Something to Think About on The Fourth of July

On this day in 1776, the founders declared America’s independence from Britain. Everybody knows this - but the fact we tend to gloss over is that the fight wasn’t finished right then and there. They kept fighting for that freedom until 1783, over seven years of bloody struggle and sacrifice. In fact, “we the people” didn’t adopt our Constitution until 1787, more than 11 years after those 56 men gathered in a room and signed their name to a piece of parchment that said there’s a better way for men and women to live: in freedom. 

On July 4th, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote some of the greatest most powerful words in all of history: 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.

These words are powerful because they are true, and they are self-evident. We don’t need to look it up on some fact checking website. Somehow, we just know it’s right - and that is why the founders and the revolutionaries spent the better part of a decade fighting to bring those words to life. And that is why big government progressives so desperately seek to marginalize them and ‘progress’ away from them. Because they know those words, those self-evident truths, are the only thing preventing them from obtaining the power they seek. 

It’s a scary thought to wonder what happens if they succeed. 

You see, freedom is very fragile - in fact, only 5% of all the civilized world throughout history has ever lived with the kind of freedoms we enjoy here in America. That 5% share a frightening commonality: when they lose their freedom, that’s it. They never get it back.  And many did lose it. No matter how big, no matter how powerful. Do you want to be part of the generation that fell asleep and allowed America to fall? Do you want to be the ones who future generations of frustrated kids being told what car they can and cannot drive, how much soda they can drink, what temperature to set their thermostat at  -- point to and say ‘they did this!’ ?? I don’t. And I know you don’t either. So let’s commit ourselves to being ever vigilant.

Being ever vigilant requires more than soaring rhetoric. The single most effective enabler to an exponentially growing big government is an uninvolved people. The less we do to help our fellow man, the more we legitimize governments efforts to fill a particular ‘need’ in America. If you want to reduce the size of government, you have to reduce the need they seek to fill.  Ask yourself, what can I do to rely on myself, God and family and not on the government?  How do we do that? 

The measure of a man is not what level of education he has achieved, the economic ‘class’ he falls in, or whether or not he is liberal or conservative. It is in how he treats his wife, his family, and complete strangers. It is in what he does when he thinks no one is looking. It is in how he handles adversity and stress. It is in his honesty, his work ethic, his charity, and his willingness to forgive.
 

We have distanced ourselves from these truths. We have allowed our differences to be used against us, not for us. Our differences have always made us stronger because it forced us to consider new things or look at something in a totally different way. Challenging our own long held beliefs is what makes it possible for us to move forward, while conformity of thought leads to dark ages.

We will once again declare America’s independence and stand together, united by the common yet powerful ideals that everyone - everyone - knows in their hearts are good and true: 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. Happy 4th of July!  Thoughts from Glenn Beck