United was How This All Started
Two hundred thirty seven years ago, in a document with forty-five hundred words, thirty-nine men took their lives in their hands, put quill pen to parchment paper, and defined a new way to look at governance. Today is Constitution Day, a celebration of the definition of the United States. For eleven years, men whose very lives were at stake because of their leadership in the American revolution, wrestled, argued, wheedled, cajoled, bargained, and finally committed to paper the definition of their new government.
It's a good thing political ads hadn’t been invented yet, right?
As Americans slog through another season of divisiveness and blatantly misleading advertisements, lets take a moment to remember what brings us together. At the dawning of America there was a desire for freedom from a monarchy that simply wanted tribute and control. There was a desire for shared risk balanced with autonomy. There was a feeling that something new and wonderful was possible, and that a new...
How Free are You Allowing Yourself to Be?
Today is Made in the USA Day, Thursday is Independence Day, and the short work week means most US workers have more freedom than normal this weekend – four days off instead of two. Today, let’s talk about freedom from a slightly different perspective – let’s talk about the freedom you either do or don’t allow yourself to feel.
- Have you ever come up against something that felt unfair to you, and you rebelled? That’s you, allowing your freedom.
- Have you ever been in a situation where you felt intimidated, maybe because of an authority figure? That’s you, disallowing your freedom.
America was formed because of those two different approaches to freedom. Ours is a country created through civil, then not-so-civil, disobedience. The words “free” and “freedom” crop up in our foundation documents eight times – four times in the Declaration of Independence, 3 in the Bill of Rights, and once in the Constitution. As a...
