“And the rockets' red glare ..... the bombs bursting in air ..... gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ..... O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

That’s right! The ”star-spangled banner does yet wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave” and it will continue to wave, because Americans will not let go of their hard-won freedom.

As Francis Scott Key watched over the ramparts from his sloop, after visiting a British ship in an attempt to exchange a prisoner during the war of 1812, he managed to hold on to his strong belief in liberty and as long as that flag still waved over Fort McHenry in the battle of Baltimore, liberty still lived in his mind and on the land he loved. From that unreal vision, framed in chaos, Francis penned the words of our Star-Spangled Banner that we sing in tribute to our freedom, our independence and to the flag that waves proudly throughout the land.

But we in America today are not watching a foreign enemy attack one of our forts, or one of our cities with a military force, where crushing noise, death and destruction rain down on the inhabitants. What we are watching is the very destruction of our institutions of freedom ..... from within. We suffer in a battle of two ideologies, freedom and liberty on the one hand, and socialism, government control and enslavement on the other. Our country has a cancer and we must purge it, or the cancer will grow to the point where no “medicine” will save the patient. All future generations will be affected by what we do now to cure that cancer.

In an all-out war, the choices are crystal clear. We need only to kill the enemy and be victorious. But when the enemy is our own leaders, what then do we do? We expunge our leaders and choose other ones who will adhere to the foundation of our liberty and swear on solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend that foundation and then live up to that oath as if their lives depended on it. Unfortunately, our mission is cloudy, as we do not know exactly what weapons to use to expunge those leaders and we are short of the three “M’s” of our peaceful war ..... men, materials and money. Must we take action alone without sufficient resources and without those Americans who have lost their way, or must we first accumulate the resources and then convince the ones who are lost and help them back to the right path? Or, should we instead just let the current covey of leaders have their way and allow their errors to be their own enemy and thus hasten their own demise? These are the questions we must answer and time is of the essence. History is recording what we do, or don’t do.

In our Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

This is the job that lays before us and it is a job we must first attempt by exhausting all peaceful means. If we are not successful in peace, then we may face what Winston Churchill admonished during World War II: “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

But no matter which path we take we will eventually find the right one, as we have in the past. Because deep down in the core of all free men lies the infectious virus of liberty. That virus continues to infect man after man, woman after woman and child after child, with each passing generation. The virus of liberty has no known cure. It rises to the surface like bubbles in the sea. It craves the open air. It is nurtured by love, generosity and individual achievement. It is insatiable, irrevocable and sacrosanct. It cannot be exorcised by any means, no matter how evil men may try. It cannot be re-programmed. It lays there, dormant for awhile, then rises with a vengeance when the cry of freedom escapes the lips of the oppressed, or the enslaved, as is happening now in our America.

So we ask in freedom’s name, do not despair this 4th of July, because freedom is alive and well in the hearts and minds of all free men. Promise yourself that you will infect all you know and love with the virus of liberty, so that freedom will thrive in perpetuity for you, your children and your grand children and America will continue to be the vanguard of freedom and the shining light to this shrinking world.