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  "description": "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIf This Stands\n\n\n 1. Preamble\n 2. Part I\n 3. Part II\n 4. Part III\n 5. Part IV\n 6. Part V\n 7. Finale\n\n\n   \n\n\nPreamble\n\n Gather ’round children, here’s what’s in store,  Two-fifty years of history about a special Door, It’s a Freedom Door for a Freedom Nation,  And we vow to hold it, for the next generation, It’s a compromise with no fixed conclusion, Other than a more perfect union.     Soon all this will be yours to defend.  So sit still! Listen closely from the start ’till the end.    \n",
  "path": "/cgw-if-this-stands/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-24T12:45:22.000Z",
  "site": "https://freeday.pub",
  "tags": [
    "Contents"
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  "textContent": "## If This Stands\n\n  1. Preamble\n  2. Part I\n  3. Part II\n  4. Part III\n  5. Part IV\n  6. Part V\n  7. Finale\n\n\n\n### Preamble\n\nGather ’round children, here’s what’s in store,\n\nTwo-fifty years of history about a special Door,\n\nIt’s a Freedom Door for a Freedom Nation,\n\nAnd we vow to hold it, for the next generation,\n\nIt’s a compromise with no fixed conclusion,\n\nOther than a more perfect union.\n\nSoon all this will be yours to defend.\n\nSo sit still! Listen closely from the start ’till the end.\n\n### Part I\n\nWe open this story as if it’s the greatest ever told,\n\nWith maybe the greatest heroes we’ve ever known,\n\nThe Door first held open by George Washington,\n\nSo we the people run things from the top to the bottom.\n\nIt’s how a man of modest means,\n\nCame to live with Kings and Queens,\n\nWhat power Washington had, and gave back,\n\nBinding us, still today, to our shared contract.\n\nBut even the purest contract, by the best men,\n\nIs only as strong as the weakest who inherit.\n\nThe great powers that were thought he’d be a king,\n\nLike for thousands of years, all had ever been.\n\nBut it’s they who would fall,\n\nWhen left open for all,\n\nThe Door would call,\n\nSo their people would crawl,\n\nAs once we crawled,\n\nAt the start of it all,\n\nNow our flag stands tall,\n\nGuarding that Door,\n\nWhere a Right for one,\n\nIs a Right for all.\n\nIn our first year of freedom, Washington said,\n\nWhile looking for some descent-hearted men:\n\nIf you break your back for this country,\n\nThen that’s good enough for me.\n\nWe’ll etch the contract into this wood,\n\nWe’ll fashion a Door and then we’ll walk through.\n\nIt’s not just the words carved onto the Door,\n\nBut the spirit woven through each consecrated board.\n\nIt’s a long cold winter of freedom,\n\nWith hard-won victories defeating suspicion.\n\nIt’s a promise, soon to be realized,\n\nWhen all this pain will feel like no sacrifice.\n\nIt’s a compromise with no fixed conclusion,\n\nOther than a more perfect union.\n\nFor one more year, _we_ will hold the door,\n\nAnd _when_ it stands, then one year more.\n\nWhen Thomas Jefferson heard men complain,\n\nAbout why must there be so much change,\n\nHe heard what they meant to say:\n\n“At the end of the day, make them obey.”\n\nIt’s how a man of clever mind,\n\nModified the compromise,\n\nTo give us time, to give our country life,\n\nKnowing the balance will differ in each place and time.\n\nThere are three elements, in a free society,\n\nThe Twins Flames hog the stage of this story,\n\nOne flame: Why must things change?\n\nThe other: Things can’t stay the same.\n\nThe Twin Flames must stay locked in their eternal battle,\n\nBecause Three is the danger, the Change, the Radical.\n\nEvery age, every era, will have its Wild Men,\n\nSome are for good and some are for bad.