Yesterday, April 15, saw something that doesn’t happen often: thousands of people around the country participated in civil, voluntary, grass-roots protests that had no central organizer. (Eventually, the scattered groups did come together, but it’s far from a top-down organization.) If that’s not shocking enough, toss in the fact that the protests were largely in favor of personal liberty and freedom against a rapidly-growing interventionist government. Now you really know why history was made!
Now that it’s over, what does it mean for us, those Americans who feel that there is a great need to right the ship? If I was to speak for the group, this is what I’d say. My statements are followed by some historic quotes on the topics of freedom and liberty.
Nearly 50 years ago, an American President said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
In that spirit, we, the vast majority of Americans, have taken responsibility for the needs of ourselves and our families. We have extended a helping hand to those who need help. We have lived our lives extolling the principles of good citizenship. We have expected nothing from our country save the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, unburdened by an overreaching, overextended government.
We have done our share. Despite that, our country’s leaders are failing us.
Today, we watch as many of our elected officials – those who should be representing us – fail in their oath to uphold the laws of our country. We watch as they take more and more of our money, through direct and indirect taxes and fees, and redistribute it in irresponsible ways. Where we struggled today to save for tomorrow, they irresponsibly spent their way into irresponsible levels of debt. Where we have sacrificed today’s pleasures for the safety and security of tomorrow’s children, they have fed their own political agendas and overinflated egos, and placed huge burdens on the shoulders of our country’s future generations.
Over the years, we, the responsible citizens, the true Americans, have stood quietly in hope that our government will see us – not another country – as the example of how to build a strong society. We have been ignored by career politicians who follow unproven scientific, economic, and social policies with religious fervor, blind to their own failures. We follow the rule of law as our government ignores it, and rewrites it, as if the Constitution was subject to ad hoc whims of interpretation.
In the past, we stood quietly. We stand quietly no more.
We the people are showing that we are united in our common beliefs. We the people believe in liberty. We the people believe in personal responsibility. We the people believe in the social and economic freedom of all mankind. We the people believe in the need to defend ourselves and to aid those who lack the freedom and liberty we take for granted.
We have tried, to no avail, to convince our elected representatives that an over-reaching state is not the solution. Yet history has proven time and time again that the principles of free minds and free markets, not Statism, have been the way towards liberty and prosperity.
There is only one way to return our country to the principles it was founded on and to the values we believe in: to return to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. To take back our country, some among us must sacrifice our careers and take time away from our families in order to replace those in office who ignore us. Further to that, those that choose to represent us need our support, financially, socially, and at the ballot box.
Our battle to take back America, our country, and to defend our Constitution, will be fought using the most powerful weapons in the modern world: the pen, the spoken word, and the facts. The fight will not be easy, but we have the voice of the people on our side. We will be victorious, for simple reason: we are Americans, this is our country, and we will take it back.
This is what we can do—and must do—for our country.
“Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
“Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty.” – Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States
“The Framers [of the Constitution] knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.” – Hugo Black, American Jurist
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States
josh says:
nice post, Brian