June Theme: Viva La Liberty

Since everyone and their mother (if their mother blogs... and lives in the US of A) will be talking patriotism in July, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon a month early so that you'll all still read me when you're sick of honor, glory and loyalty next month. :)

So I've come up with a rather grand theme. Liberty, but not just any libratarianistic (I love making up words) idea. No.

I propose that the fight for liberty and freedom. The rebellion against what is perceived to be wrong--which depends greatly on where you are in the world and what political faction you lean towards--can only succeed if there are two forms of personages involved. Namely the leader and the fighter, or the patriot and the rebel.

My husband thinks this is a topic destined to break under me. He thinks it's to thin of an argument. He's probably right, he usually is. I will however ignore his wise counsel and go with this as it is bouncing around in my brain like a rubber ball with a mind of it's own.

So.

Let's look at this a little closer shall we?

The leader/patriot: This is the type of person who devotes their lives to a movement not so much by physical action as by literary and intellectual action. The Founding Father's are pretty good examples. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams. These were men who used their pen and not their sword to stir the people into action.

I believe, however, that these men would fail at their intentions if it were not for their other half, the fighter/rebel. These are they who, well, fight. Their motivations may not be entirely reputable or patriotic, but they get the job done and for whatever reasons they do the job on the side you want them to do it on. Examples of this would be John Paul Jones perhaps or maybe Friedrich von Steuben. Why did these men leave their countries and fight for us?

Does it matter so long as the help they gave allowed us to win?

But could they or would they have helped if they had not been stirred into action by the moving speeches of the great men of that time?

I think that the two groups (leader and fighter) are inseparable if you are to have a robust (note I don't say successful since the Native Americans would hardly consider their revolts successful) insurrection.

Anyway, tune in for some of my picks for these combinations of men (and perhaps women). I don't promise they'll be profoundly historically accurate or that they will be in the order of leader first and rebel second, but I would like to explore this some more with you. My faithful readers.