\n\nSome are just breakers; others re-makers,\n\nBut through it all, we need the caretakers:\n\nIf the Flames break apart, then the Radical wins,\n\nAll hell will break loose, and we’ll all be dead.\n\nBut if the Flames are held loosely, then the Radical wins,\n\nNever completely, but change can begin.\n\nThe Twin Flames are what hold the Door,\n\nAnd give us the grace to move towards,\n\nA compromise with no fixed conclusion,\n\nOther than a more perfect union.\n\nWashington gave us Liberty,\n\nBut Jefferson gave us Life\n\nThey etched the contract into wood,\n\nSealed it with blood and sacrifice.\n\nWith clean hands,\n\nThey opened the Freedom Door,\n\nWith clear conscious,\n\nThey said if _this_ stands, then one year more,\n\nWith common purpose,\n\nThey gave us a few simple instructions.\n\nYou have your favorites, now lift the best,\n\nAnd watch them soar above the rest,\n\nHelp them rise to the top,\n\nNot on merit alone,\n\nBut because those below,\n\nAre pushing them up.\n\nKnowing there’s a power still untapped,\n\nAn uncharted future that’s barely been scratched,\n\nTo defend the pursuit of happiness,\n\nYou just have to say the words,\n\nTo defend our shared contract,\n\nTake it, and make it yours.\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the Door,\n\nAnd if _this_ stands, 250 more.\n\n### Part II\n\nTo a king, it doesn’t matter what you say,\n\nOnly at the end of the day, you will obey:\n\nHave your little arguments, your athletics,\n\nYour little writings, your entertainments,\n\nBut at the end of the day, you will obey.\n\nWe owe so much to Christianity,\n\nFor making our freedoms a reality,\n\nFor centuries, for ages, all that was known:\n\nOnly your soul, is yours to control,\n\nAnd the soul can be a quiet thing.\n\nIs this our lawfully wedded faith?\n\nWhere nothing changes, nothing gained?\n\nMaybe only fools had time to question,\n\nBut they weren’t asking for the freedom of Heaven,\n\nOnly the story of a new name.\n\nA heartbeat echoes down the generations,\n\nLeaving their children asimple instruction,\n\nA bright line from dawn’s early light,\n\nSinging, weaving, burning away the night,\n\nChasing away all suspicion.\n\nOnly / your soul / is yours / to control.\n\nOnly / your soul / is yours / to control.\n\nFreedom for the living, freedom comes too late.\n\nSo tie a rope to Heaven’s Gate,\n\nand pull.\n\nEvery voice, a ray of light woven into a rope\n\nThe tyrants mocked such a feeble hope:\n\nThat Heavenly Gate? Go ahead and pull,\n\nYou can no more do that, than you can lasso the moon!\n\nBut it wasn’t a joke.\n\nTo a king, it’s freedom for me, but not for thee,\n\nBut why can’t there be maybe some for me?\n\nMaybe this, maybe that. Maybes are for fools.\n\nPull that Gate a little closer to earth so those\n\nIn control, see they can make a copy.\n\nThey spoke of hope for a better life,\n\nDespite all the odds, they lifted their voice,\n\nWeaving a demand from a simple instruction,\n\nBuilding an inferno from a flicker of freedom,\n\nThe soul must make its choice.\n\nWe’re not demanding the freedom of Heaven,\n\nEven the facsimile of justice is a better direction.\n\nHear all our voices, demanding a Gate,\n\nMake it here, make it now, make it in this place.\n\nI can hear the sound of freedom.\n\nIt’s the final gate, for the final hour,\n\nAccounting for all the tolls you inure.\n\nThe tyrants were right about those Pearly Gates,\n\nNo matter how hard you pull, they’re always too far away.\n\nBut a gate, by any other name, is a door.\n\nAnd what to their wondering ears should appear?\n\nSomething by all rights shouldn’t have been there.\n\nTheir demands had conceived aGreat Door of Freedom.