Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: August 26, 2010 -           #1035 - Title: “Thank God for our Liberties!” (749)

Following my talk before the Georgia Tea Party in Marietta last week a member asked me a question that I didn’t answer well. She asked me what is there for Tea Party members to do other than to stay in touch with their elected officials, and protest locally the ‘fundamental changes’ of Obama that could enslave America. My answer was lame and it caused me to ponder her question more deeply. I think I have a better answer today.

            Having organized similar organizations I fully understood her question. Most organizations, like today’s Tea Party organizations organized to oppose President Obama’s efforts to “fundamentally change” America, often die once the perceived crisis passes and repetition and boredom sets in. It is difficult to keep a group of concerned citizens involved, unless they are members of Acorn who are organized and paid to protest by the government. But this is not the case with today’s Tea Partiers who are primarily family people who work hard to care for their family and businesses, and care deeply about their freedoms and country – and strongly believe in ‘their cause,’ and the future of their children and grandchildren.

            As I pondered her question this past week the words ‘Minute Man’ came to mind. “Why,” I asked, “would these words pop into my mind at this time?” “Because,” the answer came, “today’s Tea Party members need to spiritually prepare themselves for the challenging years that lay ahead just as the Minute Men of 1776 had prepared themselves for their coming Revolutionary War, the difference being that today’s Minute Men and Women must use non-violence weapons, their computers, their e-mail lists and the internet, not muskets.”

            In September I will go into more detail on what can be done, and needs to be done by today’s Tea Party members so they can become today’s modern-day Minute Men and Women. These columns will coincide with the anniversary of the signing of America’s Constitution on September 17, 1787.

            Meanwhile I submit a statement made in 1938 by Albert E. Bowen for all Americans to ponder. This statement is, at least for me, the best definition of what freedom is, and what we are fighting for today. Ponder its words deeply. They will help you understand what America is all about in a way seldom discussed today.

            Bowen said: “Freedom signifies more than a release from outward restraint. It is an essence, a quality of the spirit whose rarest blossoms, in an atmosphere of oppression wither and die.

            “In our conception, the whole purpose and object of life is to achieve individual perfection through the unfolding of individual potentialities and the ripening of all the virtues. Learning, extension of horizons, expansion of vision, poise of character, serenity of soul – these coveted fruits of the spirit – are the consequence of voluntary free acts. In the foul and noisome air of despotism they may neither quicken nor flower. They are outside the power of human bestowal or coercion; they are in the realm of freedom. (As Jefferson said, unalienable freedoms, given mankind by the Creator) As these transcend physical acquisitions in value, so the principle of freedom transcends the power of force or compulsion.

            “Freedom is not bestowed, it is achieved. It is not a gift, but a conquest. It does not abide; it must be preserved.

            “Self government involves self-control, self discipline, an acceptance of and the unremitting obedience to correct principles. It demands are commensurate with its high privileges. Duties are the inseparable companion of rights. No other form of government requires so high a degree of individual morality. “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things,” said Edmond Burke, “that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.” It is one of the missions of the Church (your church and mine) to foster in men those virtues without which there can be no self-government, and the alternative to which is the mentally and spiritually sterilizing scourge of tyranny.

            “Before we import despotic principles into our own land, which are so raucously clamoring for admission (1938), we would [be wise] to count the cost.

            “Thank God for Liberty! “May we and all the generations to come be as heroic in its preservation as were the Founders in its establishment, that in our land freedom may abide forever.”

Bowen said it well! Now please ponder his words deeply and then strengthen your resolve to ‘the cause of freedom’ - and reaffirm your determination to stay in this fight to retain your liberty.