By The People, For The People

It’s the Fourth of July today. Independence Day. The 244^th birthday of America’s declaration of independence from tyranny, oppression, and government control.

Or, as Queen Elizabeth put it so eloquently in a popular meme ~ Happy Treason Day, Peasants.

That clever congratulation isn’t as funny this year as it used to be. Rings a little too close to the truth when the government elected by the people for the people forgets we are not ruled by a monarchy and pulls out all the stops trying to force a police state on us.

So, in honor of our country’s birthday this year, at least here in Arizona, our fireworks spectaculars have been canceled. Because of dry conditions. They say it would be dangerous this July to gather and watch professionals shoot off fireworks. Because the desert is dry. In July. Just like every summer is until our monsoon rains crank up and humidity rises and brush fire videos are filed away in the backroom of journalism offices again.

Did you catch that? It would be dangerous this July to gather . . . That’s the real reason local businesses tucked tail and put away the celebrations. They are afraid of losing their liquor licenses and being intimidated by law enforcement officers who also wonder when we stopped being a free country. Our elected governor also forced water parks to close last Monday. We wouldn’t want anyone to enjoy the Vitamin D boosting, immunity protecting sunshine Arizona offers while swimmers baptize themselves in chlorinated water. In public. Not with other people in the area.

But it’s for our own good. Laughably, that’s the same line my parents once used to keep me under control when I was a child. Appropriate. It feels like nursery school politics right now while the executive branch of our state government, like many others, tells us what to do in the mistaken assumption we must be managed by a parental government.

Is that the America you were once proud of? I didn't think so.

Like you, many of my relatives fought and bled and died over the years to protect and preserve the ideal that created the United States of America in the first place. Here’s a short list:

• Major Lester Jennings, United States Army, served in Australia and New Guinea during World War II. He was wounded by a grenade and spent the rest of his life living with the consequences of damaged discs. Major Jennings was separated from his wife and children for three straight years fighting for our freedom. He was my beloved grandfather and wept as he told me about the too frequent times he watched his own men die overseas.
• Corporal John Quigley, an Irish immigrant turned citizen, served five years in the newly established United States Marine Corps between 1892 and 1897. He contracted a tropical, mosquito-borne disease while on tour of duty protecting American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from pirates. He suffered the consequences of that disease for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, after discharge from the Marines, he joined the U.S. Army for two separate tours, was injured in the Philippines during the Philippine Insurrection, and was also separated from his family for three straight years during his service to our country. Though he spent three more years trying, he was never compensated for any of his injuries by the Pension Board of the United States Government and, in all, he gave what he called “the best eleven years of his life” to the American government. He’s buried in an unmarked grave in Phoenix, Arizona. Corporal Quigley was my great-grandfather.
• Sergeant Robert McLeod served in the United States Air Force for four years, intent on doing his part to end the Vietnam War he’d grown up observing every night, compliments of the media. By the time he finished boot camp, President Gerald Ford had accomplished what seemed impossible to our generation and officially brought the war to a close. Sgt. McLeod, a radar operator, went on to be the eyes and ears for pilots while he was assigned to a remote Alaskan airbase. He and his fiancé were separated for a year and a half straight during his final assignment in Germany. Robert McLeod has been my husband for almost 44 years.
• I can trace my relatives back to the Revolutionary War where many of them fought for freedom. Some of my ancestors served in the Civil War to protect your freedoms and the union of this great nation. My husband’s father served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. He lost a great-uncle on the beaches of Normandy during that invasion in World War II. Multiple men in his family also fought in the War of the States. And died in the conflict.
• And I know the stories of the women who loved them. Bravely, they held down their own forts, were shuffled among relatives, and were told daily they’d never see their men again. Left behind to fight for hope that they would be reunited with their loved ones once more, many of those told to expect the worst—experienced it. 

We’re fighting another war now, you and I. It encompasses all the danger and unknowns as all the others our combined ancestors faced while defending freedom. But this one feels more sinister. I think the patriots watching from the past would agree. This one has once more pitted Americans against each other on the battlefield of fear while they wave protest signs as weapons. That’s under good conditions. In other cases, supposed Americans use intimidation, violence, threats, vandalism, and disguise to bring down a nation their ancestors fought for, too.

Spurred on by political leaders who have no backbone and others who will use any means to accomplish their selfish ends, we are in the crosshairs of a political machine that has the potential to destroy not only our amazing country but the very lives you and I cherish.

And while people argue, I among them, about the validity of masks, the manipulated numbers of a virus less dangerous than the vaccine many demand and are willing to force on an unwilling population, and the social distancing experiment created by a junior high student, the real enemy who laughs behind our backs and pulls our puppet strings is keeping our hands tied and our mouths gagged so we will not speak up. Or stand up. Or risk our lives to remain free.

The official fireworks may be canceled. It’s a joke, when you stop to think about their supposed reasonings. If the real reason for putting this new hammer down is to protect our environment, why aren’t fireworks tents prohibited from selling them to the public—the same citizens who are not supposed to gather tonight and shoot them off above a dry desert?

We are asleep at the wheel, my friends. Like rusty machinery unused to doing anything to protect ourselves, we have been relying on the largely corrupt leadership of professional politicians with their hands in each others pockets and in our private affairs. If we don’t wake up and speak up soon, in what ever small way we each can if that’s all we can come up with, this will no longer be the land of the free. Or the home of any brave.

I’m praying that the celebration of America goes on as scheduled. In public. Where people gather.

Because united we stand.

Divided – we will fall.