\n\nAll they had to do was push the Door open.\n\nIt was a ringing freedom, calling them near.\n\nFor centuries, for ages, all that was known,\n\nOnly your soul, is yours to control.\n\nAll those voices braided into a chorus,\n\nUnited, unbroken, echoing down the generations,\n\nThey lifted their voices, in a brilliant incantation,\n\nTo bring forth the closest thing to Heaven on earth…\n\n…a Freedom Nation!\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the Door,\n\nAnd if this stands, 250 more!\n\nBe still my beating heart,\n\nThe future is ripe with the present.\n\nI stand before you telling this story,\n\nI can hear it echo all around me,\n\nDo not give in to resentment.\n\nHope is disappointment delayed\n\nHope is misery, suffering, pain,\n\nHope is a virus, a foolish contagion,\n\nHope might be all we have left in the end,\n\nDon’t talk to me about hope, okay.\n\nIt’s the first few times,\n\nBefore your lucky break,\n\nThe one after that when,\n\nYou’re ideas, they didn’t take.\n\nInconsequential fool,\n\nHow many times before it’s fate?\n\nBut then hope it floats,\n\nBut then hope it floats,\n\nAnd by the end of the day,\n\nYou’re swept away.\n\nI almost have to apologize,\n\nFor if the hope bubbles rise,\n\nThey can lift you to the mountaintop\n\nAnd once they pop, there’s no way to stop,\n\nHope is a disappointing surprise.\n\nWhy give in to hope, I mean, like, voluntarily?\n\nYou’re a foolish ship sailing rough seas.\n\nBut there’s a sliver of a window to right the wrongs of the past,\n\nTo lift every boat and hope it will last,\n\nAn answer, a long-suffering reply.\n\nBut then hope it floats,\n\nBut then hope it floats,\n\nAnd by the end of the day,\n\nYou’re swept away.\n\nYet who will save us from ourselves,\n\nWhen the flames are flickering, but no one helps?\n\nThink of all those fools who went before us,\n\nHoping that maybe someday there might be something,\n\nTo make sense of all this suffering.\n\nAnd how they lifted their voices in a hopeful chorus,\n\nWhen freedom, in this world, struggled to be born,\n\nHow they sang together, an incantation,\n\nTo bring forth the closest thing to Heaven on earth,\n\nAt last,\n\nthis nation,\n\na Freedom Nation!\n\nA nation so conceived,\n\nHolding the Twin Flames of Liberty,\n\nWill keep it open for all the others,\n\nAnd call them cousins, sisters, brothers,\n\nSo each can write their own histories.\n\nOne day not so long from now,\n\nYou, our children, will renew this same vow,\n\nYou will hold both flames, _stand strong_ in the breach,\n\nYou will say not here. Not now. Not in this place,\n\nAnd when you look back, it will be worth any hurt,\n\nTo defend the closest thing to Heaven on earth,\n\n…the brightest beacon,\n\n…a Freedom Nation.\n\nOne day our names will be lost to the sands of time,\n\nOur lives summarized in a few lines of rhyme,\n\nAs we summarize those who came before us,\n\nThey will braid our names into the chorus,\n\nAnd all we will be is an unbroken line,\n\nA simple instruction,\n\nA sacred hope,\n\nJust waiting to be found,\n\nWhen we’re needed the most:\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the Door,\n\nAnd if _this_ stands, 250 more.\n\n### Part III\n\nThere’s nothing more dangerous,\n\nThan a humiliated man,\n\nWho will take what is done to him,\n\nAnd send it on again.\n\nThere’s nothing more humiliating,\n\nThan a hero’s betrayal,\n\nWhen values are sacrificial,\n\nIn the Law of the Jungle.\n\nThere’s no deeper betrayal,\n\nThan a free man stabbed in the back,\n\nWhen a sacred hope,\n\nIs torn into scraps.\n\nFree men will fight,\n\nTheir liberties,\n\nWhen their victories,\n\nFade from living mem’ry.