Good morning,

The decision to fight is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July.

I’ll explain what I mean at the end of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, July 2, 2021
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A rogue state agency – headed by a Democrat appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott – has pointed a gun at my head and is threatening my family’s financial future… and yours. I’ll explain more in a separate email later this morning.

Border Talk

• As you know, Brandon Waltens was with President Trump and Gov. Abbott on the border this week. Join him at 11 a.m. on The Headline for a discussion about what he saw and heard. (The video archive and podcast will be available shortly after.)

Recording CPS

• A new law states families must be informed of their right to record CPS interviewing them, but it also requires that individuals’ faces in the recording are blurred and names are removed before being shared online. As Robert Montoya reports, experts disagree on whether there would be any penalty for not following the requirement.
      
• All that is certain is this: If CPS comes to you, get an attorney immediately.

Property Taxes Making Unlivable Cities

• As Texas continues to have some of the highest property taxes in the United States, a recent report revealed more of the consequences on everyday Texans. Jacob Asmussen writes about a new report from Move.org finding three of the top 10 worst livable cities in America are in Texas: Plano, Dallas, and Austin.

     

• Though a variety of factors affect the overall cost of living, one that certainly makes it harder is Texas’ local government officials constantly piling on higher property tax bills.
       

• For instance, the Democrat-run Austin City Council has raised taxes by a startling 150 percent over the last 13 years.

       
• Meanwhile, Plano and Dallas city councils have raised the average homeowner’s property tax bills a respective 41 and 65 percent over the last seven years.

Amarillo Council Ignores The Voters

• Even though voters said “no” to a new city hall, the city council has voted to issue $35 million in “certificates of obligation” – debt unapproved by voters – to go ahead and build it anyway. Thomas Warren has the details.

Friday Reflection: Why Is the 4th of July So Special?

There was no difference between July 3, 1776, and July 5. By all outward 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? 

Think about it. 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 July 4, 1776. 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. They already had an army, and blood had already been shed.

Yet, the Fourth of July is when they formally, out-loud, with one voice, declared their independence. They acknowledged to each other and a candid world that they were dissolving their political bands with England. 

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.

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 our Founding Fathers’ 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 must recommit ourselves to fighting not as if our liberty depends on it, but because refusing to submit to the yoke of tyranny is the highest expression of our liberty.

Quote-Unquote

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

– The Declaration of Independence​