04 Jul The Reason for July 4th
Today under a hot July 4th Texas sun we enjoyed a heart melting small town parade replete with fire trucks, floats and horses and a lineup of old cars and flags waving and signs proclaiming, “Celebrate Freedom” and small children charging around to retrieve candy thrown from the floats, and patriotic music blasting and snow cones and baked goods for sale, and a raffle to benefit the volunteer Fire Dept. The place was packed, with folks lined up on the parade route, early arrivers seated in their lawn chairs in the shade, and many more standing in the sun, all upbeat and festive.
Pure Americana joy. And it’s happening all over America.
Two thoughts kept occurring to me while I took too many pictures and ate a cherry snow cone and waved my little American flag and talked to my husband and neighbors.
One is about why we have a July 4th holiday to celebrate.
Before we could have a Declaration of Independence and a Revolutionary War, we needed American Founders humble and wise enough to discern the eternal Scriptural truth that all men, everyone, are created equal and have rights from God, inherently, because they were born.
Because man’s rights are inherent and God-given, the Founders inevitably concluded that living under tyranny isn’t acceptable or necessary. Men and women with such rights must give their consent to be governed. The Founders wove these “inherent rights” and “consent of the governed” ideas into the DOI. They made them part of the core of America’s national identity and the foundation of our liberty. They launched the Revolutionary War to stand up for these ideas. They resisted tyranny.
July 4th is about resisting tyranny. It’s about staking the claim that mankind could and should advance beyond the default-setting of human history: the tyrannical rule of men. The Founders deserve our unending gratitude. They gave us the foundation for affirming (and demanding) our inherent, God-given right to live free of tyranny.
The second thought I had looking around at this sweet and precious July 4th crowd in our small town, was wondering how many know how close America is today to losing the entire American experiment in human liberty. More precisely, how many connect the dots and recognize the threats to our liberty, happening right before our eyes.
Our major cities are awash in crime with police response times dangerously long due to the “defund the police” mission that protects criminals and endangers law-abiding citizens. Judges release dangerous criminals back into our communities, to harm and kill again, rendering the justice system ineffective in protecting the innocent. If society is unsafe and the government lacks the will to prevent and prosecute crime, your freedom is being taken away. No one voted for this. The governed did not consent to this.
The southern border and now the northern border are intermittently and weakly if at all enforced, resulting in millions of illegal aliens pouring into America including drug and human smugglers, sex traffickers, jihadists, young military age Chinese men with ties to the CCP, posing an existential threat to our country and danger to our citizens. No one voted for this. The governed did not consent to this.
The DOJ relentlessly targets political enemies of the current regime especially including J6 prisoners, unjustly applying irrelevant federal laws for the clear purpose of incarcerating their political enemies for as long as possible, while largely ignoring more egregious conduct by regime-supporting left-wing criminals. No one voted to eviscerate the rule of law and or to abandon the concept of blind justice. The governed did not consent to this.
Some national political leaders urge America to surrender our sovereignty over our health care system, pandemic policy, climate policy and more, to unaccountable international agencies like WHO or the UN, not in open public debate but behind closed doors. And that effort is ongoing. That is an affront to our right to healthcare freedom and to our sovereignty. No one voted for this. The governed did not consent to this.
Doctors are threatened with losing their medical licenses, and lawyers with bar discipline and disbarment, for speaking in good faith and truth about events and issues that are deeply controversial, from covid treatments to exposing election fraud. No one voted for this. The governed did not consent to this.
The federal government is charging full steam ahead with Central Bank Digital Currency, also known as the speed train to a Chinese-style social credit system where you will lose control of your own money if you don’t behave the way the government has ordered you to behave. No one voted for this. The governed did not consent to this.
Censorship abounds, with no relief from Congress or the courts so far. No one voted for this. The governed did not consent to this.
I could go on, but you get the picture. We need to recognize tyranny when it is right in front of us. We need to discern the pattern, connect the dots, and recognize this is not a time for politics as usual. America and its founding on individual God-given rights, rooted in the liberty that flows from requiring the consent of the governed, is under assault. Discerning the link between the issues listed above (and many more) to the preservation of liberty in America is vital.
The Founders set an example for future generations, teaching us that we must resist tyranny. Resisting tyranny in 2024 requires renewed and expanded activism in local and state and national elections, or running for office or supporting others who have the right ideas when they run, or getting deeply and persistently involved in advocacy, or speaking up at school boards, legislatures, county and city government meetings. It requires persistence and means getting better informed, and speaking truth when it is uncomfortable to do that. It means correcting the avalanche of lies floating in our media and culture. There is no shortage of ways to be involved in saving America.
July 4th defines our heritage as Americans. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians or Independents. It is an ever-renewing call to every generation to affirm and demand the God-given right of humanity to live in freedom. We MUST answer that call. The Founders showed us that with God’s help, we can.
Let’s step up in 2024 and beyond–it’s the patriotic thing to do!
DebbieG