The same spirit in 1776 that brought about this momentous date 234 years ago is the same spirit that brings us here today in Jasper in 2010.
Times have changed, but the grievances are the same. Then as now, Americans had a government that engaged profligate spending that threatened to subjugate future generations to a financial bondage.
Then, Americans had a series of taxes, the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Revenue Act, the Tea Act et.al. that attempted to punish the most productive. Today, Americans have a government that imposes a string of taxes, income tax, gross margins tax, sin tax, sales, tax, excise, tax, health care tax only to satisfy the insatiable thirst for the people’s wealth in order to buy votes.
As then with the Quartering Act, Americans are confronted with a government that has contempt for property rights with such schemes as the Texas Trans Corridor, the perversion of the power of eminent domain, and excessive valuations by appraisal districts.
Leading up to 1776, the American people owned allegiance to a government that failed to protect its citizens among the frontier regions.
Today, Americans have a national government that not only neglects its sovereign duty to secure its international borders, but joins with foreign governments to sue its citizens for doing what it arrogantly refuses to do. As the Coercive Acts did in 1774, our government has devised a regulatory regime that tramples over constitutional rights and strangles the American entrepreneurial spirit.
Above all, as during our colonial era, Americans faced a threat to their ultimate means to confront tyranny when British soldiers marched to Concord and Lexington.
Today, year after year, Americans are forced into costly legal battles to affirm their rights to bear arms, only to breathe a sigh after having those rights upheld by one vote on the Supreme Court.
So therefore, what is this spirit, the Spirit of 1776, which we celebrate today? It is simple. This spirit is the spirit of had enough. As then, today we meet here with one resounding response, “We have had enough!”
Had enough! Americans will not allow this government to consign our children’s children, some of which yet event to be born, to be slaves of financiers and the central banks of Asia.
Had enough! The American people are a people of faith, innovation, rugged individualism, and hard work. Yet, we have a vice president that tells the American people after spending $800 billion in so-called stimulus, “there is no possibility to restore the 8 million jobs lost over the last two years.”
And then you have the treasury secretary, who could not even calculate his taxes correctly with the aid of a software program, that “the world economically cannot depend much on the U.S. as it has in the past.” Mr. Vice President and Mr. Secretary that is not your job.
Had enough! It is not their job to determine the height or the breadth of the American spirit. To the both of them, shut up, stop spending, stop taxing, stop the borrowing, get out of the way and the American people will create the jobs.
Mr. Secretary, maybe you have, but the American people have not resigned themselves to second-class status. This is the shining city on the hill, and the American people intend to lead economically, culturally, and militarily.
Had enough! The American people are sick in tired of being sick and tired of a government that refuses to do its job. It spends all of what the American people send it on April 15th, then it borrows vastly more, and still needing more, it continues to print more dollars. It can find the EPA and OSHA regulators, to come to our state and harass our industry and it can find teams of census workers to count the number of toilets in your house, but it cannot find the boots on the ground to secure our borders.
We have had enough! Americans along our borders are going about their lives in fear of stray bullets from drug cartels, money hungry coyotes engage in exploitation of poor men and women desiring a chance to provide for their children, and communist spies live in our mist.
Amongst abject failure, the federal government sues, lectures, and along with foreign leaders criticizes sovereign and popularly elected governments along our southern border in the enforcement of the national government’s immigration laws and our Constitution. We have had enough!
Had enough, of sending our best, bravest, and brightest to foreign lands to secure our freedom without the support of their civilian military leadership, without the necessary equipment, and with rules of engagement that would even be a mockery in a spitball fight.
The American people do not deploy their military for the conquest of land or the subjugation of nation. The American flag is a symbol of liberation. Allow our men and women to win and bring them home.
Had enough, of this progressive liberal contempt for our institutions, principles, and values. We do not need change, we only need a restoration of those principles and values that have made us a great nation.
Had enough of the do-gooder elites talking down to Americans about their lifestyles and deeply held beliefs.
We are a free people that loan power to the government. We are a free people that have the virtue to possess means of violence such as firearms as the ultimate check on despotic government.
Had enough! How dare the President of the United States take it upon himself, go overseas, lecture to the American people, and tell a foreign nation we are not a Christian nation. He needs to stop reading Saul Alinsky and read a speech by Reverend Martin Luther King.
Had enough of the government takeover over of our prized industrial sectors.
Had enough of the international groveling, the United States is a blessed nation that liberates and defends the world, feeds the world, medically cares for the world, clothes the world, ministers to the world, finances the world, educates the world, and has liberally open its arms to all desire liberty and opportunity.
As one writer once stated, “America is great because she is good, and as long as she is good, she will be great.” No, our foreign policy does not need a reset; the American people need to reset its elected government.
Had enough is the spirit that animated an entire people over two centuries ago to say no, we can do better, not for ourselves, but for our posterity.
Today, we say had enough, not because of our 401k statements, our disposable income, the price of gas at the pump, but because of the blood, sweat, and tears of generation before us have bequeath us a land of abundance and freedom and our birthright is blood debt that we must pay for children’s opportunity.
Today, July 3, 2010, let our newly found spirit of had enough mark Jasper as our Lexington, Woodville, as our Concord, Lufkin, as our Trenton, Coldsprings, as our Princeton, Groveton, as our Saratoga.
And, on Election Day, let every ballot box in East Texas, be our Yorktown.
Pray that God continue to Bless America and Texas.
