During the negotiations over the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife and said:
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized 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 more.”
And so it has been. John was off by a couple of days but he was right about the celebration of “Independence Day” by ALL succeeding generations.
Even though the 4th of July has been celebrated every year since 1776 and became a legal holiday in 1941, what was in the minds of the Americans about freedom in 1776 is far removed from what is in the minds of the Americans in 2017. The freedom envisioned by the Founding Fathers in the late 1700’s is hardly the freedom that exists in present day America.
Nevertheless, pay no attention to the apologists. Pay no attention to the appeasers of our enemies. Pay no attention to those who utter dooms-day prophecies. Pay no attention to the fear mongers who would fill us with dread from manufactured crises, designed for evil purposes. Pay no attention to those who say we are weak and decadent. Pay no attention to the naysayers. Pay no attention to those who would run down America. Pay no attention to the socialists who would willingly tear down the fabric of our freedom and give away our sovereignty to a faceless one-world order.
They, each and every one of them, are wrong. They are wrong because in the hearts and minds of most free Americans, no matter how many generations have been brainwashed by the collectivist’s philosophy, no matter how many have been bought off by the offer of government largess and handouts, no matter how all-powerful the federal government has become in its incessant march to total control, lies a subconscious belief that America is unique, different and one-of-a-kind and that uniqueness, that difference and that generous one-of-a-kind character is the insurance to the long-term survival of America and American liberty.Â
It has never happened before to any other people on Earth, in any other country, in any other time. Something happened on the fateful, historic April day in 1775 when a shot rang out ….. a shot that was heard around the world. As the first shot’s sound faded into the pages of history and the following fusillade of muskets and pistols shattered the intervening silence that sent individual American and British lives to their final reward, an idea was born, an idea so powerful that it has not been replaced by any other idea in 241 years. American freedom was based on a heretofore radical idea that “all men 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,”
This idea of freedom had been hatching for a very long time, even all the way back to the early Greeks in and after the fifth century, BC, during the age of the Athenian Empire, Aristotle, Plato and Pericles.  Plato’s Republic lasted for a little over 180 years, but the seeds of freedom planted during those years, influenced the rest of history.
Throughout the last 2 and half millennium, several cultures toyed with freedom, but in the end were doomed by their failure to follow its principles. Those in power succumbed to the evils of ego, lust and greed as we are doing today. Those who would be free (the governed) abrogated their responsibility to defend that freedom and left it in the hands of those in power, with predictable results.
Starting even before the Magna Carta of 1215, thoughts were moving towards the rights of individuals and the lessening of rights of the state. Some English Kings, acquiesced to the ideas of individual rights and justice, but still held on to virtually dictatorial power. As the second millennium progressed, more ideas on freedom surfaced through the writings of Voltaire and Locke, each having a profound affect on the evolution of common law and then eventually on the Articles of Confederation, ending in the most profound of all historical documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
But what was born on that day of the “shot heard round the world“, germinated a seed in the minds of men that is alive and well, in spite of what your eyes and your ears tell you. That seed of freedom has been nourished, cultivated, dug up and re-buried by over 240 years of wars, tumult, pestilence, poverty, pain and plenty. It is that seed that is the power, the energy, the drive, the ambition, the courage and even the unprecedented and unfettered generosity that has set Americans apart from every other culture on Earth. It is that same seed of freedom that will lift this great nation up once again and turn on the power to its bright beacon of hope and promise, not only to all Americans, but to all humans who call this planet home.
America must be the leader and the shining light to the World, not try to compete with the different forms of government and merge our “ways” with their “ways”. We are the most powerful country on Earth because we are free. America is and has been a beacon to the world and will continue to be that beacon unless we let others try to dim that light with failed policies, dependency, negativism, despondency, the trashing of our Constitution and embarrassment for our achievements, instead of being proud of them. We are great as a country and great as a people because of those achievements.  Have we made some mistakes along the way ….. of course?  Have we tried to correct those mistakes ….. without a doubt?
If you are discouraged, don’t be. Look around you. The Minutemen of old and the Vanguards of Freedom are ever vigilant and will not be silenced. They are ringing the bell in the Old North Church. They are sounding the alarm throughout the land. They are hoisting that great symbol of freedom, our American Flag, wherever they go. The Tea Party of today is not an accident. Join them in their quest, applaud their courage and stand behind and with them as they confront those who would strip us of our liberty and render us as serfs to the “King”, the “one”, or the false Messiah.
