Freedom's Indelible Ink

Our Declaration of Independence written by our Founding Fathers and sent to King George III of Great Britain, states in part,

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”

Our Founding Fathers were intelligent, thoughtful, insightful men to have understood (without psychiatrists or sociologists) that people, on the whole, will put up with a lot more than they should because people understand that it’s not easy, “prudent” or a “light and transient” (brief) thing to change a form of government for little matters. One doesn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Our Founding Fathers also realized that they had been putting up with a lot of guff – big guff -- and they made a list of all the grievances they had against King George III. That list is included within the Declaration of Independence. The list of grievances is twenty-nine items long: a lot of guff to tolerate from a tyrant so far away. One is left to wonder if King George III had been closer – say in Washington, D.C., for instance – if the Founding Fathers would have suffered evil so patiently. After all, if they had been near enough to go talk eye to eye, toe to toe with the man and make some demands of him, would they have tolerated those twenty-nine usurpations?

When Obama started out with all the promises of “Hope” and “Change”, it would have been nice to have had some sort of notification as to what sort of “Change” he would bring. Socialism and/or Marxism are not welcome entities within a free country: and America used to be free. When we have someone who is trying their darnedest to restrain freedom, to destroy our future, to tax us into oblivion -- Cloward and Piven and the Weatherman Underground plans being put into effect – we obviously have someone in the White House (now known as the “Red” House), we cannot trust. Obama is doing things similar to the things that King George III did that brought about the first Revolution, the first call to freedom.

Ronald Reagan once said, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

I wonder what Reagan would say if he saw what our country has done to itself just twenty-one short years after he left the Presidency. We have gone from an icon of freedom, hope, strength and purpose -- whose strength brought down the Berlin Wall and brought the fresh breeze of freedom to a suffocating people -- to a Marxist who hates America and wants to make Reagan’s quote a success in the latter part of the second sentence: give our children “the first step into a thousand years of darkness.”

Considering the list of twenty-nine things King George III was doing wrong, we see that Obama is doing (at the very least) eleven of the same reasons that America’s Founding Fathers – and the people of the Colonies at the time – declared their independence from King George III and his tyranny. When the time was right for America, the people rebelled. In a long, hard fought war, we lost many battles, but in the end, freedom won and King George III was defeated. The cry of freedom rising in the hearts of many here determined that they would no longer live subject to anyone who would do the kinds of things King George III was doing.

The cry of freedom is rising again today. You can see it in the Tea Party movement: not just in their numbers, but in their diversity, their creativity, their strength of heart. When the human heart realizes it lost some of the freedom it had formerly known – via 9/11 and “Homeland Security” measures, or via a Marxist tyrant – every heart yearns to return to that former freedom. Once experienced, freedom leaves an indelible mark upon the human heart and that mark cannot be taken away, covered over, or ignored. It shines in the darkness like a beacon of hope, delight and energy that takes away our breath and makes us determined to recapture the freedoms that were lost. Freedom’s indelible ink remains upon us from the days of Ronald Reagan and from those days freedom’s mark beats within us: strong, proud, eternal.

As in the days of the Declaration of Independence when our Founding Fathers heard freedom’s cry and stood to give America that second-most precious gift, today our hearts cry out once more for that sweet, sweet taste, the lingering taste of freedom left by Ronald Reagan. It’s in the dedication, respect and memories we see reflected in the books we still buy about him, the posters we still hang, the quotes we still use. Those words -- so simple, so elegant, so true – that brought tears to our eyes, hope to our hearts, and stirred within us the determination to never let that spark of freedom – that unequalled light, that star so bright, that yearning of every human soul – leave this great land.

Our Founding Fathers gave us the tools, the example, the truth. Reagan gave those of us not alive in the time of our Founding Fathers the taste of indelible ink that branded every true American heart and burnt within us an embers’ glow of freedom’s eternal spark. Within the hearts of every true American beats that rhythm of freedom’s cry. The rhythm of patience, of belief that it won’t get worse, of desire to obey the law, but knowing that if it came to it, the law must be broken as our Founding Fathers showed us in the struggle to bring our America into existence and to let that spark burn into a new country, a new hope, a new beginning for freedom’s light.

Ronald Reagan said of America in his farewell address, “After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true to the granite ridge, and her glow has held no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”

As freedom’s indelible ink has left its mark, Ronald Reagan’s message was freedom’s true voice, its Liberty Bell cry of “Let Freedom Ring!” American hearts are now hearing that cry. They pull restlessly at the bit and paw anxiously at the ground, awaiting that time when we can stand no more and the Declaration of Independence’s phrase, “Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed” will give way to the very next sentence in that august document of liberty:

“But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”

There are others out there who have freedom’s indelible ink upon their hearts. Others who know that “it is the Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government”. As long as we have that spark and are willing to stand up and fight for it, to fan it into a great, roaring flame that beckons once again to those throughout the earth who would be free, there will be no tyrant powerful enough, no “Change” permanent enough, no “Hope” strong enough, to prevent freedom from once again shining in this land.

Freedom calls and every human heart answers, whether in actions, words or just a silent, still desire because tyranny rules the land, every heart answers. It is the inborn cry that God planted and little experiences of the slightest kind – music that stirs the heart, a poem that lights the spark, a blog that rings the bell – bring that spark of freedom’s indelible ink to life and hope is born.

Indelible ink and freedom’s call delight the soul and mortal heart. For freedom comes from God and it is His desire that we live free, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32), is the call of freedom straight from God’s own plan. That is why it calls so persistently to those who will listen, to those with indelible ink. Freedom’s call, freedom’s mark, freedom’s spark stirs and beckons and God smiles because He is the One who gave it.

We have suffered the evils of Marxism and tyranny’s plans being implemented long enough. Freedom’s indelible ink calls and an answer it demands!