A Liberty Carol Stave One

It is a classic. Every Christmas season there are movies and stage performances all based upon it, we read it aloud or to ourselves, many shows have parodied it and may we never shut out the message it teaches. I speak of a Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. I am thinking particularly of the scene where broken and pertinent Scrooge kneels beside a tomb and says, “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

When I think of these lines I think of two things: one is eggnog (nonalcoholic of course) and the other is the profound nature of Dickens’ story. If you recall Scrooge was a man who lost his way, his life had abandoned the foundational principles of basic human morality and decency. Surely Scrooge would have been lost if not for the intervention of Heaven through the Spirits of the past, present and future. Why do I refer to this Christmas Classic in April? because recently the United States Supreme Court heard arguments on Obama-care which will largely decide rather Americans remain free or not. We have come to this: rather freedom survives is now in the hands of 9 people. One of them helped write the defense for this very law, three more are committed leftists and one has been a straw blown the in the wind since replacing Robert Bork, as a nominee all those years ago. If this moment does not bring us to our knees as Scrooge’s visions did for that fictional miser than perhaps America’s day is done. Perhaps though we are not so different from Scrooge. Perhaps we too would benefit a visit to the past, present and future.    

 Stave I: The Past:
Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "Would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?"

How do we understand who we are if we forget where we come from? In Dickens’ wonderful story this was the case for Scrooge and so it is with a nation. The loss of history is the loss of our identity. Let us therefore take the hand of the ephemeral spirit of the past and look back at some of the shadows of scenes that have made us who we are.

July 4, 1776- Fifty six men are in a sweltering room in Philadelphia and what they contemplate is treason. Rebellion against far more than the British Empire, rebellion against the very status quo that had ruled the world since the days of medieval kings, against the belief that man was meant to be subjugated under the hands of other men, that the whim of royalty determined the rights of man. These stalwart men have now come to the belief that the rights of man are inalienable and given not by the decree of kings but endowed by the Sovereign Creator. These men are not boisterous or celebratory, they are however determined. To this end all 56 pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. History reminds us that they all suffered for this decision, but none of them would ever falter.

December 19, 1777- 12,000 men enter camp at Valley Forge. It falls to them to win the independence that had been declared just a short time before. They are an army under the command of General George Washington. They are ill equipped, poorly supplied, hungry and cold. 2,000 will die of disease and cold; many will loose heart and leave the struggle. But this army perseveres and fights on bloody year after bloody year until at last the great British Empire will cry “enough” and a new nation is born.

May 10, 1869- the Spirit of the past now leads us to another shadow. Hundreds of people gather in Promontory Utah as the last spike in the intercontinental railroad is driven. The nation born on July 4^th tried in the fire of war and hardship has survived its greatest test and now the far flung coasts of the sweeping land are united. Commerce can move ahead the greatest economic power in history will begin to grow. Free men will build things other men once dreamed of, free men (and all Americans are now free for the first time) will uphold in blood and tears the freedoms long fought for. The West will be one, tyranny defeated. They have not built a perfect land, treaties with the Native Americans will be broken, and women will not vote until 1920, there will be a disturbing period of expansionism and questionable wars in Cuba and Latin America. But the ideas of the founders are true, political discourse will continue men of passion will disagree and the pendulum of power will swing between the branches of government as different interpretations of the constitution take hold. Through it all men will strive to build a better life for their children and the American dream will be little limited by anything but a man’s desire and willingness to work. Unlike any other place or time men will pray, they shall gather in freedom before their God. Americans will be among the one half of one percent of men of all time who will pray and congregate as heir conscience dictates before God. All seems well. Then the Spirit of the past takes our hand and leads us to a new shadow.

April 18, 1969- Bethel Pennsylvania, the scene is vague, the world upside down. The place is Woodstock but it is one of many places throughout the country that show the madness of a nation loosing its grip on its founding principles. Adultery and sexual perversions are elevated above the honorable defense of freedom (Make love not war). Soldiers are called baby killers, while motherhood and traditional family values are despised. You hear words that seem insane like this from Bernadine Dorn "Killing a cop just because he's a cop, that'll happen. And that should happen. And there's nothing inhuman about it at all. It's survival. It's the most human thing in the world."  

Or this from Huey Newton "We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism."   The system of free enterprise that has brought unrivaled levels of prosperity is demeaned. The belief that men should work for what they have is vilified and the concept that all men are owed something takes root.

Drug use is rampant and all moral restraint lost. Though some gallantly and honorably struggle against racism others use it as an excuse to incite violence.

Meanwhile just a few years before the United States Supreme Court ruled that prayer in school violates the constitution. To this madness that Spirit of history hangs its head in sorrow and shows us another shadow.

April 30, 1975- the scene is half a world away. An army that has won every battle is about to loose a war. The hippies have their way and the last Americans leave Vietnam and the country begins decades of tyranny and oppression compounded by abject poverty. Every year in our country, more children are born to mothers who deem it unimportant to marry the fathers.  Policies of the United States government supposedly intended to help the poor are institutionalizing poverty that will be the inheritance of generations. The cessation of the teaching of morality has created a rise of juvenile delinquency and lawlessness in inner cities across the nation.

And there is blood. Blood on our hands, it is the blood of children. Roe vs Wade has stripped the most vulnerable Americans of the most fundamental right that of life itself

The Spirit of the past asks who is to blame. If America is government of the people by the people and for the people the foult and the blood does not rest on the heads of Sovereign kings or generalissimo’s. It rests upon “We the People of the United States”

We can stand no more of these pictures from the past! We do what cowards always do. We pull down the cap over the light of the past and attempt to shut out the lesson of history. We seek to return to our peaceful slumber of blissful ignorance, but try as we might the powers that seek to protect liberty are not done with us yet. Two more Spirits will visit us, next week we attempt to see the nation as it is.

Gird up your loins like a man…the Spirit of the Present approaches!