Inspired by yesterday’s post about 2nd Amendment Sanctuaries, Michael Copeland sends his thoughts on liberty.
Defend Liberty!
by Michael Copeland
The breakaway colonists of New England, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other colonies were, as Pat Condell rightly points out, not Americans, but Englishmen standing up for their English rights. They defended those “ancient liberties” with their lives, winning the War of Independence and establishing their own new nation with its famous Constitution.
What is less well-known is that they had their admirers in England. One of these, Sir Thomas Gascoigne, at Parlington, near Leeds in Yorkshire, erected a commemorative arch with the inscription:
LIBERTY IN N. AMERICA TRIUMPHANT MDCCLXXXIII
Liberty is not free, nor is it self-upholding. It is hard-won by a struggle, and kept in place by vigilance and effort. It needs men and women of principle and action to sustain it.
“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
Defend liberty!
For previous essays by Michael Copeland, see the Michael Copeland Archives.
Liberty calling! Liberty calling!
Whatever it takes.
Yes, the colonists were Englishmen standing up for their English rights. But America isn’t a nation descended from Englishmen anymore. It’s been populated by peoples from all over the world. Amazingly enough it seems they have their own instincts, traditions and attitudes towards governance. Diversity is a real thing.
I don’t see how a Jeffersonian Republic can survive under mass immigration, a welfare state, universal suffrage and 27 genders. America is in for an exciting and vibrant future but I don’t think ancient Anglo-Saxon liberties will be part of it.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams
Yes, I have been hearing that quote lately from mostly the ‘right’ of center -“politically speaking.’ It seems more people being religious, or not need to be asking themselves what our American liberty means, and why we would be stupid to not struggle to uphold it.
A couple years back I read an article by a Hispanic man who wrote about just that, his father had a respect for the Euro/American sense of liberty, free speech etc. He acknowledged that it was the system the ‘Anglos’ created that gave him opportunity to be a success. It was very different than what most Hispanics are taught these days.