Do not despair. The signs of a rebirth of American freedom are everywhere, albeit about a century late. The election of Donald Trump was also not an accident. It is those Americans containing that seed of freedom that will save America from itself, not the government. It is WE THE PEOPLE, made up of free individuals with certain unalienable rights, that hold the power of liberty in our hard-working, self-reliant, industrious, courageous and generous hands, not the government. The government, at any level, cannot be trusted. The swamp must be drained.
We are Americans for God’s sake. The blood of heroes and patriots courses through our arteries and veins. Each of us are the descendants of those whose spine was stiffened by courage when their country called, or evil raised its ugly head. You are the direct lineage of the men and women whose intellect and fortitude carried them to new heights and made America the greatest, proudest, industrious, creative, wealthiest, productive and most generous nation on Earth. You are the sons, daughters, grandsons and grand daughters of those who stood up to tyranny, no matter what the cost. The genes of creators, inventors, hard workers, the educated, the warriors and those in service to others, are an integral part of your DNA.
True Americans are not whiners or losers. They are doers and winners. When an obstacle is in front of them they go around it, or under it, or over it, as the situation warrants. They build things they don’t tear them down. They invent things to make our lives a little easier, or increase our health and life span, or so that we can get a job done quicker, or yes, even go faster. Americans are the givers and preservers of life, not the takers. Americans believe that life is precious and a gift from God and its preservation is a prime imperative.
Proud and brave Americans have been the victors in two world wars and the sacrifice of those men and women have lifted over a billion people out of bondage and shown them that freedom is the natural order, not slavery, not servitude. Unfortunately, we have engaged in wars of late where victory was not the goal and Americans have paid a high price for our government’s dereliction of duty to those who must pay for and fight our wars. That dereliction was abundantly evident in our previous Commander-in-Chief, who labored over endless detail and political expediency, while brave Americans were dying on the front lines of our enemies, bound by irrational limits on the rules of engagement.
Americans are the light to the rest of the world, not because we are better than anyone else, but because we live under the bright light of liberty that frees us to climb the highest mountains, or jump off this once giant planet into the vastness of space, where only the brave dare tread, in search of the secrets of our island Universe.
Today before us lies an obstacle and the obstacle is not a foreign enemy but a false domestic ideology. An ideology that is born of the collective where the individual is subordinate to that collective, in direct conflict with each American’s unalienable rights. This ideology is hidden in deceit and is the antithesis of freedom and liberty. It is an ideology that requires obedient compliance ….. compliance to the demands of a corrupt elite who seek absolute power over the masses.
This ideology is one of retreat and appeasement. It is one of “hold back” and “slow down”, instead of moving forward with boldness. It is an ideology that seeks to weaken America, not strengthen it. But worse, it is an ideology that strips individuals of their own innate strength and makes them dependent on the collective and the corrupt elite, instead of being proud, responsible and self-reliant.
Ladies and gentlemen, it was the “shot heard ’round the world” that triggered the first battle for freedom in America, even though the battle had been brewing for sometime. It wasn’t planned, it just happened and that is the way the second battle for freedom will start. The groundwork for the battle has already been laid. Our NARLO website is loaded with the sounds of freedom for all Americans, not just rural Americans.
Still, we must remember this isn’t 1776 it is 2017. In 1776 both sides had the same weapons. One side (the British) was well trained. Even so the well-trained side was still beat by the cry of freedom and perhaps the hand of providence. Today, one side has pistols and rifles and the other side has giant aircraft carriers, F-22’s and M1 tanks. It would hardly be a fair fight.
We have no choice but to find a way to right the situation peacefully, or we are in for a very long, retracted and bloody civil war, where the outcome is totally unpredictable and freedom may not be what we win in the end. Let us not, once again, fall into the trap where we find that war, carnage, brutality and violence are the only way to regain freedom.
No! The 4th of July has not become an oxymoron! It is the memory of a time when brave Americans stood up against tyranny with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Are present day Americans to do no less?  We call on all true Americans on a grand scale to openly reject Progressivism. Reject political correctness. Reject collectivism.  Reject multi-culturalism. Reject radical environmentalism. Reject the one-world government and reject these things with all your heart and soul, or watch America succumb to the fatal disease of world socialism and planet-wide slavery.
© 2017 Ron Ewart – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Ron Ewart: info@narlo.org
