The Freedom to Disagree

I can't claim to be the biggest patriot, if one at all, but there is certainly something hallowed about visiting places like Philadelphia, where one can see the very rooms and halls where people of vision set in motion some great events in history. It's true, I don't fly flags outside my house, and I'm not moved to tears when they play "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch. You can think of me what you like, but that is who I am. So what is it that touches me when I visit places like Independence Hall?

It's not so much a love for a particular country or feelings of patriotism as it is the fact that in a place like Independence Hall a great idea was realized and immortalized in a document. There is no force on this earth, no government, military, or single institution, that GRANTS us freedom. The freedom is inherently ours, just by the mere fact that we are human. There are only defenders of that freedom. The men in that hall were not declaring anything other than what already belonged to them. They wanted nothing more than to go about their business without the constant threat of an oppressive government.

I'm not claiming that we lack freedoms in our country, but one has to wonder if the U.S. has held to the ideals immortalized in that document. This is not an accusation, just a point to ponder. It is certainly one that I pondered as I stood in Independence Hall, listening to the tour guide recite the words of a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in that very room almost 150 years ago:

"I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live… I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence… that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time… if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it."

I just hope we have not given up that principle.