THIS PAGE
TO A FRIEND
The Last Will And Testament Of
The United States Of America
November 20, 2004
By Jim Moore
I, America the Beautiful, being of sound mind and body, and with my faculties reasonably intact, but feeling my pending demise, my history nearing its end, and eternal darkness waiting for me, do hereby declare this to be my last Will and Testament.
In my 228 years on planet Earth no one could possibly have seen more of life than I have, in so short a time. I've seen forty three presidents come and go. I've seen transition and gridlock, struggles through war and peace, witnessed hate and love. In the days of my years I saw heartbreak and hope; courage and cowardice, good times and hard times, failure and success, life and death.
From explorer, to pilgrim, to frontiersman, to homesteader; from horses and flintlocks, to prairie schooners, to automobiles, to steamships and spaceships, I've witnessed it all, had it all, am proud of it all, and managed to survive it all.
But now, I fear my days are numbered. I am being torn apart by factions, ideologies, religions, destroyers of nations, and evildoers.
Therefore, before I go, before my legacy is lost to civilization forever, I am leaving you with my last Will and Testament; not only as a witness to the world that I was here, but also to leave those who have shared this world with me the memories of these times, so that future generations might think of me occasionally, learn from me, and remember what I, America, gave them.
TO MY FOUNDING FATHERS, I give my undying respect, gratitude and admiration. I realize it wasn't easy for you to give me birth. There was nothing like America on earth at the time. To bring me to life you had to have had a vision of a new kind world. You had to determine which was the best political system for me. To do that, you had to study ancient as well as contemporary history.
Then you had to sacrifice your fortunes, your families, even your lives to bring me into existence. You had to suffer hardships, live with fear, rebel against monarchs, resist oppression, fight tyranny, all in the hope that maybe your vision would become reality. And it did. You made the Declaration of Independence my bones, the Bill of Rights my flesh, the Constitution my blood, and America my name. Thank you.
TO MY CHILDREN, the people who proudly call themselves Americans, I give my hope, strength, and determination. You may come in different sizes and shapes, different colors, different religions, and different tongues, but you, my children, all have one thing in common: You belong to one family, You are all Americans and I love you all.
I am particularly proud of your ingenuity, creativity, craftsmanship, and perseverance. Because of these qualities and what they have produced over the years the rest of the world often looks at me with admiration and sometimes envy. But that is your doing, not mine.
You may thank me for this, but thank yourselves. You already had all those qualities inside you. All I did was give you the freedom to open your mind without fear, and make it possible to discover the genius within yourselves. I must say, you and I have been good for each other.
TO MY FRIENDS, the people in other parts of the world, I give you the principles that my Founding Fathers gave me: freedom, independence, and self-determination. These are the principles of life that I have been blessed with, and I bequeath them to you with my best wishes.
With the huge variety of peoples on Earth there is, of course, bound to be rich and poor, educated and illiterate, poverty and luxury, free and enslaved. After all, you have been created equal but you were not born equal. As America, I have given you an opportunity to be "born again", so to speak; to share my freedom and independence.
I cannot give these blessings to the whole world, though I wish it were possible. But when I am gone I hope you will remember that I did the best I could under the circumstances.
TO MY ENEMIES, the ungrateful ones who are using me to further their own selfish ambitions, I give you my disbelief, my anger, and?128;?. my sympathy.
I give you my disbelief because I cannot believe why someone who has taken advantage of all that I, America, has to offer would turn your back on me and endanger the traditions, heritage and principles which my Founding Fathers gave me, and I in turn entrusted to you.
I give you my anger because your plans to dismantle and destroy me also affect my children. And not just those alive today but those in generations to come, and that I cannot, and will not, accept.
I give you sympathy, because "you know not what you do." I wish I could say that all my children are good Americans. Unfortunately, some are not. And those who are not, for selfish or evil reasons are working against me. This is why I fear the future, even for my life. These destructive children forgot, or do not care, what blessings they have. They do not realize that they will lose it all in the end. I will try to open their minds and their hearts before it is too late.
TO MY GOD, who is the father/mother of ALL, I give my homage, respect, devotion, and love. There was no America centuries ago, but you, Lord, were pleased to put the Great Possibility in the minds of my Founding Fathers at that singular moment in universal time. And I and my children have been the benefactors of it. More you could not give me, more I could not ask.
Therefore, on this date, October 20, in the year 2004, and because the future looks uncertain and bleak, I hereby render my last Will and Testament for all present to witness.
Signed: The United States of America
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml