It’s Labor Day in America. A time to pause and celebrate work, productivity, problem solving and the value of a nation built upon boundless ingenuity so long as we tend the flickering flame of liberty and freedom.
No other nation on earth was ever conceived on the principle of allowing people to manifest their own destiny, while keeping government out of their lives. The vision, the premise and the purpose, was to allow you the freedom to determine your place in life; and even, at any time, change that determination and strike off in an entirely new direction.
Our labor and aspirations would not be pre-determined by caste, tier, creed or social status; but rather by our personal vision for our own future. The right of self-determination.
Labor day is a time to reflect on the value of work; the great personal benefit of endeavors achieved; the pride in accomplishment -regardless of scale- amid this thing we call life; and all of these considerations have absolutely nothing, not-one-thing, to do with the money we assemble in the process.
What is the current value of a former seed that became a tree nurtured toward its continued maturity over decades? What was that seed worth at the time it was planted? We can only see the value in hindsight many years later. What value lay in the blood at Fort McHenry?
The job, per se’, was simple. Hold the flag-pole in place. Keep that representative flag held high, no matter the cost. And yet, that cost, my God THAT COST, could it ever be quantified appropriately? A simple yet consequential task that expressed the fullest measure of devotion to the underlying premise, freedom. America!
Several years ago, Florida Power and Light won the prestigious international Edward Demming Award for excellence in multi-platform engineering, efficiency superiority and total quality in the process of energy management.
However, the scruffy rednecks did not blow every PhD intellectual out of the water with slide rules, CAD programs, articulated and quantified quality improvement processes and engineering acumen. They did it with hard hats and dirty fingernails.
Because they lost the award, the jaw-agape Japanese spent 6 months visiting and reviewing FPL and later published a 1,000 page study essentially saying FPL “wasn’t really good, they were just lucky.” You see, the reviewers couldn’t actually quantify the reason why the Florida-based energy company was so successful. In response the FPL field leadership laughed, took out magic markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: “WE’RE NOT GOOD, WE’RE RUCKY.”
A few years later, every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein. Global analysts and think-tanks proclaimed it would take 5 years to cap them all off and restart the Kuwait oil pumping industry. Well, the Kuwaiti’s and Saudi’s called Texans, who had them all capped and back in working order in 6 months.
We are a nation that knows how to get shit done.
A few more years pass, and the Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground. The eyes of the world began to tear as the word spread. Most began to whisper no one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved everyone of them.
Yup, that’s our America. Ingenuity born from freedom.
Across the pond a half-breed Islamic whack job, armed with an AK-47 and a goal to meet his virgins, began opening fire on a train in France. The scruffneck Americans on board didn’t run to the nearest safe room and hide themselves amid baguettes and brie. They said, “let’s go”, and beat the stuffing out of that little nut with a death wish.
Legion d’Honneur or not, that’s us. That’s just how we roll.
Lady Liberty can stroll along the Champs-Elysées with a swagger befitting Mae West because without her arrival, they’d be speaking German in the Louvre. Yet, for the better part of the past decade, a group of intellectual leftists have been teaching our children that it’s better to be sitting around a campfire eating sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off each other; because ‘save the planet’, or something similarly minded. It would appear, they hate the outcomes and inequities from freedom.
So we get to today, and right now those who wish to “fundamentally change” our nation are waging a full frontal assault against our constitutional republic. The bombardment seems overwhelming.
Leftist city and state leaders have abandoned rule of law in favor of supporting a mob effort to destroy our sense of national unity. Political activists, left-wing ideologues under the guise of democrats, and a host of media allies are conducting information warfare on behalf of their objective. Big tech social media companies are attempting to remove the voices of those who are fighting back.
There is a great deal of purposefully driven anxiety and fear amid our nation as this multi-faceted internal war takes place. However, there is a primary element to this effort that each person can shield themselves from, and act to counter. We are, yet again, in Fort McHenry.
Do not let your sense of self succumb to this assault. Do not let them win the battle for your peace of mind.
It might, heck, -check that- it does seem overwhelming at times. But that is the nature of this collectivist strategy. That is the purpose of this bombardment. We must hold strong and push back against their lies and manipulations. If you look closely at their attack, it is weak and much of it is psychological bait. Do not fall into the trap of despair.
When we share the message, “live your best life”, it is not without purpose. Every moment that we allow the onslaught to deter us from living our dreams, is a moment those who oppose our nation view as us taking a knee. Do not allow this effort to succeed.
You might ask yourself how can I, one person, a flea looking into a furnace, retain an optimistic disposition while all around me seems chaotic and mad.
That’s the point; it ‘seems’ chaotic and mad because it has been created to appear that way. There are more of us than them; they just control the systems that allow us to connect, share messages and recognize the scale of our assembly. We cannot comply our way out of tyranny.
Every second that you live your life with thankfulness for the abundance within it; every moment that we CHOOSE to engage with fellowship; every day that we accept guidance from God – however you define him to be; and every moment we cherish this time to be a beacon of optimism; is a moment that we withstand that barrage and hold the flag in place. It is a genuinely patriotic position not to succumb to the attack.
