Brushfire of Freedom
The Conservative Cowboy
As some of you may know, or may not know thanks to the public educations system today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. So why would I talk about a speech that was given 146 years ago and took a whopping 2 minutes from start to finish? Well there are a couple answers to that question the first being the simple fact that it is a piece of our history and I believe that in our current society we do not emphasize our own history. And if we do not know our own history then we cannot learn from that history. The second reason is that these words that Lincoln spoke are timeless and I believe apply to the current situation facing our country today.
The people of this country have been polarized by our current administration; an administration that is intent on sweeping change in every aspect of our lives, without the support of the very people that should give that administration its power. With that being said let get down to another history lesson, and see how it can apply to the current mess.
The end of the opening statement is very simple and can be interpreted only one way. Our nation was built on the principle of Liberty and that all men are created equal. Notice that Lincoln does not say that all men are entitled to an equal share. Yes I know for my liberal friends that statement is a little disturbing that arguably the greatest president to ever take the oath of office disagrees with the very platform of your party.
The next paragraph might be some of the greatest words ever spoken to honor our troops, the people that give their lives so that the nation can live. Our troops 146 years later are still doing just that, everyday they put their lives on the line so that an idea that built a nation can live on understanding that that idea is of the upmost importance. In case you’re not following me that idea is Liberty.
I am going to break that last piece of the speech up into different parts because there is so much good information packed into that paragraph. “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” This line shows something that in my mind is a great trait that a president can have and that is humility; realizing that Lincoln was just a man elected to represent the people, and that the actions taken on the battlefield to preserve what this country and ultimately he stood for were the things that needed to be remembered. I find it a little ironic that the words that he spoke on that day are remembered and quoted far more often than the fact that over 51,000 American soldiers were wounded, missing or dead in the three days of battle. Sort of puts a few things in perspective about how important those ideas in which our nation was founded really were to the American people.
Now keep your hats on for me a little while longer because the end is where it really gets interesting. Lincoln puts the dedication on the living, not the dead, I love the fact that he used the word “dedicated” in his speech earlier and then came back with it again with a different definition. Because he was in fact charged with dedicating part of the battle field to honor the dead. I know that I probably just lost any of my liberal readers, if you even exist. Anyways, dedication to the living to honor the dead by upholding the very reason that they put their lives on the line, and that is that the nation, our nation and the idea that our government by the people, for the people, and of the people, shall not perish from this earth.
I know I have some chills just typing those powerful words. So I could go into a long discussion about what by the people for the people and of the people really means, but I think that you can figure that out on your own. The final question that I pose to you is this.
How can we have a government of the people when the officials of the government are not held to the same policies in which they enact on the people?
Now I wanted to include the actual text of the Gettysburg Address given by Lincoln on November 19, 1863. And please keep in mind that some of the text above is paraphrased from the words below. If this is the first time you are reading this document then I pray that you read these words and pass them on to someone because without our history we are nothing.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
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