If given a rare and precious gift, more valuable than life itself, how would you react? Would you brag about it? Hide it? Flaunt it? Sell it? Or, would you protect it with everything you had or could ever have? Would you walk through hell with a gas can (as a now Congressman-elect famously said) to protect it and keep it safe and viable for the future? And how far would you go to make sure that your gift is never lost, knowng how difficult it would be to ever regain it or return it to its original luster?
Well, I have been fortunate to have been given such a gift in my life. This gift is my freedom as an American, as defined and protected by the Constitution I have sworn multiple times in my life to defend. This is the freedom to know that the tyranny, oppression, interference, and despair that has gripped far too many people throughout human history will never make it to my homeland. This is the freedom sanctified as the birthright of all Americans, born, naturalized, or yet to come, from the sacrifices of those before us, those in our midst, and those yet to come. And this is the one gift that we all can pass down to those who are mere sparkles in the universe, waiting to come alive. This is the freedom that, while I never took for granted, has been under assault the last two years and threatened. And this is the one gift that I can pass on to my daughter, knowing that if she is free, she can never be tarnished or completely damaged, and that she will always be able to control her own fate.
Well, freedom was under assault. That was, until yesterday. I went out and did what I could to protect it. I voted. I voted to make my voice heard. I voted to let those who wished to imprison my future and myself that they are sorely mistaken. I let the political class know that I will do everyhing legally available to me to make sure they never take that gift from me. And I told those who wish to take my rights and freedoms away that I too would walk through whatever they threw at me to pass that threatened gift down to my daughter, the same daughter to whom I swore the first time I held her that I would never let her down, so that she would be able to live as free as I could. That is what I did yesterday. I finished the race. I fought the good fight, knowing that a new fight, one that could potentially throw statism into the sea, will be coming in a few months.
And I told, in no uncertain terms, those who wish to harm my family, my future, and my freedom the following:
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doubleplusundead 