Colorado 150 Celebration and the Work of Freedom

Kudos to the Exchange Club of Greeley and the Union Colony Exchange Club for putting on a wonderful America 250 and Colorado 150 celebration this morning at the Veterans Memorial in Bittersweet Park.

I was honored to be invited to give the keynote address.

After forty years behind a microphone, I am pretty comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. Some might argue I am a little too comfortable. Give me a topic and I can generally wing it, often for far longer than anyone requested or deserves.

So, when someone gives me a firm time limit, as they did for this morning’s address, I have learned to write out my remarks. It keeps me focused, keeps me within the allotted time, and protects innocent bystanders from the full, unedited Scott James experience.

In years past, I would print my speech and carry it to the podium in a folio, looking like some strange lawyer-banker hybrid preparing to make a closing argument or sell everyone a variable annuity.

Lately, I have gone more high-tech. I type my remarks in Word, move them into Notes, and watch them automagically sync to my phone. Then I use the phone as my script while speaking.

I should have stuck with the folio.

This morning, I stepped onto the stage in the blazing sun, pulled out my phone, and began my remarks. Almost immediately, the glare made the screen difficult to read. Then the phone started getting hotter and hotter, while the words on the screen seemed to get smaller and smaller.

A couple of minutes into the speech, my son called.

That completely replaced my notes on the screen and reminded me that I had committed the rookie mistake of forgetting to put the phone in airplane mode.

I recovered, kept going, and tried to look as though everything was proceeding exactly according to plan.

It was not.

Four or five minutes into the address, the hot August sun finished the job. My phone overheated and shut down completely.

At that point, I laughed, put the phone away, and did what forty years behind a microphone had trained me to do.

I winged it.

The remarks were fine, I suppose, but I walked away feeling a little foolish and disappointed that I had not been able to deliver the speech I had spent so much time preparing. I was genuinely honored to speak about the greatness of our country and our state, and the words mattered to me.

Since I did not get to finish what I started this morning, I decided to share the complete speech here.

And next time, I am going with paper.

The Work of Freedom

Good morning.

Thank you to the Union Colony Exchange Club for inviting me to be part of this celebration.

Today, August 1, marks Colorado’s 150th birthday.

On August 1, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant admitted Colorado as the 38th state in the Union.

America was celebrating its 100th birthday that year, so Colorado became known as the Centennial State.

And now, 150 years later, Colorado is celebrating its birthday as America celebrates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Apparently, Colorado has always had a gift for showing up at important birthday parties.

That makes this a good time to celebrate.

But birthdays are also a good time to take stock.

When you turn 150, people are generally less concerned about whether you got the right flavor of cake and more interested in whether you still remember where you put your keys.

So today, I want to ask three questions.

Why is America great?
Why does America sometimes falter?
And what responsibility do ordinary citizens have for what happens next?

Let’s begin with the first question…

Why is America Great?

America is not great because Americans are naturally better people than everybody else.

Our family trees contain saints, scoundrels, heroes, fools, and at least a few relatives nobody wants to discuss at Thanksgiving.

America is great because of an idea.

The idea that human beings possess rights that do not come from government.

The Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.

That sentence changed the world.

And there is one word in it that I especially love.

Unalienable.

It is an old word that sounds almost strange to modern ears.

Thomas Jefferson’s early draft used the word “inalienable.” By the time the Declaration was adopted, it had become “unalienable.”

Either way, the meaning was unmistakable.

To alienate something is to sell it, surrender it, transfer it, or sign it over to somebody else.

You can alienate property.
You can sell a piece of land.
You can transfer ownership of a house.
You can trade away almost anything, especially if the paperwork is confusing enough, there is a government office and three attorneys involved.

But an unalienable right is different.

It cannot properly be sold.
It cannot be surrendered.
It cannot be separated from the human being who possesses it.
A government may violate that right.
A king may trample it.
A legislature may ignore it.
A court may misunderstand it.

But none of them created it, and none of them can make it cease to exist.

Why?

Because the Declaration says those rights are endowed by our Creator.

That establishes an order that is essential to American freedom.

God gives the rights.

The person possesses the rights.

Government exists to secure the rights.

Government is third in line.

That may come as disappointing news to government.

Our fundamental rights are not gifts from Congress.
They are not favors granted by a governor.
They are not temporary permissions issued by a federal agency after completing Form 14-B in triplicate.

They existed before the government did.

Rights were granted by God.

That is what made the Declaration so radical.

Kings had long claimed that their authority came from God and flowed downward to the people.

The Declaration turned that arrangement on its head.

It said that the dignity and rights of the person come from the Creator, while the just authority of government comes from the consent of the governed.

Government did not give the people their rights.

The people gave government its limited authority.

And when we forget which direction that authority flows, freedom begins to falter.

America was built upon the belief that the individual has dignity, that power must be limited, that rulers must answer to the people, and that every person stands beneath a moral law higher than the state.

We have never lived those principles perfectly.

Not even close.

Slavery mocked our declaration of equality.
Segregation betrayed it.
Our treatment of Native Americans often violated it.
At times, fear, prejudice, greed, and raw political power have pushed America far from her stated ideals.

But here is something important about America.

The founding principles gave later generations the moral tools necessary to confront those failures.

Frederick Douglass could point to the Declaration and demand that America live up to its own words.
Abraham Lincoln could appeal to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The civil rights movement could call the nation back to promises it had made but had not fully kept.
Ronald Reagan could appeal to America’s founding faith in freedom and summon the West to defeat communism without firing a shot.

America’s greatness has never been found in pretending we have no flaws.