If you allow yourself to be drawn into crisis and despair, you allow them to win. If your center of normal is based around this overwhelming onslaught, you will eventually concede liberty in favor of peace. Once we stop living in liberty, we no longer have peace.
It is time to hold that flagpole again. To remember the reason the seed was planted. To cherish the tree of liberty.
We must withstand this onslaught, any onslaught, and rally to the origin of our true national spirit. We must rally to a standard of Americanism and accept this is not that. In essence, we must individually take a stand. Purposefully, deliberately and with forethought, we must engage those around us to get rid of this sense of foreboding.
This approach is how we win the larger battle. Again, it seems simple, but keeping that flag standing tall requires the heart of a lion and dirty fingernails.
All around us, in every tribe and region, there are people who need you to show them the strength that you have. Strength of spirit. Strength of fellowship that you will not relent from expressing. Lead your children, your children’s children, and the children of community with an unwavering and steadfast example.
No matter what noise is shouting from the loudspeakers we must withstand it; you must withstand it. We must make eye contact and remain joyful.
We cannot allow despair to be the status quo; and we cannot allow a generation to experience a world without joy.
Our nation needs more people like you, right now. Don’t wait… engage life. Resolve to get optimistic however you need to do it. Then let that part of you shine right now. This is how we fight.
Hold up that flag; give the starter smile. Rally to the standard you create and spread fellowship again. God knows we need it.
Yes, when I hear President Donald Trump say, “Let’s Make America Great Again”, I also hear the familiar echo “cowboy up” people.
Git ‘r done.
It’s high time we stop being embarrassed about our exceptional American nature, and start being proud of it again.
Because when it matters most, when it really counts, when it’s really needed, there’s a whole bunch of people all around this world of ours that are mighty happy when swagger walks in to solve their problems.
Yeah, this Labor Day let us recommit to “Make America unapologetically Great Again”.
Swagger on, MAGA!
Thank you, Sundance! Needed to hear this today!
Wow!
Just Wow!
Thank you sundance for the powerful words of inspiration.
I cheered and teared as i read.
Well done!
yeah!!!
Best read of the month..
Thanks Sundance…..for everything.
God Bless
Great words of wisdom, Sundance. THANKS!
WHATEVER IT TAKES/ WE’RE WITH YOU.
MOTIVATION FOR WHAT’S COMING!!!
Sundance, I’ve never gotten personal with you, but lean in here, baby, and lemme hug ya.
This is the kind of writing that makes a Blue Collar Mama Bear proud.
God bless America, God bless American Exceptionalism and may we always be a credit to Him.
Happy Labor Day, Treepers.
Contrast any one of the above stories about getting stuff done with the job the bureaucrats at State have done over the past several months.
Americans can always get things done as long as bureaucrats stay the hell out of the way.
While I am writing, it is still Labor Day. I want to say something about the men and women that have give the last full measure of devotion laboring in the service or our Country in Afghanistan at our request.
They were workers too, working for us, paid by us via taxes, representing the common fruits of our labor, in dangerous jobs taken voluntarily to provide for our Nation’s defense.
I have felt saddened reading and hearing of the anguish, frustration, and sense of betrayal brought on by the actions of a rogue usurper administration that seems to have no other goal than the destruction of our Country while enriching themselves via the powers we have entrusted them with in violation of solemn oaths sworn before God and their fellow man.
I’ve heard it said, “It’s all been for nothing!” with a bitter, aching feeling that our military men and women, our defenders, have made their sacrifices in vain due to the traitorous actions of a few.
On reflecting on this, I have come to realize that this is not so. We can bring honor or dishonor on ourselves by our actions, but we cannot bring honor or dishonor on those who have gone before. The honor or dishonor one earns in this life is like our personality, not capable of being changed after death.
The soldiers that overcame a determined foe to claim Mt Suribachi and raise the American flag atop the summit, were not dishonored by the Taliban mockers who only succeeded in making puerile jackasses out of themselves.
In coming to this realization, a weight is lifted and a responsibility imposed. This interpretation can be no better expressed by any politician or philosopher, than was done a hundred and fifty- eight years ago, at a military cemetery in Pennsylvania, and this message is just as poignant and relevant today as then.
“In a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
I used to think that the French surrendered at the start of WW11,but I was wwwwrong.It was their soldiers who surrendered.But it was”The People”who did NOT.And just as they did Not surrender,So too must We stand up to these bullies and whup the asses.The”Yellow Vests”are showing US how it’s done.
Thank you, Sundance. Very nicely done.
50% of Americans pay no income tax.
They therefore couldn’t care less about the massive waste of taxpayer’s money, it’s not their money.
There’s your biggest problem for the working man…the mendicants he carries on his back.
What an excellent piece, and needs to be shared. Thank you.
May God continue to bless the United States of America and may we all turn our prayers to God for deliverance from the evil doers amongst us.
Thank you, Sundance! Your article encouraged me just like Old Testament Bible stories about how God used average men to carry out His will. God even used cowards and a small, rag-tag group to defeat a much larger, well-equipped army. God used Gideon (a coward who was threshing wheat inside a winepress to hide it from the Midianite invaders) and a few hundred volunteers to accomplish the defeat the enemy.