On the eve of Independence, forget not the Patriots.

I can think of no better way to consider and celebrate tomorrow’s remembrance, on this the eve of America’s day of Independence than by watching The Patriot. In this I consider the lives and intertwining destinies, long fulfilled, of great men. Among these men, ones we know, ones we’ve learned of since childhood: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Samuel Adams, a man of more than amber ale, considered to be the Father of American Independence. Along side these great men, filled with wisdom and knowledge from the Creator, consider lesser known men, but nonetheless men of renowned: Patrick Henry, the great orator of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, statesman and signer of the Declaration, Peter Muhlenberg chaplain of the Revolution, and Robert Morris, the man upon who’s shoulder and credit much of the Colonial efforts for Independence was financed.

Pause a moment upon what these men, among many, set out to do; they set a fledgling country free. Remember, that the decision to take up arms against the King of England was not an easy one or a conclusion reached in rash consideration, but an option of last resort. Prior to the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party to protest the Stamp Act Lexington, and Concord, there was concentrated effort on both sides of the Atlantic to prevent the war, with even members of the British Parliament beseeching the King to not push the Colonists to conflict. Unfortunately, this effort failed. Having done all to prevent separation, the Framers were left with no other choice but to declare independence from a monarchy which imposed upon them forced quarter of British soldiers, suspension of parliamentary government amongst the colonies, and taxation without representation among stated reasons within the Declaration of Independence. It’s worth noting that the single grievance which we are taught as school children, taxation without representation, is listed seventeenth on a list of twenty-seven. It was upon this document, and the ideals sealed for eternity within it, that these men pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for which we take this day in July to commemorate. The battles they fought were not distant from their lives and homes, as the war we fight today often is, but on their lands and amongst their homes. They gave it all for a cause which all did not see through to completion, for at trials end some had died and others were imprisoned, tortured, and destitute.

Going back to our birth, a lesson is apparent: No Sacrifice, No Victory. What know we of sacrifice? The conflict for the fate of the world we find ourselves a part of, we are told, is fought in a land far from ours. Its affect does not touch us all as it touched these men, their families, and their compatriots. Instead of acknowledging a struggle does exist for the fate of the world against a brutal enemy who will win at all costs, factions within our great nation undercut our brave men and women by wanting to run, to surrender, to embrace a defeatist attitude of the heart from which flows a policy founded in the desire for political divisiveness instead of a united home front to which our soldiers can look to for courage and support, knowing we will stand firm with them for we can take no other course.

Upon it’s opposite we should stand united, willing to finish this work, to grasp victory and hold it high. Concurrently, there must be a realization that there is a second major front in our current struggle: within the hearts and minds of Americans this skirmish transpires, through the media and through deceit wrapped in fine words. For if the hearts and minds of the home front is won by the opposition, a major blow is struck against freedom, and the anchor upon which it rests, the consenting will of the free, is relinquished. Therefore, stand firm in the knowledge that bringing freedom to the captive, extending freedom to those that cry for it, as Lincoln did is a primary conduit by which these lands are kept safe.