I was rendered speechless – no mere feat, as anyone who knows me personally will attest (and thus I have to give credit to Mom where it’s due…) – but upon coming to my senses, I explained to my mother that most of what I read to her was taken directly from out own Declaration of Independence.  I suddenly realized two truths: 1) my absent-mindedness may be genetic, and 2) yet again, Mom was right.

Granted, the words that I wrote in this draft were a clear indictment, claiming that this mindset of expansive government had plagued generation upon generation of free men in America, from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and it threatens to undermine freedom for generations to come. The key phrases that I quoted – words that have echoed across the globe and throughout the pages of history – directly linked the sentiments of the Independence movement in 1776 to my concerns about how the federal government has continued to expand in its own power and diminish the power of the individual.

One such phrase, my favorite 45 of the nearly 1300 words in the Declaration of Independence – “…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” – is the primary basis for the established government in America. If and when the government threatens the rights of its citizens, it is the right, perhaps even the responsibility of the citizenry to shake loose the shackles of oppressive government and form a new government in its stead, based in their common principles and with the hope that it will not follow the same path.

Such was the hope of our founding fathers who, were they here today, seeing the power we have given the Federal government, would more than likely be of the opinion that a healthy revolution is in order. These great men would see hear of our military bases on foreign soil, our trade deficit and our national debt and shudder.  They would learn about the Federal Reserve system or the recent cap-and-trade bill and lament our short-sightedness. The thought of the abuses and implications of the PATRIOT act or FISA would ultimately cross the line between their quiet dissent and their open defiance.  Two-hundred-thirty-three years ago, our Founding Fathers stood outside of the Pennsylvania State House and declared themselves free men, risking their lives and the security of their countrymen in defiance of a government that would infringe upon that freedom.

Perhaps, on the anniversary of their defiant act, we, as citizens, as free men, should consider the implications of our government’s growth, and come to understand the danger that our liberty is in.  Perhaps it is time to write to our representatives in government and remind them of the roots of our Republic and how far we’ve strayed from them.  Perhaps it is time to exercise our rights through activism and time to speak out against the expansion of power and undermining of our freedom.

I wish a Happy Independence Day to our friends, our supporters, and our Nation, and thank you all for your continued support of We The People Politics.

They will wake up late, barbecue (weather-permitting), drink Budweiser and Jack Daniel’s, and loudly exclaim how proud they are to be an American, imbibing the freedom with every gulp, and not a single one of them will think about how it all came to be. 

Not one of them will think about how, 232 years ago, the men who garnered that freedom feared for their lives on that date, or how they spent the following decade fighting for the namesake of this holiday.

Not one will think about how, “four score and seven years” later, Lincoln stood in the fields of Gettysburg, PA, and asked our country to remain dedicated to the ideals held in 1776, the very same ideals that he felt so connected to: the freedom to live your life in peace, prosperity, and equality, and the conviction to keep that freedom alive.

Not one will think about how on a hot August day in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reasserted those rights, as a man among equals, regardless of race, religion, age, gender, or economic status.

Not one will think about how many Americans, from 1776 to 2008, had died fighting for that blessed freedom that we hold so dear.

Perhaps these people are too caught up with the fanfare and the fireworks, the burgers and the booze, to recognize that the very ground they stand on is hallowed, marked by 232 years of integrity, perseverance, vision, and belief in the paradigm of liberty that 55 men envisioned all those years ago.

Others will remember.

We will remember that those of us in dissent with the policies of our government are in good company – the company of Jefferson, Paine, and the Sons of Liberty; the men who dissented against their government in support of the basic freedoms of mankind. We will remember that even “the best laid plans of mice and men” will have problems, and we will remember that it is our duty to try to solve them.

We will remember our troops, currently fighting overseas in unpopular wars.  We will remember that regardless of opinions on the policies that sent them there, they answered the 232-year-old call to serve.  We will remember that we can disagree with the War they fight and still support the brave men and women who fight it.

We will remember that we are part of the “great experiment.” We will remember that freedom does ring “from the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee, across the plains of Texas, from ‘Sea to Shining Sea.’”

This Independence Day, I humbly ask all Americans, at home and around the world, to take even a minute out of their busy day to do but one thing:  remember.

On behalf of We The People Politics, I wish a safe, happy, healthy Independence Day to you and your families.