By John Toups
Citizen, Thibodaux
Believer in Political Vigilance, and in Eternal Vigilance as Expressed by Our Founder, Thomas Jefferson
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” — Thomas Jefferson
“We now live in a world where illusion is more real than reality, where the image has replaced the truth.” — Chris Hedges
I have to be honest.
As a citizen, I feel I’ve fallen short.
I’ve known what our founders warned, that liberty doesn’t last on its own, and that unchecked power will always grow if no one checks it. I’ve known that the Constitution only works if we do. But like so many others, I’ve allowed myself to become a spectator, assuming someone else was doing the work of protecting our freedoms.
We’ve been lulled. Distracted. Entertained. And now, we’re disoriented.
Look around—trust is collapsing in every institution: government, education, media, religion, business. It’s not just national. It’s right here in Thibodaux. And while we scroll, stream, and stay silent, power concentrates, budgets bloat, and no one answers for it.
We are being taxed again quietly, without a vote.
There’s a millage increase being proposed—small on the surface, but emblematic of something larger: the routine expansion of government without transparency, oversight, or citizen participation.
In 2020, our city budget was approximately $42 million. In 2024, it had ballooned to over $62 million.
Has your quality of life doubled?
Are services better?
Have you seen any meaningful debate about where that money is going?
Our City Council offers little public scrutiny. The Mayor’s budget passes with barely a question. And as citizens, most of us don’t even know when the votes are taking place—much less what’s being decided.
And that’s on us.
Chris Hedges calls this The Empire of Illusion.
He writes about a society that exchanges truth for comfort, civic duty for spectacle. A culture where the people no longer act, they consume—and trust erodes not because we are lied to, but because we have stopped asking questions.
We don’t engage, not because we don’t care, but because somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that nothing we do matters.
That is the death of citizenship.
Are we citizens? Or props in someone else’s performance?
Why are we afraid to speak?
Why, in a free country, do so many of us whisper concerns to each other—but not to the people who represent us?
It’s like having fire, but staying cold.
Like knowing how to read, but refusing to open the book.
Like owning a voice, but choosing silence.
We have generations watching us—children and grandchildren looking to see what freedom actually means. What will we teach them? That vigilance is optional? That surrender is practical? That speaking truth only matters when it’s popular?
I believe they deserve better. And so do we.
This isn’t about one tax. It’s about the pattern.
Yes, the proposed millage increase is small. But the larger issue is this:
We are not being invited into decisions that affect us.
We are being managed, not represented.
And we are being told, implicitly, that we are too passive or too ignorant to notice.
But we do notice.
We notice the waste.
We notice the silence of our elected officials.
We notice the eroding trust.
We notice that we haven’t been showing up—and that it’s time we did.
A Call to Action
We have a choice.
We can continue to let power grow quietly while we stay entertained, distracted, and divided.
Or we can take one small step back into civic life:
- Show up at the City Council meeting.
- Speak to your councilmember.
- Ask about the budget.
- Ask why this tax increase is necessary and where the last one went.
The next election is coming. But voting without transparency is like aiming without sight.
Let’s start holding people accountable now, not after the damage is done.
Because the real threat is not taxation.
It’s the erosion of representation.
And if we don’t demand that our voices matter now, we may one day find they don’t.