[Full disclosure: while I do have a brother named David, I am in no way whatsoever related to the author of the following article (several generations back, my family experienced a surname change upon converting to a pentecostal form of Christianity a patriarch mistakenly labeled as Lutheranism -- and named us after Luther's given name), but I suspect that Karen Martin, the girl who sat in front of me in 7th and 8th grade homeroom at Payne Junior High, was part of the proud heritage heralded in what David Martin has chronicled below. She had the spirit.]
Belated but no less timely . . .
Sunday, July 4, 2021
Sweet Land of Liberty, Of Thee I Sing[/paste:font]
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“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance”
John Philpot Curran, July 10, 1790
On September 30, 1727, David Martin walked off the ship Molly with a heavy heart. The 36-year-old had witnessed the death and sea burial of his wife Anna during the crossing. His father, Christian Martin, was still in prison in Europe having been jailed for his faith. Making his way from Philadelphia to East Earl Township, he commenced farming the 370 acre plot he acquired from the family of William Penn for the sum of 57 pounds, 7 shillings. In 1748, reunited with his father in Pennsylvania, it was written of them, “With him was also their father, still living, an old man of 79 years. Especially the old man and his son David loving toward us.”
Born in Bern, Switzerland around 1691, David knew a life of persecution. Born into the heretical tradition of the Mennonites, he would enter the unfortunate designation of being a “Poor Palatine” – a term given to the Swiss German religious outcast migrants from the region of southwestern Germany. Precisely how he and 300 people made it to Rotterdam, Holland to get to John Hodgeson’s ship is not clear. But it’s reasonable to expect that the trip through war infested, Catholic / Lutheran conflict filled lands was not an easy exercise. And then, there’s the matter of crossing the Atlantic Ocean during the late summer months – not the best time to travel! So, albeit bittersweet, I’m certain that the planks on the dock in Philadelphia offered the percussion of a song of liberty that ignited considerable relief.
I’m deeply grateful for the meticulous records I have of my family. I love the stories of David’s father bringing a German scythe to the “new world” so that he could help his sons harvest the abundant wheat that grew along the Blue Ball Run. I love the records of my family’s friend writing to George Washington pleading for clemency for my ancestors who provided food to British soldiers with their reference to the Biblical mandate, “If thine enemy hungers, feed him.” And I’m grateful to Amos Hoover, Raymond and Elizabeth Martin and countless others who preserved the relics of our family so that I could hold them today.
On this July 4th, 2021, I find it fascinating that a nation celebrates “Independence” when the previous 20 months have completely indicted the dereliction thereof. This land, defined by the mercantile patronage of industry, is more enslaved today than it was in 1776. Then we had a monarch. Now we have CEOs and their anonymous funders who tax far more than the fruits of our lands. Then we had philosopher statesmen who were articulate, learned, and capable of debate. Now we have Twitter-feed censorship curated by men who crafted utilities solely designed to indenture and addict. After 245 years, we’re less capable to consider Liberty than when migrants boarded ships in Europe to begin life in America.
How few of us actually read the Declaration’s most critical and sober section?
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Living, as we are, under an alleged State of Emergency that has persisted for 18 months, with neither evidence nor criteria for an exit, it is manifestly evident that, even granting the presence of the scourge of plague that gave rise to the present condition, we no longer maintain the illusion thereof. Notwithstanding the evidence, we find ourselves subjected to “abuses and usurpations” and efforts to reduce society under “absolute Despotism”. Most recently, and without a single piece of evidence, we’ve been advised that the healthy pose a risk of mutagenicity that the acquiescent do not. In point of fact, a January 28, 2021 article stated that, though the efficacy of gene therapy interventions “is not strictly proven, most… researchers believe,” that S-protein intervention works. HOWEVER, in this study, they report concern that variants may in fact arise from the very technology being used.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776039.
On this day, we celebrate the acquiescence of 47.8% of the population to kneel at the macabre mass served by Presidential and Papal Bull$#1+. But, in the spirit of this Land of Liberty, the song that should be growing across the land is not the celebration of the monarchs and tyrants. Rather it is the song of the 51.2% - the song of We The People – who, while coerced, threatened, and belittled, will not offer quarter to the enemy that is FEAR, COERCION, and DESPOTISM.
So, on this July 4th, find a link to the song from Broadway’s
Les Miserables and play it loudly…
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the songs of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
