Politicians are always talking about “balancing.” They want to balance our Rights with their need for security. They want to balance our Rights with their need for prosperity. Why is it that its always our RIGHTS that get the compromise in favor of their power?
Alternatively you can listen to “Your Need for Power, Doesn’t Trump My Rights” by KrisAnne Hall on YouTube
The 2A is under federal attack TODAY in Kansas and that means it is under attack everywhere! James Madison explains!
“But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke;” Fed 46
Kansas Attorney General, Derek Schmidt – Website
Phone number, (785) 296-2215.
Alternatively you can listen to “2nd Amendment Under Attack by the Federal Government” by KrisAnne Hall on YouTube
We cannot forget that we are a government of the people, for the people and by the people. A government that receives it’s just powers from the consent of the governed. And at some point we’re going to have to wake up and realize that we can no longer consent to our own chains and shackles. That we can no longer consent to our own slavery. Regardless of the promise or of this benefit, or that benefit. It is a historical inevitably that we are slipping into a situation where a government taking more and more power will bind us hand and feet. The benefit promise will not come and the benefits you have will eventually disappear. So are you going to be a defender of liberty? A bystander and cheerleader? Every tyrant begins with a promise until the end is tyranny. So what is it that you love more important than liberty?
As I watch the video of a parent in Maryland get manhandled and arrested for standing up to the lies of a school board, my heart fills with an overwhelming anger and disgust. First at the propaganda and lies perpetrated upon our children through government controlled schools upon unsuspecting parents. Secondly at the people who sat and watched this happen without intervening. Thirdly, at the clear violation of our First Amendment committed by the very institutions that are charged with educating our children and that should be teaching our children to defend their Liberty.
Finally, my heart drops to my stomach realizing that this is just the beginning. You see, in 2011 our federal government passed a bill known as HR347/S1794 The Federal Building and Grounds Improvement Act. I did what I could to educate America on the insidious nature of this bill. Read my analysis as published in 2011 in this article; “HR347/S1794: A Trespass on the First Amendment.”
But this bill was sponsored by Rep. Tom Rooney of Florida, a “conservative, constitutionally minded, republican” and my analysis was disregarded as something that would “never happen in America”.
This bill was passed into law with overwhelming support from our so-called “conservative, constitutionally minded, republican House.” HR347 makes what this concerned parent did, on the federal level, a federal offense punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison. So if this parent had been at a Townhall meeting held by his Representative, Senator, or the President, he would have been “lawfully” arrested and sentenced. Lawfully, mind you, but NOT Constitutionally.
When we tamely allow something like this to happen to members of our community, we become cheerleaders to the very tyranny that will enslave us.
I am reminded by what Sam Adams said, “’if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.’ It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.” (Essay, written under the pseudonym “Candidus,” in The Boston Gazette (14 October 1771))
Sam Adams says of our liberties:
“We have receiv’d them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas’d them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath’d to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. — Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance.”
Sam Adams, as cited above.
I will make you this promise, before I am charged with a crime that will put me in prison for 10 years…I will EARN my sentence. How about you? Fed up? Ready to pull your kids out of government schools? Or perhaps, the indoctrination of your child into a God-hating, government-loving, socialist-indoctrinating prison camp, is not bad enough….not yet. And if not now, then perhaps not ever. Perhaps slavery is most powerful when you don’t realize you’re a slave.
(The speech that got me fired.)
I would like to speak to you today on the subject of INFORMING OURSELVES.
Thomas Jefferson warned;
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
We have enjoyed the benefits left to us by previous generations. America has had the greatest medical system, the greatest technologies, the strongest military, the greatest economy. However, as our nation has prospered we have become distracted by our luxuries, busied by our labors and lazy toward our liberties. We have allowed the enemies of freedom to worm their way into positions of power and influence.
The Heritage Foundation says it like this,
“There is widespread ignorance of American history… We face an education system that upholds mediocrity in the name of relativism; an ever-expanding and centralized government, unmoored from constitutional limits; judges openly making laws and shaping society based on pop-philosophy rather than serious jurisprudence…At the root of all these problems is a pervasive ignorance about the core principles that define America and ought to inform our politics and policy.”
