“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” Thomas Paine
Every year, I sit down to write my 4th of July post and I think to myself, what I can write about that I haven’t already said in years past. Then I realize that a lot of the most important things we hold dear need to be articulated over and over again before they become part of who we are. This is especially true at a time when I see this country that I love on a slippery slope to tearing itself apart. Maybe it’s the cynic in me at war with the idealist, but I can’t help but fear that we are one match away from lighting the proverbial tinder box on fire. But as this cold war of ideas rages on, I’m never more hopeful than on Independence Day that we will do right by ourselves and by each other long enough to remember that whatever our differences, we are all Americans who value freedom above all else. The freedom to live, the freedom to worship, the freedom to speak, the freedom to think, and yes, the freedom to disagree.
But 4th of July is not a day to air our grievances or elevate that which seeks to divide us. It’s a day to honor our great country and to remember those who came before us so that we may revel in the brightness of liberty until the end of days. Those brave men, who risked absolutely everything they had to sign their names to a document that marked them as traitors to the world’s greatest power, only did so because to do otherwise would have been a continued anathema to the freedom they knew in their hearts did not come from a king, but from God and from their own humanity. With a firm reliance on divine Providence, they pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of self-reliance, limited government, and liberty. There are those that will argue that the flaw in America’s founding lay in the fact that it did not guarantee that freedom for all its people. While that’s certainly a fair point, and one that this country paid for in blood, it truly makes what happened in July 1776 all the more meaningful today. The Declaration didn’t make America perfect. But it made her greatness possible. It codified the proper relationship between man and government, laying the foundation for unprecedented freedom, even if it took too long to realize it for every citizen. Those first principles made the rest possible. America started as one crazy idea, relying on the Declaration as the first promise of a better future. But even more relevant to us is the fact that the Founders relied on the hope that those who came after would build on that freedom with each generation, entrenching the value of liberty so deeply into our national identity that it would eventually be realized for all in full measure. The continued price of that freedom is eternal vigilance, as “freedom is only ever one generation away from extinction.” Let not history remember our generation as the one that let it slip away. Today we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence for providing those first principles that still matter today. Those are the ideas – liberty, unalienable rights, sacred honor- that make the 4th of July worth celebrating “with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever.”
Elizabeth Banak Books 