SUPPORT OF LIBERTY

by Susan Snelling

The Declaration of Independence says, “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, — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..”

Our rights come from our Creator, not man, not government. Our government is to secure those rights, to protect our unalienable rights. The government derives its powers from the people, and it is up to the people to make sure that the government is protecting our rights through staying within the bounds of the Constitution. Liberty takes work. It is not free. No one can take a free ride when it comes to securing our rights. And the people have a right to liberty, a God-given right.

In A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law in 1765, John Adams wrote, “Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”

What John Adams is saying is that even if our rights did not come from our Creator, which they do, that we have a duty to secure those liberties because of the sacrifice of our Founding Fathers. It was not easy. They sacrificed their own blood, livelihoods, and creature comforts. They gave their all as did the American loving soldiers who remain as footnotes in history or not mentioned by name at all. Many gave their last full measure of devotion.

We owe it to the brave and their families, who believed in something that transcended their own lives and their current situation. They had a vision for something so great, so unique, that it stood alone in the annals of history, and was called a “grand experiment.” An effort and vision so great that thinkers like Montesque and others wrote about it. America was called “the shining city on a hill.”

These brave forefathers deserve our devotion to their vision, yet the squandering of their efforts in many sectors in America casts a shadow on her brightness.  It is up to each generation to support liberty, if not because God gave us these rights, because we need to honor our forefathers, those great men and their families who gave their all. To squander what they did is to spit on their graves and turn our backs on the Creator who gave us the rights in the first place, that the Founding Fathers sought to secure for us.

We may not have earned those rights, and may not even deserve them, but according to John Adams, our Founders did earn them. And we owe it to them to maintain the securing of those rights through making sure our elected officials abide by the Constitution and keep their oath of office.

Our children and all future generations deserve our best. Are we the generation that finally gives up the protections in our Constitution to those who defy it, who choose to promote another agenda, who think nothing of shredding the Constitution, and care not about America’s real history but revise it for their purposes, who teach our children wrongly about where our rights come from and what it cost our forefathers, and soldiers and culture warriors who have fought since then to secure them?

Liberty must be supported and that is the duty of every citizen. It is no small matter. With the entire government working in concert with ambitious, self-serving men, employed against the American people and weaponized in a manner never before seen it takes experienced patriots to right this nation. Our Founders believed that Liberty once lost is almost impossible to secure again. We begin 2024 with no small matter before us.