It is found in our capacity to recognize them, correct them, and move closer to the principles we declared at the beginning.

America is not great because she has never fallen short.

America is great because her highest ideals keep calling her upward.

Why does America Falter?

Usually, it is not because the Constitution suddenly stops working.

The paper is still there.
The words are still legible.
The problem begins when the habits necessary for freedom begin to disappear.

The author and social critic Os Guinness describes what he calls the Golden Triangle of Freedom.

Freedom requires virtue.
Virtue requires faith.
And faith requires freedom.

Let’s unpack that.

Freedom requires virtue.

A free society depends upon people who can govern themselves.

People who tell the truth when lying would be easier.
People who keep promises when breaking them would be profitable.
People who respect their neighbors, honor their obligations, raise their children, obey just laws, and restrain their appetites.

The Founders understood that a Constitution can limit government power, but it cannot make citizens good. We are fallen creatures by nature.

James Madison understood that government is necessary because people are not angels.

John Adams warned that our Constitution was designed for a moral and religious people and no other.

That does not mean every American must belong to the same church.
It does not mean government should compel belief.
Compelled faith is not faith at all.

But it does mean that free government rests upon moral foundations that government itself cannot manufacture. Government cannot make a person behave. Government cannot remove man’s sin – only Jesus Christ can do that.

Government can punish theft. It cannot create honesty.
Government can prosecute violence. It cannot create “love thy neighbor.”
Government can regulate conduct. It cannot produce character.

Those things are taught in families, churches, synagogues, schools, neighborhoods, civic organizations, and through the quiet daily examples of good and decent people.

So, Freedom requires virtue.

Virtue requires faith.

And faith requires freedom, because genuine belief cannot be forced.

That is the triangle.

Break one side, and the structure begins to collapse.

When freedom is separated from responsibility, it becomes license to do what our fallen and sinful natures desire.

When personal desire becomes the highest authority, self-government becomes nearly impossible.

Sooner or later, people who cannot govern themselves will demand that somebody else govern them.

And there is never a shortage of applicants for that job.

We begin asking government to solve every discomfort, settle every disagreement, prevent every bad decision, remove every risk, and protect us from every consequence.

Then we act surprised when government becomes larger, more intrusive, more expensive, and more distant from the very people who give the government its power.

That is like feeding a stray bear every evening and then complaining that the bear has become a little presumptuous around the patio furniture and garbage can.

Freedom is not simply the absence of restraint.

Freedom is the opportunity to pursue what is good, true, and beautiful.

It requires responsibility.
It requires courage.
It requires citizens who understand that rights and duties travel together.

That brings us to the final of my three questions. What is our responsibility?

The answer is civic involvement.

And before anybody gets nervous, civic involvement does not mean you must become one of those people who watch Fox News or CNN twelve hours a day and then yell about it on social media.

We already have enough of those people.

Civic involvement means paying attention.
It means voting.
It means knowing what your city council, school board, county commission, legislature, and Congress are doing.
It means showing up before the bad decision is made, not merely complaining about it afterward.
It means serving on a board.
Volunteering in a school.
Helping a neighbor.
Supporting a local charity.
Learning the names of the people who represent you.
Writing a letter.
Attending a meeting.
Running for office.
Encouraging good people to run.
And sometimes civic involvement means sitting through a three-hour public meeting in a room where the ventilation system was apparently designed during the Truman administration.

Freedom has never been a spectator sport.

You shouldn’t stare at a problem and say, “The government should do something!”

No, you should stare at a problem and ask, “What can I do?”

The Founders did not leave us a nation that could run indefinitely on autopilot.

They left us a republic.

And a republic depends upon citizens.

Not consumers.
Not clients of the government.
Not spectators in the cheap seats.

Citizens.

People who understand that the country belongs to them and therefore requires something from them.

We sometimes talk about America as though she were a machine.

Put in a vote every couple of years and receive liberty in return.

But America is not a vending machine.

America is a covenant between generations.

We inherited something we did not build by ourselves.

The farmer in 1776.
The soldier at Valley Forge or Normandy.
The pioneer crossing the plains.
The miner, the rancher, the teacher, the preacher, the shopkeeper, the mother keeping a family together, the immigrant arriving with little more than hope, and the citizen who quietly did his duty when nobody was watching.

Here in Colorado, generations of people built towns, farms, roads, schools, churches, businesses, hospitals, and communities.

They made mistakes.
They faced hardships.
They argued.
They failed.
They tried again.

And then they handed the place to us.

Now it is our turn.

The question is not simply whether America will remain great.

The question is whether we will remain the kind of people capable of sustaining a great and free country.

Will we be informed?
Will we be honest?
Will we serve?
Will we defend the rights of people with whom we disagree?
Will we teach our children that freedom is both a gift and an obligation?
Will we remember that liberty is safest when it rests upon faith, virtue, and responsibility?

Will we show up?

The Next Chapter

On Colorado’s 150th birthday, we should celebrate what has been built here.

We should be grateful for this beautiful, complicated, hot mess of a remarkable state.
We should thank God for the privilege of living in a nation where we are free to speak, worship, work, vote, disagree, assemble, build, and begin again.

But gratitude is not passive.

The best way to honor those who came before us is not merely to admire what they built.

It is to preserve it, improve it, and pass it along.

America does not need citizens who believe she has never done anything wrong.

And America does not need citizens who believe she has never done anything right.

She needs citizens who love her enough to tell the truth about her, defend what is good, repair what is broken, and accept responsibility for her future.

America is great because her freedom rests upon a profound truth.