Want Freedom? Get Virtue…Our Constitution Day Celebration, Bright and Beautiful

John Adams has that famous quote about celebrating Independence Day with pomp and fireworks. I’ve often felt sad that we don’t celebrate Constitution Day with the same vigor.

Most people wouldn’t know Constitution Day if it came up and waved a flag in their face. Sept. 17? What’s the big deal about that date? Some people in Utah are starting to change that! And I love that these people live in Davis County Utah because that means the celebration is close to me! This is one of the few times I am not wishing I lived in southern Utah.

For the past few years they’ve been holding a “Freedom’s Light Constitution Day” celebration in Bountiful, Utah. Every year it gets better and better. Maybe we can get the legislature to let us have fireworks next year for it!

This year they had some people dressed up in costume to be historical figures who told their story. We got to hear from Christopher Columbus and Lydia Darrington.

My scholar phasers’ commonwealth school, South Davis Liber Academy, had their booth, like they’ve had previous years. It was all about virtue. It’s fascinates me to learn about this concept of virtue.

Why did people used to just assume that you had to be virtuous to be free, but people now don’t think that any more?

My friend Steve Russell, a homeschooling dad and attorney, calls this period of time we are living in now “America’s Grand Experiment”. It’s an experiment with the question of, “Can a vicious people be self-governing?” By vicious, he’s not calling people mean, he’s saying that people are vice-ful. It all has to do with the three deterrents to vice that John Locke wrote about in his essay on human understanding and that those three deterrents are all gone for most vices.One of these days I will transcribe his talk, which he gave at my Tree of Liberty Youth Conference, maybe, and put it up on this site.

I love his definition of what virtue is: “Virtue is an act or habit that establishes or maintains the family.” It’s more than just being good, it’s being good so you can build a family, so that you can fulfill what God’s desire is for you, which is to have a family like He does, so you can feel the happiness and love that He does. The SDLA booth had these cool pamphlets that stated that Aristotle believed that virtue meant fulfilling what your creator planned for you.

I predict that this grand experiment is going to fail miserably. People can only be free if they are good. That’s a no-brainer. Somehow our society is in this self-delusional fog where we don’t believe that any more. The Founding Fathers all knew it and wrote about it. The booth had all these cool posters that one or a few of my awesome homeschooling girlfriends lovingly crafted. The booth also sold these cool T-shirts that say, “Want Freedom?” on the front, and then “Get Virtue” on the back. Totally cool! You can buy one here http://getvirtue.com My son and I took a shift at the booth selling these shirts. It was so interesting to see the look on people’s faces as we read the quotes and talked about it. They looked a little bit surprised and refreshed that we would talk about something so basic.

My son followed in his older siblings’ footsteps and won his Freedom Bowl contest with his team of homeschoolers against Centerville Jr. High. It was a very close match! They competed for three rounds and won two out of three. After he was done with the competition I went south to drop my kids off at Grandma’s and then head up to Heber for the Leadership Education Family Builder Retreat. Normally I would let Virtue babysit them all but I am in the process of weaning Bugsy from night nursing. (whole other post…he’s two, OK, and I didn’t want to separate from him during the night. We don’t nurse any more at night but sometimes he wakes up and wants me to be with him to hold him and get a drink of water. I knew if he woke up and I wasn’t there he’d freak out so I drove back and forth from Heber at night and in the morning so I could be with Bugsy overnight) I got to ride with my friend Sherrie and that was tons of fun. More on the retreat later.

They called themselves the Fedoras and the Flower, because Morgan, the only girl teammate, had a flower. I love pretty flowers to dress up girls’ hair!

The retreat was a whirlwind and before I knew it I was back in Davis county to get my kids to their Primary program practice and then off to help volunteer at event where David Barton of wallbuilders.com would be speaking live! I was so excited about this! I have one of his old videos from years ago and listen to him on wallbuilderslive.com. I saw lots of friends so that helped make it even more fun.

The final round of the senior high school Freedom Bowl was held there and David awarded the winners trophies. I couldn’t help but think that Virtue could have been there as she is an expert at the Constitution Bowl, being a multiple time winner for the AYLI bowl, but she decided to be generous and not compete for this one. No, really, she is doing a lot with the LEMI’s new self-directed scholar project and Williamsburg and is learning not to take on so much this year.

David spoke for over an hour about how the Founding Fathers were godly men who believed that people should believe in God, and that religion has a place in society, and a role to play by influencing godly men. Religion is what allows us to be self-governing. He shared all this to disprove a book called “The Godless Constitution.” He showed a page from it where the authors clearly stated they dispensed with they usual scholarly apparatus of footnotes. How terrible that they would do this! They didn’t dig into history because they already knew they would find that the Founders believed in the Bible. The historical record is clear…the Founding Fathers believed in God and reflected that in the Constitution.

David showed little hints in the Constitution that show that. He pointed out that religion is needed in society today just as the Founders said it was needed for good government back then. All of the businesses that were bailed out by the government, the mortgage, insurance, and auto businesses, failed because people lied and cheated. That’s a direct result of the lack of morality in our country, and David says you can’t have morality without religion. I agree! People need a god to be good for.

He had this totally fabulous powerpoint with lots of references to Bible verses. He went through about 12 of the signers of the Constitution and what their religious beliefs were.

He ended his talk with the same talk he gave at the Eagle Forum convention last January. He based that part on Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address, which listed five points of good government:

1. Acknowledge a creator

2. Protect life

3. Punish criminals

4.Promote the free market, don’t interfere with it.

5. Respect people’s property and income

A government that is not limited to these five points becomes unlimited government, and unlimited government, by any name, is ultimately fascism. Not good! Not American!