Joe Miller: Happy Birthday America
On the Fourth of July, many of us are used to the typical written fare, celebrations of the undeniably extraordinary birth of our great Republic. We read motivating patriotic themes of sacrifice, democracy, and love of country.
But what we hear less frequently is the hard truth of our contemporary crisis, and how the sacrifices of yesterday are on the verge of being forever lost to the excesses of today.
Although I’m tempted to diverge into a litany of federal excesses that are killing the country, I’m not going to take my own bait. Rather, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane and consider where we’ve come from and try to stoke the embers left from the greatest Revolution on earth.
Our Founders hailed from countries with tyrannical central governments that had little regard for fundamental freedoms. Driven by a desire to worship free of persecution, many of our ancestors were willing to suffer incredibly high mortality rates rather than the heavy hand of government. Jamestown lost about 80% of its original inhabitants. Their descendants formed the backbone of the Revolution.
The Founders were not ignorant of this history. They were intimately familiar with the extreme sacrifices of their ancestors and why they sought out this special land. So when the heavy hand of Britain began to squeeze ever so tightly, these exceptional families made the only moral choice: confront the evil no matter the cost.
When you hear the stories of bare-footed patriots barely surviving through the vicious winter in Valley Forge and wonder what motivated them, think back through the history, and thousands that sacrificed before them. They knew the motto, “Live free or die.” Their ancestors lived the motto. As did ours.
Why, then, do we seem so complacent? Perhaps we’re the frog in the pot that’s been slowly heated to a catastrophic boiling point, not recognizing the tyranny until it’s almost too late.
But there’s hope. The same freedom-loving spirit that drove persecuted thousands to our shores, and motivated the sacrifices of life, liberty, and property in our Founders’ pursuit of Independence has not disappeared. Join a local tea party and catch the Spirit. We will save this nation.
Happy Birthday, America!