\n\nThere’s no deeper liberty,\n\nThan that of equal rights,\n\nIt’s the cure for humiliation,\n\nIt must never be sacrificed.\n\nNo one will be more dangerous to us,\n\nLike one we sacrifice out of convenience.\n\nNo one will be see our point of view,\n\nLike one who found it on the battlefield.\n\nYet this is when we go on the attack,\n\nTo stab a free man in the back?\n\nThose in charge will rot in Hell,\n\nBut if this stands we’re damned as well.\n\nCan we feel the pull of history?\n\nHas it faded from living mem’ry?\n\nWhen fourscore and fourscore,\n\nAnd fourscore and seven years before,\n\n _We_ were the first to hold the door.\n\nIt was our flag alone, welcoming all,\n\nThis is in our blood, this is in our soul.\n\nHow can you say:\n\n“Oh, what's done to them?\n\nI’m a Know Nothing!”\n\nWhen what's done to them is done in our name!\n\nWhen the worst is suddenly easy to see,\n\nDead men breathing, crawling to their liberty,\n\n _This_ is when we go on the attack,\n\nTo stab a free man in the back?\n\nIt’s a sin against the soul of our nation,\n\nA mortal sin,\n\nan abomination.\n\nThose in charge will rotten Hell,\n\nBut if this stands, we’re damned as well.\n\nUsing both sides of their mouth,\n\nThese two-faced politicians,\n\nCover all their bases,\n\nIn more than four directions.\n\nWhile waiting for,\n\nA star to be born,\n\nThey’ll migrate towards,\n\nThe rising sun.\n\nAre you a play-dead politician?\n\nOr a boot-lickin’ monster?\n\nWhat do we say to that?\n\nGrow a spine, motherfucker.\n\nIt takes courage to fight,\n\nEven more to survive,\n\nBut you’ve never had courage,\n\nA day in your life.\n\nWhen for the first time in my life,\n\nI see the outline,\n\nOf something that might call on me to die,\n\nfor.\n\nNo one will see our point of view,\n\nLike one who found it on the battlefield.\n\nYet this is when we go on the attack,\n\nTo stab a free man in the back?\n\nThose in charge will rot in Hell,\n\nBut if this stands, we’re damned as well.\n\nHold both Flames, loosely, stand in the breach,\n\nIf the president’s a bad egg, you must impeach!\n\nIt takes courage to fight,\n\nEven more to survive,\n\nWe must have courage now,\n\nTo keep this story alive.\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the Door,\n\nAnd if _this_ stands, 250 more!\n\n### Part IV\n\nFree men will fight their liberties,\n\nWhen their victories fade from living mem’ry.\n\nThey’ll look, from shoulder to shoulder,\n\nAnd see chains where there is only duty and honor.\n\n“Cast these chains aside, I am no slave,”\n\nBut with no history, he is easily made,\n\nTo break the Twin Flames, keep one, toss the other,\n\nAnd if he succeeds, we’re bound for another,\n\nLong hard crawl to the Freedom Door,\n\nMaybe forever,\n\nMaybe forevermore.\n\nPain and suffering,\n\nLeads to rebirth and renewal,\n\nAway from the void,\n\nAnd into the future,\n\nA future burning bright,\n\nSo take it, and make it yours\n\nYour story is a weapon,\n\nIn the war of ideas.\n\nWhy else would they silence you,\n\nIn the midst of your pain?\n\nBecause pain is the means,\n\nTo make heroes from nothing.\n\nCower if you want, cover you eyes,\n\nBut if you tell yours, I’m gonna tell mine,\n\nStand strong, do not give in to silence,\n\nYour story is a weapon, in the war of ideas!\n\nNo kings, no slaves, no tyrant overlords,\n\nWhen fourscore and fourscore,\n\nAnd fourscore and seven years before,\n\n _We_ were the first to hold the Door.\n\nAnd as our forefathers foretold,\n\nWhen it stands, 250 more.\n\nWhen the slavers of the Radical South,\n\nNeeded a good kickin’ in the mouth,\n\nWe won and said never again.\n\nThe liberties won, we locked ’em in.\n\nIn times of war, you hold the Door,\n\nAnd when it stands, 250 more.