Patrick Henry once ended a famous speech, "Give give me liberty or give me death." I attended public school when this was taught in history class. Lately it has brought to mind a line of thinking we should all revisit. I think our Founders had a great sense of things that would be worse than death. I thought I would try to put together a meaningful list based on inspiration from them.
Liberty must have been very dear to them for good cause. They, more than us, had an understanding that some things are worse than death. To give a little more context to Patrick Henry's famous speech let me include a few more lines:
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
In the Declaration of Independence they closed out this monumental document by saying, "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." They risked everything for freedom. They understood the excellence of life lived free from the oppression of a tyrant who is incapable of understand the potential of a single soul.
1. Living in oppression is worse than death.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
A Note to the Tea Party
When did our Founding Fathers become free?
They were living under the rule of a micromanaging monarch who progressively claimed more of their income and reduced their rights to share in the governing of their affairs. Thus the phrase "no taxation without representation" was the battle cry for independence. (The taxation King George levied was kid stuff compared to what we face today.)
The Declaration of Independence eloquently enumerates a long list of grievances the colonists endure and had appealed to England to change with no effect. I am including a small sample of them here:
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
To read the entire document see: www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=25685
So when were the founders free? When were they really free?
Was is when the Treat of Paris was signed in 1784?
Was it when they won the Battle of Yorktown and Cornwallis surrendered in 1781?
Was it at Trenton New Jersey on Christmas of 1776?
The signing of the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776?
During one of the countless speeches for independence in the years before the Declaration?
Real freedom comes when conviction in the heart boils over into definitive action in defiance of the onerous will of a tyrant. When you stop obeying and start defying the tyrant's or master's will you are free. Deciding for yourself how you will conduct the affairs of your life is freedom. The action you take may result in death quickly (and in the past and present this is often the case) but I am persuaded that if that course of action results in death, you die a free man or woman.
With this backdrop let me ask you when does a man or woman become a slave?
Could it be when in your heart by apathy, distraction or ignorance you obey the onerous commands or encroachments of a tyrant?
This administration is imposing by policy an indentured state on us and our children.
The Tea Party is a freedom movement born anew. It embodies conviction in the heart boiling over into definitive action in defiance of the onerous will of a tyrant.
Americans, freedom is in your DNA, in the core of your soul. Take action against the indenturement of debt, policy, so called security precautions, regulations by unelected bureaucracy appointees, government encroachments into health care...
What about you?
Our Founders taught the world what freedom was. We have to relearn it ourselves and take action before it's too late.
1) I think we might have one chance to avert financial enslavement. We must see that the debt ceiling is not raised. Spending cuts could be forced using the debt ceiling.
2) Call your state representative and senator now to get a bill started in your state that requires a photo ID to vote. Only those trying to subvert democracy oppose this requirement.
If ever we needed a national Tea Party, it's now.
They were living under the rule of a micromanaging monarch who progressively claimed more of their income and reduced their rights to share in the governing of their affairs. Thus the phrase "no taxation without representation" was the battle cry for independence. (The taxation King George levied was kid stuff compared to what we face today.)
The Declaration of Independence eloquently enumerates a long list of grievances the colonists endure and had appealed to England to change with no effect. I am including a small sample of them here:
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
To read the entire document see: www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=25685
So when were the founders free? When were they really free?
Was is when the Treat of Paris was signed in 1784?
Was it when they won the Battle of Yorktown and Cornwallis surrendered in 1781?
Was it at Trenton New Jersey on Christmas of 1776?
The signing of the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776?
During one of the countless speeches for independence in the years before the Declaration?
Real freedom comes when conviction in the heart boils over into definitive action in defiance of the onerous will of a tyrant. When you stop obeying and start defying the tyrant's or master's will you are free. Deciding for yourself how you will conduct the affairs of your life is freedom. The action you take may result in death quickly (and in the past and present this is often the case) but I am persuaded that if that course of action results in death, you die a free man or woman.
With this backdrop let me ask you when does a man or woman become a slave?
Could it be when in your heart by apathy, distraction or ignorance you obey the onerous commands or encroachments of a tyrant?
This administration is imposing by policy an indentured state on us and our children.
The Tea Party is a freedom movement born anew. It embodies conviction in the heart boiling over into definitive action in defiance of the onerous will of a tyrant.
Americans, freedom is in your DNA, in the core of your soul. Take action against the indenturement of debt, policy, so called security precautions, regulations by unelected bureaucracy appointees, government encroachments into health care...
What about you?
Our Founders taught the world what freedom was. We have to relearn it ourselves and take action before it's too late.
1) I think we might have one chance to avert financial enslavement. We must see that the debt ceiling is not raised. Spending cuts could be forced using the debt ceiling.
2) Call your state representative and senator now to get a bill started in your state that requires a photo ID to vote. Only those trying to subvert democracy oppose this requirement.
If ever we needed a national Tea Party, it's now.
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