Freedom-Fighters Forum

By William J. Dell – July 1995

It is the Year of our Lord 1995 and of the United States of America 219, as we celebrate our national birthday what are we as a nation remembering? What in our heritage as a nation are we giving reverence today? What is prised and valued by the rising generation of young Americans as we pass the torch of liberty to them? What will they pass in turn to their posterity?

It has been said, “That the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. Have we as a nation been vigilant? Have we taught to our posterity love of country and those who paid the price for their freedom? What do our children and grand-children know about George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Thomas Paine, John Hancock, or of any of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. What do they know of Betsy Ross, Dolly Madison, or Harriet Tubman. What do they know of all those who fought minute men, soliders in both blue and grey, 20th century doughboys in “the war to end all wars”, and those valiant men of arms since who followed duty because of “love of country”. What do they know of pioneers who forged a nation from “sea to shining sea.”

Does our posterity understand the meaning of Francis Scott Key’s words:

“O thus be it forever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may their heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto—”In God is our trust;”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

Have we in our families “Praised the power that hath made and preserved us a nation?” Our nation has a great heritage because our Founding Fathers, its patriotic leaders and many of its people through 219 years have remembered and had gratitude in their hearts for their God given freedom. They remembered from whom the blessings of liberty flowed and He, as promised, remembered to “preserve us a nation.”

Many are currently joining in the struggle to right the assualt of 30 plus years on the dignity and freedom of man. Man cannot be free if he is dependent upon government for the necessities of life. Man cannot be free when government created indolence, cause by the dole, creates generations that are dependent upon ever expanding social programs that destroy the foundation of a nation—the family.

Government has legitimate functions and these functions were placed in our Divinely inspried Constitution by the Founding Father who God raised up for that purpose. These purposes never interferred with the foundation of our Nation. For nearly two centuries they preserved the dignity of the family and supported parents in their efforts to raise a righteous generation to which they might pass the torch of liberty.

Since the power to govern comes from the people, the government only has powers that the people relinquish. A Republican form of Government never grants power to the citizens. It is the citizens that grant power to the government. This position is established Constitutionally by the Tenth Amendment, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”.

We as a nation need a revival of responsible national citizenship. We need to teach respect for our God given freedoms, the flag and our patriotic heritage. We need to be involved in the community, state and nation by voting for responsible leaders who will be statesmen instead of politicians.

We as a family need a revival of responsible citizenship in the home. We need to revive respect for parents. We need to revive responsibility of parents to their posterity as they mature along this journey we call life. We as parents need to revive the virtue of the work ethic. We need to revive responsibility of children toward their parents in their declining years. We need a revival of the traditional roles of father as the bread winner and mother as the homemaker so that our posterity might have the examples they need to restore to our nation the strong families which were its foundation.

We, as a nation, need to replace the license of the last 30 years with the responsibile citizenship of our first 190 years. As President Coolige said concerning our nation, “We do not need more material development, we need more spiritual development. We do not need more intellectual power, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.”

May God bless each of us as we work toward these goals, and may …

God bless America