Liberty
They who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety.
Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it, not for themselves.
If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Liberty and justice for all.
The thread that binds our civil society together is being pulled thin once again.
Benjamin Franklin, Bob Marley, Lincoln, and Orwell speak from their experience of those who would deny Liberty to others.
The other being you and I.
The foundation of the idea that all men are free is found in the expression of Liberty.
For all its failings, our democracy has agreed upon a belief in the inalienable rights of its citizens and in the people of the world to their right to Liberty and justice.
Patriots, known and unknown, in the halls of Congress, in the halls of tenements, have fought the good fight against the ignorance of the selfish.
We were the first nation on Earth to put our principles of freedom to the test.
The Great American Experiment.
Could we, the people, form a government for the people and not to the benefit of one person, one party, one corporation, one religion, and one ethnicity?
Could we overcome our inherent selfishness as a species and, together, promote the general welfare of all peoples?
Could we overcome?
No country in the world had declared for itself a challenge like this before.
No king, no prince, no czar, no queen, no business leader, and no religious leader declared that the average man had the right to independence.
Independence of thought, of congregation, of vote, of movement, of association, of speech, of press, of religion, of petition, or grievance to your government.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
Liberty and justice for all.
We demand our freedom.
The freedom-loving people of the world admired us.
In the hearts of some nations, a bond of friendship and kinship was recognized.
France gave this nation a gift, an emblem of what the American people stood for in the world.
Freedom.
Americans fought with themselves for freedom.
They fought in the world for freedom.
They welcomed all those who came to their shore seeking freedom.
What better emblem than Liberty to stand with her torch held up high so that all could see the open door to that land high upon the hill of human ideals.
Even when the foundations were laid for the statue, the grinding teeth of the selfish demanded that the door be shut.
There's no more room.
No more room?
The ignorant are consistent in their narrow beliefs and perspectives.
Freedom has arms as wide as the universe.
Liberty encompasses all of time.
Justice is forever.
Love will always demand more.
As people who believe in love, we can do more than one thing at a time.
Freedom is not just for you; freedom asks you to extend that same freedom to everyone.
Liberty is not just for America; it is for every nation on the globe.
Justice is not just for one race; it is for all genders, creeds, and colors.
To think, to express that this ideal should go away strikes at the core of who we are as a people.
It is the exact opposite of those who believe in humanity.
It is the voice of hate.
It is the cruelty of selfishness.
It is the criminal mind that believes that might make right.
It is the voice of the self-ignorant.
The hateful seem to have a short memory.
They act as if they have come upon some brand-new idea that none of us has ever heard before.
They boldly stand before us and proclaim hate and selfishness as a cure for all the problems in the world.
As if none of us haven't heard it all before and have rejected it.
Each and every generation has rejected hate because of where it leads.
Hate leads any society that fosters it to a death sentence.
The forces of good, taken as being weak, will rise up and wash away the ugliness of hate.
This President and his sponsors and supporters little realize the sand upon which they stand.
Ask history, where are all the tyrants now?
Where are their statues?
Where are their people?
How are they remembered?
Now, ask where the leaders who promoted the general welfare are?
Who pushed for freedom?
Who demanded Liberty and justice for all?
Where are their people?
We're still here.
Peace
Daniel J Frey aka Toby