Let’s say you love someone after developing a deep appreciation her many wonderful qualities.  But over time, her actions and words leave you with the sinking feeling that she is changing.  Until one day you are forced to admit – I don’t even know who you are anymore!

The America that I love has been changing, but it wasn’t until Feb. 26 that I was struck with the realization that I don’t recognize my country anymore.  That was the day three FCC commissioners, without revealing the regulations or taking public comment, decided to take regulatory control of the internet.  The same day President Obama unilaterally banned bullets, denying lawful gun owners access to those bullets, thereby infringing upon their Second Amendment rights.  Finally, Congress seemed on the verge of allowing Obama’s executive action on illegal immigration to stand – an action for which he repeatedly said as a candidate and later as president he did not have Constitutional authority.  This flurry of authoritarian activities was just the latest in a series of lawless actions taken by the U.S. government.

Let me ask my fellow citizens: you may be cheering about the outcomes, but do you agree with the lawless ways in which they were achieved?  If so, you are playing with fire.  Be wary, for it may burn you. George Washington said that government is “like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

The unpleasant reality is that America has changed into something unrecognizable.  It is truer today than when the words were first spoken in 1864.  We on both the left and right must together resolve “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  If we fail to act, it will perish, and in our lifetime.  For that, generations yet to come will surely curse our names.