By Melody Walsh for The Liberty Block
Today, as a people, we celebrate Independence Day, during arguably the most restrictive time in American history. While the sheep are celebrating (whatever that looks like in a socially distanced society), I sit, with a heavy heart, contemplating the irony of it all. It’s unfathomable that we’re celebrating freedom as a nation while simultaneously calling law enforcement on families for having summer cookouts, decrying one group for protesting economy-killing lockdowns and mask orders, and cheering ferociously for another group of protestors wreaking havoc in cities across the United States.
While I was out and about today I saw the usual star-spangled socks, hats, T-shirts, flags flying from car windows, and the stereotypical frat boys buying beer en masse and then I saw something I couldn’t believe: a star-spangled face mask. And that really got me thinking about the meaning of this holiday.
Collectively, we’ve forgotten the reason for this holiday; what our ancestors fought and died to pass down to us; what our Founders spelled out clearly in the most important documents in American history, The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. Freedom. We have the appearance of freedom, but lack true freedom in its application in our daily lives. We are, decidedly, no longer a free people.
We’ve forgotten that the Declaration of Independence was born to separate us from a tyrannical government, with The Constitution and Bill of Rights providing a framework for our new government. It was understood by our forefathers that ALL human beings were born equal with inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator, largely based on the philosophy of natural law and that the purpose of government is, simply, to protect these rights.
Our rights are not granted to us by either of these documents or by our government. If that were the case, then, by definition, they would not be inalienable: we exist, therefore we have these rights.
As an example, individuals have the right to free speech. Each and every one of us. That is not contextual, that is not politically correct speech, that is not speech pre-approved by any authoritative or governing body. That is not dependent upon whether the words we speak align with any specific group or narrative. In fact, that right extends to hate speech; yes, the hateful and ignorant have the right to voice their hateful and ignorant comments. No one group or individual has the right to silence the hateful speaker; they have the right to remove themselves from the vicinity of the offending speaker if they wish not to be subjected to their rhetoric.
So, what’s happened here? What’s happening now? And why don’t people seem to notice or care?
I’ll leave you with this:
“IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
