When our founding fathers rose and declared that liberty was their birthright, and the right of all their posterity forever after, they did not do so in a vacuum. They were born into a culture of free men, dedicated to individual thought, individual effort, and individual success. They were raised and educated in the Word of God, as taught in the Bible; that all men were sons of God, created in His likeness, and endowed with a Holy spark of His spiritual essence.
To truly understand what they wrote, we must put on the mantle of their perspective – with study and contemplation we must recreate, in our own minds, the social, spiritual, and cultural environment in which they lived and worked. This is not as difficult as it seems – but it requires that we study our history, and not with an attention for dates and places, but with our attention focused upon what people believed important and/or pressing in that day.
The social, moral, political, and financial issues of the American colonial era are actually not so different than ours in this modern day – financial hardships, corruption, the imposition of arbitrary and stifling regulation, and the blind acceptance of these issues as “unfixable” by many among the population. The defining essence of the 30 years preceding the revolutionary war was that a small number of brave men dared to speak out, to educate and inspire their family, friends, and neighbors, that a better way to live was, in fact, at hand; and that what they needed to do to obtain this better way was, simply, to risk all which was “good enough” in order to gain that which was “best” for them and for their descendants.
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” – Benjamin Franklin
In short, our founding fathers believed the maxim that, “a lesser good is the enemy of the Greater Good”, and that dignified men could never settle for a lesser good and still satisfy their conscience when examining their own lives through the lens of the generations who would come after them.
Pondering all that our founding fathers spoke of, wrote, and actually dared to do in pursuit of the Greater Good which they believed in above all else, we are illumined with an understanding that theirs was a spiritual struggle, although it was played out in the physical realms of daily life.
“There are two types of education… One should teach us how to make a living, And the other how to live.” – John Adams
“What you are is God’s gift to you, what you make of your self is your gift to God.” – George Washington
We must, now, walk in their footsteps, in order to protect and propagate Liberty unto our descendants – no one else can do this for us, nor can any amount of money “buy us out of” our present challenges.
We MUST educate ourselves with great diligence, so that when the opportunity presents itself to educate others in the foundations of Liberty, we will know full-well what we are speaking about; both in the historical context, and as it applies to the issues which bear upon our situation today, and into the foreseeable future. But this alone is not sufficient – vocal protests, erudite analysis, and dutiful education as to the nature of the difficulties we now face is the beginning, but surely is not the end. No, rather, we must present sound solutions, else we are little more than railers against the machine, void of the substance needed to rectify our own state and nature. History and context are the foundation, yet the foundation is only the first step towards the apex of liberty achieved.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
We must prepare ourselves and as many of our community as shall listen; through education, analysis, planning, and outspoken promotion of our beliefs and methods, such that when the opportunity arises to re-establish Constitutional government in our communities, states, and the nation as a whole, we will be prepared to implement that model honestly and effectively, in a timely manner, and in the context of the world in which we find ourselves…
It is not enough to know the words of the Declaration and Constitution – we must study these in the context in which they were authored, and must also examine the lives of the men who wrote them. We must so educate ourselves that we see past the words, viewing rather the hopes and concerns which they intended to address, and thereby adopt the *spirit* of liberty in our own lives – for the spirit of liberty is the life of the nation, whereas the law is it’s death…
“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” 2COR 3:5~6
Here is a simple first exercise in the greater study of the Declaration and Constitution – our founding fathers lived a life steeped in the belief that God was the Author of all liberty, and to His word did they turn for guidance and inspiration. Ours is a nation founded in the Christian faith and ethic, and even those of other beliefs can (hopefully) see that this is a good thing, for Faith is a humbling thing, and humility is at the very core of “dignified liberty”.
Dignified Liberty – the belief that we are indeed equal before God, and so ought to conduct ourselves with all humility and respect towards each other, for only if we adopt this spirit can our hope of liberty for ourselves and our posterity succeed…
The assassination of the Christian ethic and world-view by the progressive communists is one cornerstone of their platform of social destruction – for by expunging the Bible and the Christian ethic from the public dialog through a relentless campaign of “Political Correctness” and “Diversity Education/Enforcement”, they undermine our clear understanding of the intent and spirit of our body of law, so that they may focus on the letter, and thus may bend the law to their own corrupt designs.
Regardless of religion, all people of good faith must resist the substitution of God with government – for the enthroning of government as the point of faith is death to all who subscribe thereto – When government is the object of all faith, it must eventually kill all faith. It’s first victim is the faith we hold in ourselves, and then it moves out from ourselves to destroy our faith in our spouse, family, and community… until there is no residue of faith left within our lives, and thus is our hope destroyed.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ― John Adams
Whenever we study the Constitution, we must also have open a Bible, and also the Biographies and published letters and journals of our founding fathers, to give context to those words upon which the hope of liberty maintained… otherwise, how can we expect to inherit what our founding fathers risked so much, and worked so diligently to establish?
“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” – Benjamin Franklin
And when we have been empowered through our diligent efforts and focused study of the spirit of liberty, then we shall possess the eloquence to stir and guide others unto it’s recognition, and the fortitude to defend liberty’s blessings against the onslaught of those for whom fear and greed are the hallmarks of life; whose faith is affixed to the darkness of deprivation in the name of “equality” delivered by the threat of force; and whose contrived “equality” is shielded by a multitude of arbitrary laws and an army of bureaucrats.
For our ultimate task is not to study liberty, nor merely to speak boldly of it, but to secure liberty for ourselves and our posterity, by whatever means necessary. Thus, and only thus, shall we receive the blessing of liberty, and affirm it as a birthright for those generations to come.
For the way of evil is lies, and the manipulation of weaknesses, and the doing of wrongs, to impose over all peoples the veil of fear; which is the curse of death from generation to generation.
YOU HAVE A CHOICE – BE TRUE, BE STRONG, BE RIGHT, and BE FEARLESS…
Thus shall you be FREE.