“I said to my wife, “I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate.” She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, “Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined.” John Adams, repeating a conversation with his wife Abigail, May, 1770
Once upon a time, 56 men pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in the belief that people had the right to determine their own destinies. Live free or die. No middle ground. Through God’s grace and the uncompromising determination of an army of farmers and merchants, America was born. History has proven since then that we are a nation of strong-willed, stubborn, independent thinkers.
And we’ve never taken kindly to being shoved. Not then. Not now. The ruling class in Washington is trying to tell us how to eat, how to live, how to worship, what we should do with our own property. In the last eighteen months, the attack on our liberties has become brazen, even desperate. Battle lines are being drawn and it isn’t just the men who are responding to the threat.
In the spirit of the Daughters of the Revolution, the women of today are picking up their pitchforks…er, I mean, their laptops, and smart phones, and using them to protect our freedom.
Take Heather Losurdo, for example. A self-employed mother who, only a few years ago had zero interest in politics, is now a passionate advocate of conservative politics. Vice-president of the Northern Wake Republican Club, she is also a member of the Wake County Republican Women and has worked on various political campaigns. Like many of her fellow Republicans, she has had enough of the Washington elitists, including those in her own party.
Losurdo is not only frustrated by the country’s slide toward socialism but by the fact that most politicians don’t see America as special anymore. “The liberties we have in this land,” she says, “freedom of speech, the freedom to worship, the ability to define our destinies as we see fit, not have the government interfere in that — you just don’t get that in any other country,” she says. “That’s why we are a world power — because of liberty.”
But what really angers her the most is the complete dismissal of God as the center of our political structure. The Founding Fathers repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize the hand of a Divine Power as the truest cause of victory in the fight for our independence. Losurdo believes, “In order for the US to continue working the way it works, the people in power have to believe this country was given to us by God. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. If you don’t believe that this was God-given, then it just doesn’t work.”
Eager to make a statement both to her own party and to the Democrats, Losurdo and her family recently joined hundreds of thousands of patriots at Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally in Washington. She says the experience settled her views about patriotism. “My husband and I sat at the WW II memorial and I was just overwhelmed. The fountain there is covered with gold stars about 5” in size and every star represents 100 of our people who died in WW II. Just sitting there and trying to put myself in the place of understanding what they–” she pauses here and then adds quietly, “I guess that’s patriotism: knowing what we’ve been through to get to where we are and appreciating that…and being willing to do that again.”
Somewhere in heaven, I’m sure Abigail Adams is nodding sympathetically.