To Ourselves and To Our Posterity

As Darkness does not come all at once, neither does Oppression.
There is a time when things remain seemingly unchanged.
And yet it is in such times that we must be most aware of change,
lest we become unwitting victims of the Darkness.

— Justice William O. Douglas

By L Richard Walton

This weekend, we will each take time from our practices to picnic with family, enjoy fireworks and reflect on how lucky we are to live here. As CPAs, we and our clients benefit from Pax Americana, the great American Peace—peace where we say, when we say, because we say so. Our profession is based upon the Rule of Law that makes us so uniquely American.

Only here could a Presidential election be decided by the same legal structure that gives us the rules of tax, business and accounting that allow our profession to flourish. The same Court issued a decision, the day I was sworn in by the Chief Justice, that awarded a lowly convict the fair value ($753) of some possessions confiscated from him by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. From the Supreme Court of the United States to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, you are hereby ordered to return forthwith …. Only here.

And so, for this month, I would like to encourage each of you to reflect upon the unique blessing of being who you are and doing what you do, in this, the most remarkable of nations.  There are two things I suggest worthy of remembering: gratitude and vigilance.

Gratitude for those whose sacrifice preserves the very system from which we all do so well.  While we are at parks and playgrounds this Fourth, there are fine young Americans far from home: in the mountains of the Hindu Kush and the jungles of the Philippines, the deserts north of Baghdad, and in the seaways off the troubled horn of Africa. As you enjoy your holiday, take a moment to send some good energy their way, and never forget to be grateful—for the Constitution they preserve and the flag that flies outside your building are fragile, living things, paid for in generations of broken hearts and folded flags, bugles at sunset and jets on the wind.

Vigilance. For the Constitution they go in harm’s way to defend requires from each of us an unwavering commitment to preserve and protect its high ideals. In an era in which this country’s enemies are trying to wrap themselves in the protections of the very document they seek to destroy, it can be hard to hit the enemy without hitting the Constitution.  That must never happen. There is one thing worse than losing our freedom from fear, and that is losing the freedoms for which this country has always been—as President Regan once said—a “city upon a hill.”

I wish, to each of us “and to our posterity, the Blessings of Liberty” on this, our Nation’s 234^th Birthday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 1:47 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.