Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
Liberty
July 5, 2005
Larry Polyak, Scoutmaster

Yesterday was Independence Day. When you are 11, or 15, or even 49 for that matter, it is easy to get caught up in a day off from work, backyard BBQs, and fireworks. It is easy to forget why we are even celebrating. So I looked up the Declaration of Independence again to refresh myself on what our forefathers wrote and to see if I could get it down to a few words. Basically they wrote up a bunch of things that they didn't like about being under British rule, and they also wrote up the way they thought things should be run.

What it boils down to, in words that you no doubt have heard before, is that they thought "people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". People have the right to life, that's pretty basic. The pursuit of happiness, that's self-explanatory. And liberty. What exactly is liberty? I asked a couple of people yesterday how they would define liberty. The best answer I got was: freedom. That's true for sure, but I looked up "liberty" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The definition that I think describes it best is "the power of choice". That would include virtually anything: to choose where you want to walk, where you want to live, do what you want, say what you want.

All of this sounds so obvious to us now. It's hard to believe that there was a time when it wasn't so obvious. But over 230 years ago, people had to write all of this down, risk their lifes, and start a revolution. The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence didn't do it for their own personal gain or wealth. In fact, many were persecuted or killed for it. They didn't write what you should believe, but simply wrote that people should have the right to believe whatever they want. They did it for future generations. For us. And I thought it was worth spending a minute to remind ourselves of that.

Thank you for listening.