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AROUND MIDNIGHT THE STATUE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON beside my computer began to glow, then seemed to come alive.“ Is it the Fourth?” it asked me, the last words spoken by the author of our Declaration of Independence before he left his body on the Fourth of July, 1826. “Almost,”I replied, my words coming from an unexpected place deep within. “Have you come to celebrate with us?” “With festivities and ‘illuminations,’ as John Adams said Independence Day would long be celebrated by the People,” America’s third President replied. “We will be allowed to watch fireworks,” I answered, “but only in government-run shows. The People in many places are no longer permitted to own or ignite their own skyrockets or firecrackers. It’s too dangerous. And besides, government employees just set fires that burned down large parts of Arizona and Colorado. And some conservatives are glad, because most fireworks today are made in Communist China, which uses revenues from selling them to build much bigger skyrockets aimed at their neighbors and at us.” “So all that citizens may do is fire their guns into the air?” asked the Sage of Monticello. “Oh, that definitely would be illegal,” I replied. “Bullets that go up also come down, usually at about 700 feet per second, and in past years this has killed or injured a few people. But this is no problem in many places, where owning or discharging a firearm is now illegal.” “But we put the Second Amendment into the Constitution’s Bill of Rights to secure forever the right of the People to keep and bear arms,” said Jefferson. “If the People are disarmed, then government will eventually take all power onto itself and become tyrannical. “And the very point of Fourth of July fireworks,” the spirit animating my Jefferson statue continued passionately, “was to remind Americans that liberty can only be sustained by power in the hands of the People, and that power always involves danger. It was to be the People, not the government, that set off Fourth of July fireworks. “Does anyone doubt,” he said, “that two centuries ago we knew fireworks were dangerous, and that some using them would get hurt? We were born in revolution, and revolutions require intelligence, risk, and courage. The Fourth of July was not a game, not a vicarious laser light show to be watched by passive spectators. Liberty always requires courage and a willingness to take real risks. That also is a requisite of economic freedom, capitalism. If we lose this courage, the republic is doomed.” “Our children are now taught in government schools not to play with fire, or fireworks, and that guns are intolerably dangerous,” I told the Revolutionary spirit. “Safety is more important than letting people experience what it is like to hold explosive power in their own hands.” “Dangerous to whom?” snorted the statue. “It sounds as if government wants no power in the hands of the People that might challenge its own usurpations! We had to fight the Redcoats more than once to hold our freedom, as my friend President James Madison did in the War of 1812 – from whence came our national anthem, born in the illuminations of bombs bursting in air.” “You’d better not say those words near an airport or school – or now around pretty much anywhere,” I replied. “You could be arrested for violating government anti-terrorism laws. That’s why many want to do away with our violent national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’” “So government has abolished the First Amendment, too,” said Jefferson. “And ordinary people cannot recite these words from our anthem without risking arrest. So how may citizens protest this abuse of power? By throwing government-taxed tea again into Boston Harbor?” It broke my heart to see his sorrow as I explained how by year 2002 the republic for which he gave so much had changed. “After this coming November,” I told him, “it will be illegal for you to so much as buy a newspaper advertisement 60 days or less before an election to tell your fellow citizens which candidates you recommend they vote for. “And as to the Boston Tea Party,” I told him, “anyone doing that today would be arrested, jailed, and massively fined into bankruptcy under the environmental pollution laws. Under those laws we are all regulated not as individuals but as part of one giant collectivist ecosystem. You were America’s first environmentalist and author of Notes on the State of Virginia.” “But such collectivist thinking inevitably would lead to the extinction of Liberty, which throughout human history has been an endangered species,” said Jefferson. “It sounds like the politics of Communist China, where the state is everything and the individual nothing. But even there, the Spirit of ’76 stirred in the hearts of Chinese students who at Tiananmen Square, as Professor Butler Shaffer observed carried as their symbol not the American flag or the dollar sign, but that gift to America from our ally France, the Statue of Liberty.” “The Statue of Liberty is yet honored by all Americans,” I replied, “but during the Clinton Administration a group of American students were prevented from singing our National Anthem when they visited it. Terrorists destroyed another great symbol, the World Trade Center towers, and politicians have just agreed to give the terrorists a victory by not rebuilding them. “I wonder whether, if terrorists this Fourth of July destroyed the Statue of Liberty, we would rebuild her,” I continued. “I do know that if you dressed like the Statue of Liberty and tried to carry a blazing torch through the streets of Manhattan or almost any city, you would be arrested. Only the pagan Olympic Torch, and only under tightly-controlled conditions, is permitted such liberties.” “Liberty is not ‘permitted,’ like something government gives and may therefore take away,” said Jefferson’s statue. “It comes from the Creator, and it lives where the People always remember that government is to be their servant, not their master, and have the courage to resist politicians eager to usurp our liberty!” “We still have the courage to take risks every Fourth of July,” I answered. “We barbecue hot dogs and hamburgers, despite scientific warnings that this creates Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons that might cause cancer. We continue bravely to eat potato chips, despite tentative research by the United Nations showing that this might increase our risk of cancer. And to tell the truth, the government is studying whether to outlaw backyard grills, and to put a tax on meat to offset the welfare health care costs…and that might push the day we finish working just to pay for government, Cost of Government Day, past this year’s date of July 1st. I know you rebelled against King George III for imposing much, much lower taxes than we now pay like so many sheep….” But as I turned to Thomas Jefferson’s statue, it had again become lifeless stone. The spirit that once animated it had fled to another realm. Had I been sleeping while thinking I was awake? Had the Spirit of ‘76 been but a vanished dream? Perhaps it will return with this Fourth of July. Mr. Ponte hosts a
national radio talk show Saturdays 6-9 PM Eastern Time (3-6 PM Pacific
Time) and Sundays 9-11 PM Eastern Time (6-8 PM Pacific Time) that can be
heard on 220 stations and via TalkAmerica.com.
The show’s live call-in number is (888) 822-8255. A professional
speaker, he is a former Roving Editor for Reader’s Digest.
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