This is the week we wrap up Flag Season as the country celebrates Independence Day on The Fourth of July.
We celebrate the Fourth even though our founders voted to separate from England on July 2.
It was on July 2 that they committed treason against the Crown.
It was July 2 when they put their lives, fortunes, and reputations on the line.
It was July 2 that John Adams thought would be celebrated as the great anniversary of our country's birth.
But we celebrate July 4.
July 4 was the day the wording of the document we know as The Declaration of Independence approved by the Continental Congress.
But the vote to declare independence was held July 2.
The document was not signed on July 4. The official version in the format we are familiar with had not even been written yet. Only the final wording was approved. There was only a rough draft, an edited draft, the one with all the scratched out words on it on July 4.
Thomas Jefferson has gotten a raw deal over the years. Thomas Jefferson put down on paper the reasons for rebelling against the Crown. He is responsible for codifying the very ideals that laid the foundation for the American psyche and way of life.
Thomas Jefferson should be celebrated WAY more than he is.
Instead, there are people trying to minimize his words by attacking his character. There are Americans today who want to attack the very foundations of this country by going after the flawed human beings who risked everything to bring about a miracle of a new nation formulated around untested theories regarding the role of government.
And they all, each and every one of them, agreed it was worth risking everything. They pledged their reputations, their treasure, their very lives, for an IDEA.
Yet instead of recognizing the amazing nature of this idea and the bravery it took to defend it with everything they were, we have Americans who want to tear down their statues, remove the idea from the classroom, and replace it with tyranny in the American psyche.
This is amazing to me. So what ARE we celebrating on July 4?
While the list of abuses made in the Declaration of Independence may not resonate with us, we still like to quote the preamble. I know I do (breaks and emphasis added.):
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, […] a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Again, we may not be familiar with the list of abuses provided by Jefferson. Yet maybe we should take another look. Because it appears to me that there has yet again been “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same” grand design – to “reduce [us] under absolute Despotism.”
We are a much larger country now. And there is a lot of talk about what we should do about the long train of abuses by our government housed in D.C. And as my husband likes to say, “If we were to abolish our government, there is no guarantee that what we end up with wouldn’t be much worse.”
The war was already underway in 1776 when this official declaration was written, when the vote for independence was taken.
This moment when they placed everything on the line – there were already Americans battling the British and people were already dying.
And there are those fighting the battles for us right now. In the courtrooms, in the boardrooms, in the classrooms, in city halls and state capitols.
And just like in 1776, there are those who are fighting against the IDEA of liberty.
So this week, let’s just remember that freedom is worth defending.
Freedom is worth losing one’s job over.
Freedom is worth losing one’s life savings over.
Freedom is worth losing one’s life to defend.
At least it used to be.
“Give me liberty or give me death!” was not an empty ultimatum by Patrick Henry. Yet in the luxury and ease borne out of the freedom we all live in (mostly unconsciously or subconsciously), most Americans cannot fathom giving up their creature comforts in favor of liberty.
I think it may be because the lines have yet to be drawn. We don’t know exactly what we might have to give up to retain our liberties. And we believe someone else will always be willing to do the fighting for us.
But I do know the long train of abuses led me to found Freedom Academy in 2020.
I do know the abuses of 2020-2022 led me to write The Unraveling.
And I know what I have sacrificed so far.
But I also know I am free.
I am consciously living a free life.
And I am intentionally pursuing happiness.
And I want to take as many as are willing to go on the journey with me.
To see what it will take, I invite you to
I also invite you to
In the past week, not only have there been several important Supreme Court decisions come down, but there was the first (and earliest ever) 2024 presidential debate. We have a lot to talk about.
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