Forum Post: Lady Liberty

I am 30 years old and I’ve never protested anything before in my life. Up until now, if I ever went to Staples or Office Depot to buy a poster-board it was for a school project. But all that changed today.

After buying my posterboard and writing my message on it, I came out to Occupy Irvine California and stood on the corner of Harvard and Alton. Immediately, a woman walked up to me. She read my sign and started asking me questions. Was I a democrat or a republican? Was I pro-choice? I tried my best to answer her questions, but apparently I didn’t answer one of them to her liking and was feeling some static. She told me I was here to destroy the movement.

Great, the first time I’ve ever protested anything, I’ve only been here for three minutes, and I fee like I’m in the way. I felt like leaving.

But for some reason I stuck around, and I’m glad I did, because what I saw later in the day would be one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever seen.

After a couple of hours of standing on the sidewalk I saw lots of people honking their horns and giving the thumbs up. I also saw some passer-byers flipping the bird and screaming ‘get a job’. That’s funny I thought to myself, I’ve had one to two jobs continuously since I was 15. Maybe they were yelling at somebody else?

Then the march started. I’ve never been in a march before. It all went by so fast. On the side walk we went, chanting we-are-the-99%. Soon we were at our rallying point, the District in Irvine.

A young lady, toweringly tall in stature, wearing a black dress, held an American flag, and marched across the intersection with supporters in tow holding their signs. Over and over across the street from one corner to the next. After a while the marchers tired and stopped, content to wave their signs on the street corners and yell into traffic.

A while passed as I took in the scene. This is what democracy looks like said the chant. It was impressive, but nothing compared to what I was about to see.

Then out of the corner of my eye I beheld the most amazing sight. The same young lady in black spontaneously grasped the American flag and crossed the intersection alone. This time she wasn’t walking, she was running. She wasn’t sight seeing, she was charging full-sprint. From one corner to the next, as fast as her legs could carry her. The flag waving in the air to thousands of motorists as she ran by.

Dressed in black and holding the flag with both hands, running across the intersection, she needed no poster-board for people to read or chants for people to hear. For in that moment, all eyes fixed upon her, she embodied liberty. Lady Liberty I will call her.

I don’t know Lady Liberty personally. I’ve never seen her before. I never asked her where she comes from. I don’t know her socio-economic or religious background. I’ve never asked her her political views.

None of that matters.

What matters is lady liberty is sticking up for what she believes in. What matters is that she is exercising her constitutional and natural rights. Even though people may flip her off or call her names. Even though the police watch her and there’s a chance of being arrested like those in New York City or Boston. Even though her mother would not approve of her running across the street in-front of cars lined up 100 deep and ten wide in an intersection.

None of that matters to Lady Liberty.

I believe that there is a bit of lady liberty in everyone here. I say that not because you agree with me on this issue or that, not because you look like me or talk like me, but because you are sticking up for what you believe in. Because you are exercising your constitutional rights, your natural rights. If we don’t voice our opinions and stick up for what we believe in, we are not citizens, we are subjects. If we don’t exercise our rights--all of them--we lose them.

Next time someone stands next to me on the sidewalk, standing up for what they believe in, whether it be for an issue I agree or disagree with, whether they are young or old, black, white, or green, be it tomorrow or ten years from now, the first words out my mouth will be "Welcome", and I hope they will be yours as well. For from time to time we may have differences of opinion, but we all should welcome lady liberty to stand beside us.