File:Roosevelt and Muir at Yosemite.png: Difference between revisions

President Roosevelt and John Muir stand on the edge at Glacier Point, 1903

Credit: Photographer: Underwood and Underwood; Yosemite NP Archives RL_12904

What are our 21st Century responsibilities as American Citizens to perpetuate and improve the Democracy our Founders gifted to us, for ourselves and for our posterity?

• https://brutuspapers.com/2022/07/04/what-are-our-21st-century-responsibilities-as-american-citizens-to-perpetuate-and-improve-the-democracy-our-founders-gifted-to-us-for-ourselves-and-for-our-posterity/

Our 4th of July Question:

Now that COVID-19 has settled into tolerability, and we’re able to attend events with greater freedom, our approaching Fourth of July anniversary has additional cause for celebration. But with the political chaos we have, it’s also a time for serious reflection. Roosevelt was correct: We are heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received – A country with stunning natural beauty and resources, and a constitutional Democracy. Our Democracy is expressed in what Lincoln called “Our Apple of Gold,” our Declaration of Independence, framed in silver by our Constitution. Our government implemented by our Declaration/Constitution combination, as Jefferson wrote, is designed to protect our unalienable, natural rights, only a few of which are stated in the Constitution; all of which are protected by the 9th Amendment. Our 246th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence raises a question each of us should ponder:

What are our 21st Century responsibilities as American Citizens to perpetuate and improve the Democracy our Founders gifted to us, for ourselves and for our posterity?

Theodore Roosevelt’s Answer:

Perhaps no President addressed that question better than Theodore Roosevelt. The photo of Roosevelt and Muir at Yosemite introducing this blog hangs on a wall in my study. Next to the photo I have a plaque with a quote from Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic,” speech delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris April 23, 1910. The speech is popularly known as “The Man in the Arena:”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

... Our Challenge

In Democracy of Dollars ...

“Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.” It’s in the renewal, strengthening, and defense of democracy where you and I come in. It’s where achieving a healthy balance between individual liberty and the common good must be achieved, and we must insist on it being accomplished.

-- Dick Jacobs July 4th 2022 Tierra Verde, Florida

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