Good morning,

Fighting is what counts.

But first, here is today's Texas Minute.

– Brandon Waltens 

Friday, July 3, 2020
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• What a difference a few weeks can make. In a reversal from statements made just a couple of weeks ago calling mask mandates an “infringement of individual liberty,” Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order on Thursday, putting in place a statewide face mask mandate.
   
• Failure to comply with the mandate could result in a $250 fine. Counties with less than 20 confirmed cases of the virus are exempted.
   
• The decision was immediately applauded by both outgoing Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen as well as the Texas House Democratic Caucus.

• After city officials’ last shutdown forced residents out of work, the mayor of Austin is considering doing it again.
   
• Jacob Asmussen reports Austin Mayor Steve Adler is considering decreeing another citywide shutdown similar to the ones in March and April, when “nonessential” businesses were forced to close and citizens were ordered to stay home, among other restrictions.
   
• Adler’s past orders forced at least 132,000 Austinites out of work and into a potential new crisis of struggling to afford food and a place to live for their families.

• In a new television ad this week, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz compares the Texas Legislature to a swamp and urges voters to support Jon Francis in the runoff primary election in House District 60.
   
• "Washington D.C. is a swamp, and I’m fighting alongside President Trump to drain it. But did you know the state capitol in Austin isn’t much better?” -U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz
   
• Of course, it could also be argued that the Austin swamp is often worse than its counterpart in Washington...

• Two Democrat County Commissioners in Tarrant County have appealed to the state attorney general to hide elected Democrats’ communications sought by an open records request. This request was sent after it was revealed that the county’s two Democrat commissioners helped organize radical left-wing protests against enforcing immigration laws.
   
• Robert Montoya writes that the Tarrant County district attorney’s office is appealing to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying they believe state law allows “a portion of the information sought may be exempt from public disclosure.”
   
• On or before July 8, they will submit further arguments to the attorney general about why the information should be withheld. 
   
• The public should wonder what is in these communications that elected officials don’t want them to see...

Friday Reflection

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

There was no difference between July 3, 1776, and ‪July 5.‬ By all appearances, the American colonies were no more free, no more independent. The governing structures were not different.

So what makes the Fourth of July so special?

Consider this. We do not celebrate October 19, 1781, the date the war for American independence ended. There are no parades commemorating September 3, 1783, when the Treaty of Paris formally concluded the war.

No, we celebrate the Fourth of July. That is the day when our Founding Fathers firmly, finally, and officially committed themselves – their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor – to the cause of American liberty. Now, make no mistake: many of them had done so personally and individually weeks, months, even years earlier. Fighting had been going on between American and British forces for more than a year.

The Fourth of July is when the Congress declared American independence formally, and together. They acknowledged to each other and a candid world that they were dissolving their political bands with England. There would now be no going back.

We celebrate the Fourth of July because that is the day our Founding Fathers said it together, with one voice. We celebrate their commitment to the fight. We recognize that in the most important ways by choosing to declare their independence, they had already achieved it.

Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl reflected on his time in Auschwitz: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Just as Frankl refused to submit his humanity to Nazi captors, so our founding fathers chose to be free of English tyranny. That choice, the faithfulness to the fight, is what counts.

Holy Scripture tells us that, through Christ, we are already free. Through Him, we have attained the truest independence and victory over death. Yes, we still must struggle with sin, and rail against the fallen world. We are called to be faithful, to press on in the knowledge of our eternal freedom.

Nearly all of our Founding Fathers were men of faith; they understood that the struggle upon which they were to engage may or may not be successful in the eyes of the world. That didn’t matter; they achieved freedom in their choice, declared on the Fourth of July, and the fight ahead was merely the necessary consequence.

On Independence Day we celebrate their commitment to the ideals of self-governance. On Independence Day we celebrate their willingness to put their convictions to the test for themselves and for us.

On Independence Day we recommit ourselves to fighting not as if our liberty depends on it, but because the refusal to submit to the yoke of tyranny is driven by our liberty.