Word Prompt – LIBERTY – Inna Vernikov

Liberty is not merely a political idea, but a conviction that every person is born with value, endowed not by governments, monarchs, or institutions, but by a Creator. That conviction then translates into each individual possessing a certain set of rights that no mortal authority can take away.

In 1776, this idea was revolutionary. The fight for independence from Britain went beyond a desire to pay lower taxes, representing a true shift in the relationship between the government and its people. For the first time in known history, the former would serve the latter, not the other way around.

Why then, 250 years later, with the world at our feet, do we feel so hopeless for the future? What the founders did was truly an experiment, and the results are still coming in. At 250, we are but a fraction as old as other civilizations. Every time our nation is tested, the very notion that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people will continue to survive as a model for humanity or will fade into the background as a historical blip, is at stake.

Liberty demands an ever-watchful stewardship. It means having the courage to speak up when it is hard rather than carrying the day over in silence, which is easier.

As a people, liberty is our inheritance. Liberty is not self-sustaining, rather it survives because ordinary people choose to defend it, cherish it, and pass it on.

On this 250^th year of the United States of America, let us remember that the torch of liberty has never been carried by the powerful alone, but by citizens who believed that tomorrow could be better than today. Let us carry that torch forward for generations to come.