Freedom-Fighters Forum

By William J. Dell – 17 September 2011
Amore Dei, Familiae, Patriae ducit !

The Rev. Edward Everett Hale is generally remembered for his famous story of one Lt. Philip Nolan, “The Man Without a Country.” Many of us today may share in this feeling of being without a country as our elected representatives treat We the People as if we were not Americans and their employers. Many of us may despair in the plight that seems to have fallen to our Constitutional Republic and ask, “But what can I do?” To this I would respond with a quote from this same Rev. Edward Everett Hale:

I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
The something I ought to do, I can do.
And by the grace of God, I will.

It is interesting to me that all the great decisions of one’s life must be made individually. There really is no “collective” without individual decision and commitment. During the era of the War for Independence, it was the decision of individual patriots along with the individual decision and commitment of each of the signers of the Declaration of Independence to pledge their individual lives, their individual fortunes and their individual sacred honors that gave the cause of Liberty its strength. In 1787 it was the individual decision and commitment of the delegates who signed the Constitution that began the process that made us a Constitutional Republic with a Bill of Rights. A Constitution which states that We the People are sovereign and that the government only has such powers as We the People grant to it.

So it has been throughout the history of our Constitutional Republic. As each crisis has arisen, individual Americans have risen to defend the cause of freedom. Each has determined within his or her own heart that tyranny and injustice will not stand and that freedom and our Constitutional Republic will prevail. As each of us has done this, we became as a single strand in the rope of freedom and liberty of our Republic. Separately we were of little force but together, whether as the Founding Fathers or the “greatest generation,” we became strong and our freedoms and our Constitutional Republic were preserved. It will be no different for We the People, the patriots of today.

As stated previously, on December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. In the aftermath of that attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is reported to have said: “I fear that we have only awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” In the face of the challenges and threats to our Constitutional Republic today, from within and without, if you are part of a new awakened “sleeping giant” asking, “But what can I do?” May I suggest the topics that are contained in this section of the Forum as “The something I [and you] ought to do.”

Lastly, let each of us then, in our own way, enlist other patriotic Americans to make their own individual commitment to go and do likewise! And may each of us by the grace of God have the commitment of our forefathers to do it!

Understanding That Our’s is an Individual Responsibility –
This is a Patriot’s Responsibility!