Unfortunately, I would agree with them. That’s why the tea-party movement is so important and so encouraging. I am actually encouraged that the Tea-Party is not a party at all; it is We the People. We the People founded this nation and I believe – We the People will take it back!
But We the People must Inform Ourselves if we wish to take back our nation for ourselves and our children. Notice I did not say that we need to be informed, rather we need to inform OURSELVES. Truth is Power and it is up to us to search out and secure the Truth. The Bible says, “…ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” If we arm ourselves with truth and act on that truth we can be free from the bondage that ideological tyrants would desire to enslave us with.
Patrick Henry said in his famous speech from St. Johns Church in 1775.
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.“
Patrick Henry’s experience with a heavy handed government illuminated his understanding of the future… And if American Liberty is to continue, we must inform ourselves and arm ourselves with the collective experience of those that have come before. I want to mention four things as briefly as I can on the subject of Informing Ourselves.
First, We the People must inform ourselves on our Core Principles. A principle can be defined as a standard based upon truth and experience, and which serves as a foundation upon which thought and action are built. A primary principle upon which this nation rests is Constitutionalism – which is an understanding that the operation of our government and the security of our liberty are to be guided by our founding documents, interpreted according to the framer’s intent.
The Declaration and the Constitution have been relentlessly attacked in modern times. Our own President has implied that our Constitution’s ideas are flawed. The professors in our law schools deride its relevance. Progressives would have it be as malleable as silly putty. But We the People recognize that the Declaration and Constitution have served as the bedrock of our freedom for hundreds of years. The genius with which our founding fathers laid down the principles in these precious documents, I believe, can only be attributed to the providence of God. And we have a solemn duty to ourselves and our posterity to become informed in the Core principles contained in our founding documents.
Get a copy of the Declaration and Constitution; study them. Research the history of how they came to be. Acquaint yourselves with men like John Leland and the Baptist Union of Virginia, without whom there would be no Bill of Rights. Read the wisdom of George Washington in his farewell address and be grounded by the experience of one our nation greatest heroes.
–We the People must Know our core principles- Become not only grounded in them, but become their champions. For, freedom of speech has no voice of its own, but it waits in silence for you to plead its case. The right to assemble will sit alone until you, its champions, gather in the face of despotism. Our forefathers cry out through the pages of history, but unheard until you give the written word – voice and life. When our history is lost either through revision or apathy, then our liberty is lost as well.
–We the People must Know our Core principles and stand for them without wavering…for they are our liberty.
The words of Patrick Henry still ring true 235 years later, “Why stand we here idle?,” he said, “What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Secondly, We the People must not only inform ourselves on our Core Principles, must inform ourselves about Contrary Principles. If our core principles serve to secure and maintain the liberty we wish to enjoy, then it stands to reason that there are contrary principles that threaten that same liberty, and we must be able to identify these enemies of our liberty.
Sun Tzu says in his Art of War, “Know thine enemy as thyself.” We must always remember that our enemies are not people or parties, but the freedom-destroying principles that they espouse. We must inform ourselves on the principles of progressivism, socialism, communism; and the mechanisms these philosophies use such as redistribution of wealth, centralization of power, progressive taxation, and restrictions on free speech. Once we are informed on these principles we will then recognize them. And we must oppose them regardless of the party or personality attempting to employ them.
I say again, We must not give a free pass because of personality or party affiliation. It is ironic that Teddy Roosevelt is heralded as a great hero of the Republican Party, when in fact history testifies that he was the leader of the anti-constitutional progressives in 1912. It was also under the Republican Party that the refundable tax credit was enacted, allowing progressives to engage in redistribution of wealth and enslave citizens with the tax refund.
Am I anti-Republican? No; but these enemies of our liberty entered in because we put party over principle. The president recently suggested that his program of socialized medicine was okay because Republican Mitt Romney proposed the same program. It is not wrong because of who proposed it; it’s wrong because it is based on principles that are contrary to Liberty.
