There was a woman arrested on April 22nd, 2020 in Meridian Idaho for allowing her children to play in the local park. Sara Brady, 40, was arrested and charged with one count of misdemeanor trespassing. She was handcuffed in front of her children and taken to jail. Maybe her intent was to protest the parks closure due to the Covid-19 crisis, or perhaps that was her home-school civics class. We may only imagine that they were studying the founding of the US, and the onerous restrictions the British were placing on the colonists. It was Benjamin Franklin, (one of the founding fathers of the America as we used to know it), who stated “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)” Whatever the reason for that family to be in that park on that day, we submit is irrelevant. It was a public park that would have been open during “normal” hours, and we would defend her right to be there with her children before any court whether or not we agreed with her reason for being there in the first place.
We believe that other than to teach your children to love the LORD our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, we just happen to believe that teaching your children that “freedom is not free” just may rank up there a distant second. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
― Ronald Reagan
It has been stated by many that while those words are beautiful, but that no one would ever agree that there was a “moral” much less legal right to be there in the park, and while we may not all agree, luckily we all don’t have to.
But that is the underlying issue, those quotes are so much more than just beautiful words. The thought and concept behind them actually underpin the hopes and dreams of this Nation we all call home. These “words” carry the ideals and principles that so many have already died, and are in fact dying to uphold this very day. These “words” and the ideals that they represent are just as much a brick in the foundation of America as the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Just as Deuteronomy 11:19-21 would instruct us all to teach the scriptures to our children “Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and gates, so that as long as the heavens are above the earth, your days and those of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers.…” I will submit now that we are also to teach the founding principles of America after the scriptures are known, and hidden in our hearts to be lived out in our daily lives. That the founding principles of these United Sates of America are to be taught at home, at play, and while walking with our children and shown them as to why freedom is not free, why “Man is not free unless government is limited” Regan, that “Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.” Lincoln, that “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” King, that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” Jefferson , that “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion” Camus, that “I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do” Heinlein, and finally “if the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter” Washington. Is this ladies act of defiance, not to be considered freedom of speech? Are these values not deserving to be taught to our children? Are these principles and ideals not to be lived out before everyone in our daily lives… including and especially our children? We believe that these ideals, principles.. “words” are deserving to be made known to everyone all over the world for the simple reason… no one individual is truly free, when another is enslaved by tyranny and oppression.