Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category
July 4th…So what?
Happy 4th of July! I hope that you enjoy your day off with your family and friends.
As a parent of young children, I try to spend a little time with my family explaining what the various holidays celebrate and what the symbols of the holiday represent. Most importantly, I try to explain what made the event so important and applicable to today that we still celebrate the event.
On the 4th of July, we celebrate our independence; our freedom from tyranny and oppression. On this day in the year 1776, we as Americans declared that our Creator (not government) has endowed us with unalienable Rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Fine, we’ve heard it a million times and over time the words have become mostly meaningless. The problem is that as the words lose meaning, the warnings and prophecy of the Founding Fathers are coming to pass.
The Founding Fathers came from a place of tyranny and oppression to freedom and liberty (thus our celebration). Are we, 235 years later, going from freedom and liberty into the bondage tyranny and oppression?
What does tyranny mean to you? Is tyranny limited to an individual (king) or is tyranny simply a select few who take away the liberties of the masses? Let’s look at a few warnings (prophecies) of some of our Founding Fathers.
“The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” –James Madison (1)
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin (2)
“When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.” (remember, the IRS is a branch of the government)– Thomas Jefferson (3)
“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.” –James Madison (4)
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; — James Madison (5)
A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. — James Madison (6)
When we take significant holidays like July 4th and make them simply into a day off of work to have a barbecue and watch fireworks, we are missing the history that made us the free people we are today. Freedom like ours has never been known in the history of man. We are living in an historical anomaly; not the historical norm. Let’s not forget where we came from or we will lose it.
Happy 4th of July – for remembering how we earned our freedom and to the continued preservation of that freedom against all efforts of tyranny.
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References:
(1) James Madison, Speech, House of Representatives, during the debate “On the Memorial of the Relief Committee of Baltimore, for the Relief of St. Domingo Refugees” (1794-01-10)
(2) Benjamin Franklin (on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania – 1759)
(3) Thomas Jefferson (attributed to Jefferson, by his contemporaries)
(4) James Madison in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (1798-05-13); published in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. II, p. 141
(5) James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06) [2]
(6) James Madison. Speech, Constitutional Convention (1787-06-29), from Max Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. I [1] (1911), p. 465