You would not allow anyone to feed your child rat poison whether the giver was Satan or Santa Claus. Progressivism, however, does not come in a bottle with skull and crossbones. It shows up as something or someone who wants to “help” and it will have a cute little name like acorn. It will talk about fairness and recovery; aide and stimulus; always sounding positive, but underneath – a deadly poison. Again we must be grounded in our Core principles, but we must also be guarded against these Contrary principles which poison our freedom and destroy our future.
We the People must not only inform ourselves about Contrary Principles, but we must also inform ourselves about Candidates. We should now realize that a charismatic personality, eloquent speechmaking, and catchy slogans do not a leader make. We must identify candidates who hold true to the right principles and who will not sacrifice those principles for politics or power. Some would say you must compromise if you hope to accomplish anything. Surely, cooperation and negotiation are essential in government, but a principle by its very definition is a foundational and guiding rule, and so compromising a principle damages the very foundation.
If sound principles cause me to be opposed to a proposal, then an offer of money or jobs for my state should not change my position. Let’s inform ourselves about candidates and issues and make an informed vote.
Lastly, and I close, We the People must inform ourselves about Current Events. It’s encouraging to see the awakening going on around the country, but the cynic in me says this – “only someone who was sleeping needs an awakening.”
Thomas Jefferson said,
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
We cannot take time off. We cannot stick our head in the sand. We cannot slumber even for a moment.
The Tea-Party movement can’t simply be an awakening. Once we have reclaimed our nation from the forces that would steer us away from our Core principles, we must establish a lifestyle of vigilance. We must stay informed and stay involved.
First step – the 2010 elections; Next step – the 2012 elections; THEN we reach The Beginning…The beginning of a revitalized and reconnected CITIZEN government.
Our cry must be this
“We the People have awakened. We the People have informed ourselves; and We the People will never sleep again!!!”
Thank you and God bless you.
On November 6, 2012 approximately 11:34PM EST we registered the death of the American Republic. Our founders said time and time again our destruction will come from within. They were right. “A Republic if you can keep it” said Franklin. I’m sorry, Mr. Franklin, we could not. But Mr. Franklin, we will not quit. We are Americans. We don’t quit. We never have, we never will.
No doubt we have suffered a great disappointment. But is this grounds for shrinking back? Is it time for us to just throw in the towel and say “what will be, will be?” Have we given all we have to give? Not compared to what our founders gave for us. Yet, they didn’t win every battle. They got scared, frustrated, discouraged. They had dark days as they struggled against tyranny for more ten long years before the declaring their independence. We have not invented disappointment. We have not invented anger. We certainly have not yet sacrificed life, fortune, and sacred honor to the extent that our founders did. Listen to these excerpts from a letter written by John Adams to his wife Abigail.
John begins by saying,
“I am wearied out with expectation that the Massachusetts troops would have arrived e’er now at headquarters. Do our people intend to leave the continent in the lurch? Do they mean to submit? … Do they wish to see another crippled, disastrous, and disgraceful campaign, for want of an army? I am more sick and more ashamed of my own countrymen, then ever I was before…I am a fool, if ever there was one, being such a slave. I won’t be much longer. I will be more free in some world or other. It is not tolerable, that the opening spring, which I should enjoy with my wife and children, upon my little farm, should pass away…Posterity! You will never know how much it costs to the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took pains to preserve it.”
Sacrifice. Anger. Frustration. Resolve. That is the price that must be paid to preserve the blessings of liberty to our posterity, that is the price of HOPE.
Listen to the words of Elizabeth Adams, wife of Sam Adams, as she writes a letter to Sam explaining her day, “I beg you would not give yourself any pain on our being so near to the camp; the place I am in is so situated, that if the regulars should ever take Prospect Hill, which God forbid, I should be able to make an escape, as I am within a few stones cast of the back road, which leads to the most retired part of Newton…”
These people lived their lives with a daily escape route. Daily, they anticipated the enemy coming up over their hill and taking them captive. With humble resolve, she concludes, “I thank you excuse the very poor writing as my paper is bad in my pen is made with a broken pair of scissors.”
These were men and women of courage and resolve, willing to give everything for liberty. Mercy Otis Warren wrote, that they were “Ready to sacrifice their devoted lives to preserve inviolate, and to convey to their children the inherent rights of men, conferred on all by the God of nature, and the privileges of Englishmen claimed by Americans from the sacred sanctions of the compacts.”
