Declarations

Into the breach, again

Photo by Ryan Wallace on Unsplash

We are in July, on the cusp of July 4: “Independence Day.”

Next year will be the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation. We know not what we will be or find a year from now, as a people and nation. We are at war with ourselves.

Our better angels, the ones Lincoln invoked during an earlier great civil conflict, are not winning at the moment. The battle for basic human rights and dignity seems endless, eternal, existential.

There are truths that I hold to be universal, even if they are not self-evident to some. They have been expressed by others as they resisted self-interest, intolerance, hatred, inequity and injustice over the centuries.

To me, these truths continue to be worth fighting for.

Resist. Persist. Always.

May this ongoing struggle bring us to another new birth of freedom.

“Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.” - Aristophanes

“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” - John Adams

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

"We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." - Abraham Lincoln

“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.” - James Baldwin

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.” - Bob Marley

“Take the blinders from your vision, take the padding from your ears and confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears.” - Maya Angelou