers wanted? How do you remind them of the radical idea that "government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people?" And that if we give up this birthright of ours, we have surrendered to the totalitarianism that describes far too much of the world.

How do you assert that America's best years are not behind us but that the best is yet to be -- if, and only if, we begin a return to America's ideals of freedom and opportunity and not let an overweening government sap away our energies and our dreams?

How do you prove to a generation who receives its news in sound bites and from uninformed entertainers that a separation of powers is critical to maintaining a balance of power? How do you emphasize to them that when a government agency breaks the law and we do not rise up to demand a rectification, we, the American people, have foolishly chosen a "downward path?"

Time is truly short, but, it behooves us to be reminded of the words of Ronald Reagan when on October 27, 1964 he wrote "A Time for Choosing"

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.'

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.

Consider that Hillary has hinted that she likes the confiscation of guns as she cites the Australian example and ignores the Second Amendment.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

In fact, "Hillary Clinton wants to expand Social Security, a program that's already bankrupt, and fund it by taxing high incomes and capital gains. Social Security's unfunded liabilities for the future now total over $25 trillion. No, that's not a typo -- it's trillion." This simply cannot be sustained and is an existential threat to the country.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.

Hillary Clinton will usher in a third term of Barack Hussein Obama. Her mounting scandals demonstrate that she has broken American law on numerous occasions. How can this woman be given the sacred mantle of the presidency when she clearly thinks she is a law unto herself? On every major issue between Hillary and Trump, it is a clear-cut choice -- either elect someone who wants to expand government and rob Americans of our rights or begin the arduous task of whittling down government control. Yet,

". . . any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always 'against,' never 'for' anything.

We who see the horrors of Venezuela and Argentina in their slide toward socialism are alarmed that America is headed in this direction.

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

Donald Trump's plans to restore security, the rule of law, and the protection of the American worker are course corrections for our current situation. We now owe over $21 trillion dollars, and 95 million Americans are unemployed. Despair and fear of debt are echoed by far too many of the young people in my classrooms.

There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

Trump wants to "lift restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars worth of job producing American energy reserves including shale oil, natural gas and clean coal."

Hillary Clinton will add more onerous bureaucracies and will further burden Americans. The current Democratic party is "now in all but name a socialist party. If Clinton wins, the government will . . . tell companies how much they must pay employees. And if you think that this is unconstitutional . . . it won’t matter, because she will appoint left-wing Supreme Court justices and left-wing federal judges who do not view their roles as protectors of the Constitution."

Reagan correctly reminded us to "recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon [our] own business."

Obama's many unconstitutional actions must be overturned. Hillary will not do this; but Trump has pledged that he will "cancel all unconstitutional executive orders issued by President Obama."

The Congress needs to be reined in and do its job or it does not deserve the privilege of making fiscal decisions. And this goes for any Republican or Democrat who has not listened to the people's will. Trump has stated that he will ask for "a 5 year ban on former White House and congressional officials becoming lobbyists." He also wants to "propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress."

Because no government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size, government programs once launched never go out of existence.

ObamaCare must finally end. It continues to repeatedly fail, as it was always intended to, and "millions of people will soon find only one insurance company participating in their area. Premiums will climb at rates that were unimaginable before Obamacare allegedly fixed the individual insurance market. Ultimately, the single payer system that Obama and Hillary yearn for will be the final nail in the coffin.

Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.

In fact, as Victor Davis Hanson explains "what destroys civilizations are not, as popularly advertised, plagues, global warming, or hostile tribes on the horizon, as much as self-indulgence, self-delusion -- and, finally, abject paralysis."  Since "no nation can remain stable when 10-20 million foreign nationals have crashed through . . . an open border and reside unlawfully" it is incumbent to "suspend immigration from terror prone regions" as Trump has proposed.

If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.

The Trump/Pence plans are a beginning. As Reagan reminded us, "we have come to a time for choosing." Will we continue to be the "last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence [our children] into a thousand years of darkness?

Will we have done all "that could be done?"

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com