They were ready to sacrifice everything so that their children could live in a land where liberty prospered. That was not an empty sacrifice. They were not without fear. As a matter of fact, Mercy Otis Warren wrote, “I have my fears. Yet, notwithstanding the complicated difficulties that arise before us, there is no receding; and I should blush if in any instance the week passions of my sex damp the fortitude, the patriotism, and the manly resolve of yours. May nothing ever check that glorious spirit of freedom which inspires the patriots in the cabinet, and the hero in the field, with the courage to maintain their righteous cause, and to endeavor to transmit the claim to posterity, even if they must seal the rich conveyance to their children with their own blood.”
When I joined the military, I swore to support and defend the Constitution. I took an oath when I was sworn in as an attorney in the state of Florida to support and defend the Constitution. I took the same oath when I was sworn in as an assistant state attorney for Florida. I know that these oaths NEVER expire. Every day of my life, as I travel across this country teaching the truth about the foundation of the greatest nation in the world, I renew that oath in my heart and in my mind and in my soul. I will not let that oath die, and I intend to keep it to my very last breath. I don’t do this for me. I don’t do this for you. I certainly don’t do this for the millions out there who obviously have no intent to think for themselves. I do this for liberty. I do this for our children. And I believe it as I’ve never believed anything before. This reasoning is why our founders were able to pledge life and fortune and sacred honor for a generation that they would never know. They believed in their hearts and in their souls that without liberty, life was not worth living. Mercy said, “we will stand against tyranny today, or our children will bow tomorrow.” How can we, have any less resolve? How can we even consider wavering in our stand, much less quitting altogether? What an insult to our framers. Is John Adams repenting from heaven today?
We could learn a great deal about what real patriots act and sound like from the words and the deeds of our great founding heroes. They were dedicated to the cause of liberty and to the battle against tyranny.
We have had a discouraging turn of events, but we must not be discouraged. Patriot, when you are finished grieving over the death of the Republic, there will be work to do and we will need you. We’ve not won this battle, but we must remain resolved. Our obligation does not lie with those who will not listen nor care. Our obligation lies in the same place it has always rested for centuries, our obligation lies with our children. Never falter, never fail. For if we do, we will condemn our children to buy back a gift that has been bought for us, we will condemn our children to be slaves. And they will be forced to purchase back their liberty “with their own blood.”
Grieving is not a sign of weakness, quitting is. You are NOT weak. We do have something to fight for, and it’s the same thing that made you fight last week, last month, last year. We have a marvelous history to live up to. We have a marvelous God who is with us. This is not defeat; this is motivation for the brave, the strong, and the true! So go ahead and grieve, you deserve that right. But when you are done be sure you know, as Patrick Henry said, “we are armed with the holy cause of liberty and we serve a just God.” We will still be victorious! We know the Author and the Finisher of this work and the end of the story has already been written.
We are celbrating the 225th Anniversary of the ratification of our Constitution, the Supremen Law of the land, the foundaiton of every governing principle of the country, the greatest human rights statement ever written by men and the very thing that makes Liberty possible and America an exceptional nation. But it is a bittersweet celebration. America is still an exceptional nation, built upon exceptional principles and inhabited by exceptional people. But we are in the midst of times that try men’s souls. How did we get here? How did this happen? Is this the the nation built by people who pledged life, fortune, and sacred honor to establish Liberty?
At our foundation a nation of people sacrificed everything they had to build a government dedicated to the understanding that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now we are a nation of people who are focused upon prosperity, focused upon maintaining the right to acquire stuff. Sacrifice for Americans means getting off the lazy boy, turning off Big Bang or Judge Judy!
Celebrating the adoption of the principles that make our nation great should not be an anniversary; it should be a daily walk, a daily way of life. It is the only way to maintain these principles; it is the only way to ensure that we will secure the Blessings of liberty for our posterity. Americans must reacquaint themselves with the Constitution and its principles if we hope to maintain a free nation.
