Author of Life and Liberty:
Our understanding of freedom is an evolving one. You reveal to us throughout the ages, through sages and scholars, heroes and leaders, new understandings of the nature and responsibilities of this Divine gifts. Each generation learning from the generations that came before.
Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in 1927 that “those who won our independence...valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed...that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American Government.”
To be passive or quiet in a democracy is to relinquish one’s civic responsibilities, and one’s God given rights. Public discussion, on this floor, in the hallways and in committee rooms, in district meetings or in letters and emails to our elected officials;, when we speak our minds and voice our values, we are engaging in a sacred duty.
May it be Your will O God, that we never take for granted the blessings or the responsibilities of living in a free and democratic society. May this be God’s will.--AMEN.
