2001 Soap Box Archives

Reflections on the Fourth

As I sit here writing this column it is the fourth of July and our nation is celebrating her 225th birthday. It’s a thought provoking day to say the least. As I think about that handful of brave men who got together in 1776 and forged a document to King George of England telling him that we would no longer live under english rule, we would no longer pay his taxes, we would no longer be his subjects. These men were not just signing a piece of paper, they were laying everything they had, including their lives on the line. For when King George read the Declaration of Independence he declared them all traitors to the crown and decreed that they should all be hung. I’m sure when the king received this document so eloquently worded by Thomas Jefferson he must have thought, “how dare this upstart colony, this pimple on the face of the new world dare invoke the wrath of the mighty British empire, with it’s vast armies and monolithic navy. Why we’ll just send a few of our crack troops over there and show them who’s boss. This shouldn’t take too long.” And by all logic he should have been right. America had no standing army, a few militiamen were pretty much it insofar as an organized military was concerned. We had no vast stores of muskets, gunpowder and cannon balls. So I’m sure King George and his officers thought that whipping America back into line would be little more than spanking an unruly baby. But there were a few things King George hadn’t counted on. One being the American spirit.” Give me liberty or give me death,” “ I regret that I have only one life to give for my country”. The attitude of a people who would live free or die trying. He didn’t count on the tenacity and faith of a George Washington nor the boys from Tennessee and Kentucky who could knock a squirrel’s eye out from fifty yards, and would hide behind the trees and pick off his redcoats. He didn’t know about Francis Marion, The Wiley Swamp Fox, who’s hit and run tactics harassed the British troops at every turn. He just didn’t understand that this new nation had a will of it’s own and would fight to the last man to preserve their precious liberty. As we all know, we won the Revolutionary War and became the United States of America. We would climb many mountains as a nation. We would go through a Civil War and it would take us almost two centuries to recognize that all men really created equal. We would lose our sons on the battle fields of Europe, Asia and Viet Nam. But through it all, by the grace of Almighty God we would somehow preserve our national unity when the chips were down. When I think of a bloody soldier walking barefoot in the snows of Valley Forge to give us the right to vote and I think about all the people who are too apathetic or just too lazy to go to the polls it just plain makes me mad. When I think about the rope going around Nathan Hale’s neck and this brave man dying to give us independence and I think about politicians who so cavalierly turn our military forces over to the United Nations it makes me angry. When I think about the lilly livered, self serving, power grabbing, pompous gas bags who walk the halls of our nation’s capitol it just plain makes me want to throw up. When I think that a handful of pagan lawyers who call themselves the American Civil Liberties Union are trying to strike every vestige of Almighty God from every document, every school, every public facet of American life it makes me all the above. I urge all you believers to pray for America. Please pray for our leaders and that God will raise up brave, honest people who will help put this nation’s feet back on the paths of righteousness. “As he died to make men holy let us live to make them free.”

What do you think?

God Bless America
Charlie Daniels