First, the Constitution is NOT a set of negative rights imposed upon the government. Government has NO rights, neither negative nor positive. In creating the government we did not GIVE anything to the government; we did not give it power, we did not give it rights. Read the 10th Amendment and the writings of our framers. They clearly stated that power was delegated not given. That means governmental structures simply have access to OUR POWER to do the job WE tell them to do. The rights and power belong to the people. When the government misuses that power and tramples our rights, it is the responsibility of the people to be the “maintainers” of this liberty and push back.
The Constitution is a contract among men that created the government, like a business contract creates a business. The business of the government is to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The government was not established to regulate the people, or the activities of the people but to be the sure guardian of our liberty, a liberty that belongs to us and not to government. John Adams declared in 1765 thatLiberty must be supported at all hazards; WE have a right to it derived from our maker! It is the people who have the right to liberty as decreed by God. That is why the Constitution is a declaration that the people are the true onwers of those rights and establishes a government to protect and prosper those rights.
In Federalist Paper #33, Alexander Hamilton charges the PEOPLE to stand for the Constitution. When the government oversteps its constitutional bounds, it is up to the people, who created it to redress the injury done to the Constitution.
What Country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? ~ Thomas Jefferson
We must continue to stand against the corruption of government, against the destruction of Liberty, and heal the injury being done to this nation. We are the maintainers of liberty.
We must also understand that the Constitution was made for a moral people. Jefferson said, “The God that gave us life gave us Liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm foundation, the conviction in the minds of men that Liberty is a gift from God.” Our founders understood that liberty was a gift from God planted in the bosom of every man to be lived out and enjoyed in this world. They knew that this liberty could only be maintained by a shared morality.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams October 11, 1798
Our founders gave their own lives to secure these principles for us. Yet, how could something that was worth the very lives of our founders mean so little to some of us? Statistics show that only 44% of Christians are even registered to vote and of those only 25%-44% of those registered ACTUALLY VOTE! Do you know why this nation no longer reflects a Judeo-Christian world view, no longer reflects the principles of freedom and morality that secure our Liberty, why our elected representatives overwhelmingly lack the understanding of Liberty and the Constitution necessary to preserve it? Because those who are in possession of the meaning and the value of liberty DO NOT VOTE!
Our nation is a reflection of the uninformed voter that votes on personality, on popularity, or who simply wants a handout. Politicians can act immorally by giving lip service at election time about “being conservative”, “defending the Constitution”, “being for the people” and then make decisions contrary to those principles, like voting in favor of indefinite detention, HR347 and the criminalization of our First Amendment, SB1813 and the delegation of power to the IRS to take your passport and your guns, and allow without any response the daily dissolution of separation of powers and destruction of liberty by King Barry I and his imperial executive orders. Many accept the cowardice and immoral acts of our elected politicians because they look good on camera, because they give good patriotic speeches. If Americans UNDERSTOOD the value of Liberty and daily LIVED the value of liberty, voting would be our minimum obligation. We would live our LIVES for the preservation of Liberty. We would demand of our representatives the same dedication and proficiency in the Constitution and its foundational principles.
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt. John Phillpot Curran
We are charged with the responsibility to be ETERNALLY VIGILLANT. That literally means a daily walk in the keeping the proper purpose of the Constitution, understanding the true meaning of Liberty and then maintaining the proper value of this good and perfect gift from God. Do not despair…Never be discouraged… I have great hope in the giver of that gift and the knowledge that man will not willingly live in slavery for very long.
“Our fellow citizens have been led hoodwinked from their principles by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances. But the band is removed, and they now see for themselves.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801
Restoration is coming. The band is being removed, the scales are falling from our eyes. WE will no longer be hoodwinked by immoral and vain promises that work to destroy our liberties. WE will stand against the tyranny that is being perpetrated against us by the enemy within. WE WILL DAILY celebrate the ratification of our Constitution…a document designed to restrain government and guide it in its preservation our Liberty…A Liberty that IS a good and perfect gift from God…A gift that is worthy of our life, fortune, and sacred honor. And although it may have to take a long train of abuses and usurpations, WE THE PEOPLE are going to derail that long black train…We will take a stand in defense of the Constitution. So all you that may be on board in the name of prosperity or national security or entitlement…here is your notice…
We will no longer tamely suffer a lawless attack on liberty. We understand what is at stake and it has nothing to do with government bailouts and special interest groups….It has EVERYTHING to do with Liberty and passing on that gift to our children. We are going to make the celebration of the Constitution a DAILY AFFAIR…We are going to Stand for Liberty as those that framed our nation did and because we know…because we understand…because we truly believe as Thomas Jefferson penned in 1787
Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem – I prefer the tumult of Liberty to the quiet of servitude!
