Posted by
Craig Freeborn on Wednesday, July 04, 2007 1:10:33 AM
When I worked on Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaign, I had high hopes for his administration. But little did I realize the role we were playing as we elected the greatest president of the 20th century.
Reagan reminded us of the significance of Independence Day.
July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth... In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.”
– Ronald Reagan
We sometimes forget that prosperity comes from allowing people to pursue their own lives and to take responsibility for their own actions. We need government to maintain a legal system that respects the civil and property rights of the people, and to defend our borders and national interests.
Thomas Jefferson once said “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
Both Jefferson and Reagan knew that in order to restrain government we need an active and involved citizenry.
That citizenry is now being tested whether it has the resolve to keep government bridled, to keep the pressure on the Islamic terrorists – who would kill our people and destroy our liberties – and to support our troops.
For some, the siren song of “something for nothing”, of financial “security” guaranteed by government from cradle to grave – at the cost of our free agency – or of withdrawing into a cocoon of perceived safety is strong. But to right-thinking freeborn Americans, the realities of human behavior guide our thinking, our actions, and our votes. Will we insist that Congress make the Bush tax cuts permanent? Will we hold them to their promise to secure our national borders? Will we allow them to withdraw the support our troops need to maintain our freedoms and our way of life?
In the early-morning hours of September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key expressed the truth that despite its desolation, freemen must occasionally wage war to preserve the peace.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
– Francis Scott Key
May God bless our troops, and God bless the United States of America!
Happy Independence Day!