Happy 250th Fourth of July

July 3rd, 2008 is when it started, after 5 pm on a holiday weekend, not unlike this one. We had an overreaching sheriff threatening to arrest any Big Sur residents who came on to Highway One to get to a neighbor who needed help in the time of the Basin Fire. By the 4th of July, I was in full research/phone call and learning modes and stayed that way until long past July 5th, when I posted my first article on this blog. It was my small way of fighting back against an authoritarian figure who we managed to get out of office come the next election. Today, we are facing the very same authoritarian scenario, only on the national scale. So here we are, starting our 19 the year, still fighting the good fight.

Today, thankfully, there are no local wildfires, although other parts of the west are burning, some out of control in Utah and Colorado in particular. Instead, we are dealing with an out-of-control federal government being led by a man who spent his entire life grifting and lying. I will not let him win. This is OUR country’s birthday and as Americans, we can each honor and celebrate the American ideal for which we have always strived in whatever way we choose. We have yet to reach our ideal, but we never give up and we are not going to give up now. Celebrate the America we were — only better. I celebrate those who have and continue to stand up to the menace in OUR house in whatever large or small way we each can. I honor the majority of true Americans who get into the “good trouble” we need to reclaim our history and our legacy.

And on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Now, let’s take back our country,