Holly was presented a check for $1,000 by our scholarship committee chair, Carolyn Smith, at our annual fashion show fundraiser on May 17th. Congratulations to Holly.
Her essay follows:
“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to.
This is the last stand on earth.”
President Ronald Reagan
Long before Ronald Reagan became President of the United States, he gave a famous speech called, “A Time for Choosing.”[1]He wanted to spur the American people to protect their freedom. Ronald Reagan warned, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”[2]I agree with Ronald Reagan because there is no place more stably free than America.
America was created as a haven for freedom. The founding fathers saw what happens when a government is able to take away the freedoms of its citizens. In an attempt to control the colonies, the British government stripped away many of the rights to which a British citizen is entitled. The Americans then rose up against their oppressors, fighting to regain the freedoms they had lost. The founding fathers wanted to make sure that America would never again be at the mercy of her own government. This goal is enumerated in the preamble to the Constitution, which states, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”[3]The phrase “secure the Blessings of Liberty”[4]was explicitly meant to enshrine freedom in the Constitution. The United States was intended to institutionally protect freedom, not as anarchy or a mercy of the government, but as a right of all people.
The importance of American freedom was especially clear during the Cold War when America was the main force holding back the tide of communism. America became the bulwark of freedom during the 20th century. Other countries with some amounts of freedom were too weak, especially after the World Wars. Communist countries like Russia and China were trying to spread communism throughout the rest of the world, and the United States as the leader of the free world made it our mission to stop them. Communism removes freedom by placing every citizen under extreme control by the government and stripping them of the right to private property. America wanted to preserve the freedom of other countries, which communism did not do. Although the Cold War was technically non-violent, America fought several other wars to prevent the spread of communism, most notably the Vietnam War and the Korean War. Another motivating factor behind these wars was that if communism became too powerful, it would eventually be able to threaten America directly, taking away our freedoms.
Currently, the United States is the choice destination of people fleeing their own countries. From 1982 to 2016, America resettled more refugees than the rest of the world combined.[5]The total number of refugees that America has accepted since 1980 is more than 3.1 million.[6]The United States only borders Mexico and Canada, so most of the refugees come from far away, even the other side of the world. They choose to make the long trip to America instead of fleeing to a nearby country because they know that they will be free in America. The freedom in this country is not fickle because it is protected by our system of government. The countries that refugees flee from are oppressive and unstable, with freedom at the whim of the current ruler. America is the place that people escape to. If there was a place with more freedom than America, then refugees would flock there instead of here. We cannot allow our country to degenerate because if our rights are threatened there is nowhere for us to flee. "
