On this July 4 in 2020, we are witnessing a determined, communist attempt to destroy America.
America, after all, is not a place or a race. It is an idea, an integrated view of the nature of human beings and the proper way that they should live together. The idea was best articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
I believe that the Declaration of Independence is one of the greatest documents in history. It expresses principles that are based on the reality of human existence and therefore are true, fixed, and timeless. When my children were of the right age, we read the Declaration on each July 4 and discussed its meaning. It is that important. We would go phrase by phrase, marveling at the power of the concepts and the skill with which they were expressed. I encourage you and your family to do so this year. It is even more important now than it has been in a long time.
The Marxists who are using race to divide us, and then to rule us, want us to destroy the idea in the Declaration. But Martin Luther King recognized the importance of the founding principles of natural rights for all and appealed to the principles in the Declaration to insure that America better lived up to those founding principles. We are all the better for it. We will all be the worse if we accept the siren song of division and destruction of the Marxists. Calvin Coolidge was fighting the progressives of his day who were on the upswing in their power. Progressives, of course, HATE the principles of the Declaration because they want to run other people's lives and the Declaration says that natural law prohibits that. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a progressive Supreme Court justice once said, "I sneer at the concept of natural rights."
The pictured meme has a short snippet from Coolidge. Here is the more complete quote:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
If we are to stop being dragged backward toward tyranny and arbitrary rule of men and the destruction of the ability of each of us as individuals to pursue happiness, it is time to renew our understanding that each one of us has natural rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and the recognition that the purpose of America and our governments in America is to secure these rights.
Tom Glass lives in Northwest Harris County. Click here to reach his email. He is also on Facebook as Tom G Glass. He leads a group called Texas Constitutional Enforcement which can be explored at its website or Facebook group.
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