Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Do: take a minute and read a founding document.

We're fighting for a lot of things in this resistance.  Real and solid things.

We're fighting for the refugees, who seek out in America their dream of a better life, and who struggle to our shores, tempest-tost and yearning to breathe free.  We're fighting for women, who want only for men to have their rights and nothing more, and for women to have their rights and nothing less.  We're fighting for the planet, which swelters and sweats under generations of carbon, and which can offer nothing as defense against billions of lobbying dollars but an inconvenient truth.  And we're fighting for so much more: a thousand causes and billions of people.

But that's not all.  We're also fighting for ideas.  These ideas are important: they're a sword for our purposes, a shield for our protection, and a salve to our pains.

So take the time this week to read one of our country's founding documents.  For some of you, it will be enough to just sit down and read carefully through the Declaration of Independence in its entirety.  Maybe this will be the first time you've done that since high school.  Maybe this will be the first time ever.

You can find America's Declaration of Independence here.

But maybe you feel you're already familiar with the Declaration.  You read it, you know about the quartering of troops and imposing taxes without consent, you're good to go.  Well then, you should turn to the Constitution.  Maybe you've read Article II recently, but when was the last time you read through the enumerated powers of Congress?

You can find the Constitution of the United States here.

And since I know there will be people who have read both of these, perhaps even recently, and smile at my suggestions: the last document to which I will direct you is an out-and-out book: the collected Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to defend a proposed new Constitution.

You can find the Federalist Papers here.

Whatever you read, you will come away stronger, more powerful, and ready to fight.  That's what We the People are here to do, after all.

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