As we remember our brothers and sisters who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so we can have Liberty, let us also remember that this ultimate sacrifice is not only worthy of our honor, but also of OUR daily sacrifice and devotion.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…” Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg
People are, by nature, fickle and short sighted. But it’s because of patriots who have been courageous and committed to a future beyond themselves, that our nation is one focused upon Liberty. It is now our duty to take up this mantle and secure “the blessings of Liberty for…our posterity”. But make no mistake; it will take a whole body of people to secure this Liberty. Not a whole nation, but a whole body which is “dedicated to the great task remaining before us” and which will “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion”. We have that obligation to “ages and millions yet unborn.”
We can fulfill this obligation, because we are not alone in our struggle to maintain the Liberty that so many have died for. In the words of Patrick Henry, “(we are) Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty (and) we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us…The battle…is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” WE are the “vigilant, the active, the brave” and it is time that we embrace the truth, honor our heritage, and fulfill our destiny. America is indeed exceptional, and we are still capable of exceptional bravery and commitment.
I recently had a conversation with my son, who is six and afraid of the dark. As we were getting ready for bed, I told him to turn off the light and get into bed. He said, “Mommy, I can’t, if I turn off the light it will be dark and I won’t be able to see to get back to my bed.” I explained that there is nothing between the light switch and the bed that would hurt him and that he just needed to do it. He protested for a short while and then did as he was told. I then praised him for being so brave and reassured him by pointing out that the room didn’t change simply because the lights were dim. With tears in his eyes he said, “Mommy I was not brave at all, I was scared.” What a wonderful teaching moment God had given me! I said with great pride and joy in my heart, “Honey, being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. Being brave means that you do what has to be done even though you ARE scared. And you were very brave.”
We must be brave. There is much we must do.
In America’s first great struggle for Liberty, Mercy Otis Warren wrote to John Adams “I have my fears. Yet, notwithstanding the complicated difficulties that rise before us, there is no receding; and I should blush if in any instance the weak passions of my sex should damp the fortitude, the patriotism, and the manly resolution of yours. May nothing ever check that glorious spirit of freedom which inspires the patriot in the cabinet, and the hero in the field, with courage to maintain their righteous cause, and to endeavor to transmit the claim to posterity, even if they must seal the rich conveyance to their children with their own blood.” We must know as Patrick Henry said, that we need not be afraid, we will not fight our battles alone. But these battles for Liberty must be fought. And as Mercy, we must be resolute in the face of fear.
We must stand firm because we have the greatest birthright of any people. We live in the greatest nation on this planet. To whom much is given, much is required. We must deny our fears that convince us that we cannot survive without the comforts we enjoy. We must deny all fears that place anything above the Liberty that has been purchased for us. We must be resolved to make the same commitment to our children that our founders made for us.
“…though we are daily threatened with the depredations of Britain…yet each city…stands ready to sacrifice their devoted lives to preserve inviolate, and to convey to their children the inherent rights of men, conferred on all by the God of nature, and the privileges of Englishmen claimed by Americans from the sacred sanction of compacts.” Mercy Otis Warren December 29, 1774
This glorious gift of Liberty comes with a price. This price has been paid for us and is continually paid by those men and women who give all. It is time that we do more than just barbeque and wear patriotic gear. We must pick up this mantle and honor their sacrifice with our devotion to the cause of Liberty, so that our children will not have to fight a battle that should be fought by us. Just because the light of this nation has dimmed, and at times we feel we cannot see the way ahead, the path to maintain Liberty has not changed. We must stand active, vigilant, brave – for the Liberty of our children – with the passion of Lincoln’s promise…
“that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
May God continue to bless America a little while longer…