Now that the smoke from the fireworks displays has faded, it seems like a good time to reflect on where we have come from and where we are as a nation.
In 1776, fifty-six Americans signed the Declaration of Independence and pledged their lives, homes, property, and even their good name and honor to something larger than themselves. They did this in the name of freedom from oppression.
So that we all understand what was at stake for them, nine of the fifty-six signers died of wounds they received while fighting in the Revolutionary War. Five others were captured and imprisoned, suffering depredations and extreme hardship. Not only for themselves but for their loved ones as well, who also suffered persecution and deprivation. Many lost everything they had once owned.
Yet no signer of the Declaration of Independence wilted and gave up. They held their ground and remained loyal to the cause of freedom instead of taking the easy way out, regardless of the outcome for them personally. They were patriots.
Our nation was born and paid for with the blood of Americans who laid down the plow and the hoe to pick up the musket and face down and defeat, at the time, the world’s greatest war machine.
Our country grew, sometimes in fits and spasms, learning to be the nation of ideals our founding documents laid out. It took a great civil war costing the lives of hundreds of thousands from the North and the South to rid America of the stain of slavery. And many decades afterward, to finally accept people of color as equals.
We fought in two world wars, many smaller ones, over our two-hundred-plus-year history. Each conflict is costly in American lives, and some are costly to the American spirit. But we persevered.
Today, we find ourselves in a similar circumstance: taxation without real representation, as it was with colonial life under British rule. We find ourselves now being ruled by career politicians who seem to care little about us. Their sole interest appears to be all about maintaining political control for themselves and, therefore, control over the lives of all Americans.
In recent years, I have often reminded people that the Bolshevik Revolution was not a popular uprising supported by most Russians. It was a small minority of Marxists who seized control and forced communist oppression onto the Russian people for decades.
While the Marxists of today don’t refer to themselves as “Bolsheviks”, they are more likely to call themselves names like ‘The Squad’, ‘Progressives’, or ‘the Democrat Party’, their goals are not much different from the Bolsheviks of Russia. Control of the people.
They themselves are sad and angry people whose sole enjoyment is being able to forcefully impose their will on others. That truly brings them the only joy they experience in their otherwise empty lives.
So what do we do about America’s version of the Bolsheviks? Do we lay down our plows and hoes and pick up our muskets once again, as was done back in 1776 against the British? Or do we beat them at their own game?
Do we organize and fight against the “fundamental transformation” they wish to impose? Do we close our borders like a steel trap and forcibly (if necessary) return all illegal aliens to their place of origin? Do we empower our police to take back our streets? Do we remove the social justice warriors from our military and replace them with real warriors who understand that their job is to protect and defend America and not to be a proving ground for unpopular and ineffective social experimentation? Do we let our politicians know that we’ve had enough? Do we intend to enact our own term limits, and do we need to amend the Constitution? All we have to do is vote out the career politicians who line their pockets and serve their interests over their constituents. And if voting doesn’t work, then do we investigate them and hold them accountable for the crimes they’ve committed? The answer to all of those questions is an unequivocal and resounding YES! We have the power to change things ourselves and commit to doing it.
Much hard work lies ahead, but as it was then with the Bolsheviks in Russia, we the people far outnumber them now, we need to start acting like it.
To quote that famous American and founding father Patrick Henry, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death”.