Poor Richardson

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When trav­el­ing back from Mexico, I was very sick. At immi­gra­tion in the air­port my brother was stopped — his pass­port was in ques­tion. He was marched away and I was not allowed to fol­low, the time for our flight draw­ing ever nearer. His release came just in time for us to use every last ounce of energy to run to the gate and catch the door just as it was closing.

We never knew why he was stopped since he could not speak Spanish. I did not care, I was just glad to be head­ing back to the Land of the Free. It was going home that made me happy, but I sure felt free.

New Hampshire has as its motto, “Live Free or Die.” Do you really think any­one means that any­more? Is that what the Declaration of Independence actu­ally meant?

What is the def­i­n­i­tion of free today, any­way? Would free­dom from poverty count? How about free­dom from fear, free­dom from loss, or free­dom from war? How much per­sonal free­dom of choice are we will­ing to have taken away if we are promised to be safe or promised the food, hous­ing, trans­porta­tion, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion, tech­nol­ogy, health­care, and per­sonal time we need? And are we will­ing to give up some of our free­doms so that oth­ers can have those resources that they need? And how should we decide how much we need and how much oth­ers need?

Poor Richardson uses a com­i­cal method to take a seri­ous look at the answers in the Declaration of Dependence.

After school, there was a bas­ket­ball game on the play­ground. All of the play­ers were glad because one them had brought his ball from home. In the mid­dle of the game, two young men showed up and took the ball away.

The play­ers went to the teacher, but she said it wasn’t fair to pre­vent the two of them from play­ing with that ball since the school had other balls the play­ers could use. The play­ers com­plained it wasn’t right. Why does it seem that fair­ness is com­monly cho­sen as a word that means we do not need to fol­low the rules?

Fairness is the talk of the town in Washington today rights. We should not be sur­prised since our found­ing fathers made the Bill of Rights the hall­mark of free­dom for Americans instead of a doc­u­ment that gave the gov­ern­ment free­dom over Americans.

Poor Richardson puts every­one to the test as the ques­tion “can a gov­ern­ment be fair?” is com­pared to “what is right?” when deal­ing with gov­ern­men­tal rules in the Bill of Fairness, and the answer will impact America’s future.

As chil­dren, we had a fall home­com­ing parade in our town. It was usu­ally pretty cold by then, so we would be all bun­dled up as we stood by the road. We watched and cheered as the band marched by and then all the men in uni­form from all the dif­fer­ent branches of service.

But then we stopped cheer­ing and they stopped march­ing; they were salut­ing, and we stood qui­etly remov­ing our lit­tle hats and hold­ing our small hands over our hearts, it was the singing of our national anthem: The Star Spangled Banner.

This was the best part of the parade; even bet­ter then the candy! But I always won­dered, “Why does our national anthem end with a ques­tion?” Sure, it was an excit­ing song of great hero­ism long ago with those bombs burst­ing in air, but there was always that question.

Isn’t this land still free? And am I not try­ing to be brave for those sol­diers who deserve my admi­ra­tion and respect for keep­ing us free? The answer is pointed out in Poor Richardson’s One Star Tangled Banner: it is not the land that is free — it’s the peo­ple.

America becomes a home for the brave only by the choices of its cit­i­zens. There is noth­ing per­ma­nent about our freedoms.

It is up to us to answer our anthem’s question.

While work­ing in some schools in Africa, one from our group asked the class where was heaven? A lit­tle girl was quick to raise her hand and said “America”.

America. The word expresses the feel­ing of hope for the future.

What is the bea­con to all the peo­ples of the world? The free­dom indi­vid­u­als have in America.

This is what was brought to fruition by our founders: their belief that our God had made man free, and that gov­ern­ment restricts that free­dom. They wrote the Constitution of the United States of America to ensure indi­vid­ual free­dom and cit­i­zen con­trol of gov­ern­ment. It takes effort to pre­vent those in gov­ern­ment from seiz­ing con­trol of every aspect of the life of a cit­i­zen: a bat­tle being waged in Washington today.

Poor Richardson uses humor to expose some of the aspi­ra­tions for true gov­ern­men­tal con­trol in the Constitution of the Unstable State of America, while bring­ing a chal­lenge to the cit­i­zens of America.