\n\nWhen those needle-necked little Nazis,\n\nNeeded a knifing at the knees,\n\nAnd Europe needed liberating,\n\nIt was our flag they were celebrating.\n\nIn times of war, you hold the Door,\n\nand when it stands, 250 more.\n\nThe arc of the moral universe is long,\n\nbut it bends towards Justice,\n\nWhat MLK didn’t say, but had to show us,\n\nIs that if the Twin Flames pull too far apart,\n\nThe Law of the Jungle is at the heart,\n\nOf what’s on the other side of that Door,\n\nSo hold both flames, loosely, and move forward,\n\nAway from the void, away from destruction,\n\nDown with these walls! Down with apartness!\n\nIf times are hard, you hold the Door,\n\nand when it stands, 250 more.\n\nNow we have a Radical Orange,\n\nAnd as we learned in school,\n\n _Nothing rhymes with orange._\n\nBut what’s happening now?\n\nRhymes with what came before,\n\nWhen every time, we held the Door.\n\nNow we have rich, bored people,\n\nAnd their fake neutrality,\n\nThey go along to get along,\n\nAnd make some money.\n\nIf the glove fits,\n\nCall it what it is!\n\nSo many Brilliants,\n\nWith their minds twisted into pretzels.\n\nI’m _sick_ of Pretzel Men,\n\nWith their Pretzel Agenda.\n\nIn a fight to the death,\n\nKnow what time it is!\n\nThey won’t deal in facts,\n\nThese opinionated monsters,\n\nWhat do we say to that?\n\nGrow a spine, motherfuckers!\n\nThose in charge will rot in Hell,\n\nBut if this stands, we’re damned as well.\n\nHold both Flames, stand in the breach!\n\nIf the President’s a bad egg, you must impeach!\n\nWhy else would they silence you,\n\nIn the midst of your pain?\n\nBecause pain is the means,\n\nTo make heroes from nothing.\n\nWhen fourscore and fourscore,\n\nAnd fourscore and seven years before,\n\nOur heroes became a simple instruction,\n\nA sacred hope,\n\nJust waiting to be found,\n\nWhen they’re needed the most:\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the Door,\n\nAnd if _this_ stands, 250 more.\n\n### Part V\n\n _Stand strong_ and the doorframe will not fall,\n\nBut the Twin Flames must find a home within us all,\n\nIn one wing: Meet people where they are,\n\nWhy do things change? Why make it so hard?\n\nAnd on the other side stands equal rights,\n\nWith the arc of the moral universe, burning bright.\n\nPower concedes nothing without a demand,\n\nBut both flames burning bright is how that Door stands.\n\nThe Twin Flames will forever be fighting,\n\nDancing, changing, pushing, pulling.\n\nIt’s your voice that keeps the Door standing,\n\nSo stand strong, speak without fear, make it demanding!\n\nIf your mind changes when the dance takes a turn,\n\nStand strong and say:\n\nI'll speak my mind in this country of mine,\n\nAsk not what your country can do for you,\n\nOnly / your soul / is yours / to control,\n\nWho will stand, if we wait for someone else?\n\nThe only thing to fear is fear itself.\n\nIf your mind changes when the dance takes a turn,\n\nStand strong without fear of intimidation or coercion.\n\nFor those who will come after, for each generation,\n\nWe lift all our voices in righteous condemnation,\n\nAnd defend the closest thing to Heaven on earth…\n\nthe brightest beacon,\n\n…a Freedom Nation!\n\nOur victory is not guaranteed,\n\nI can see it all laid out before of me,\n\nWith clean hands, clear conscious, and common purpose,\n\nOur pain and suffering leads to renewal and rebirth,\n\nWith a sliver of a window to right the wrongs of the past,\n\nTo lift every boat, and hope it will last.\n\nPain is the means,\n\nto make heroes from nothing,\n\nIn every ounce of pain, every hero made,\n\nI see an opportunity.\n\nIf the great wheel turns,\n\nAnd the timing is right,\n\nTo take one small step for man,\n\nAnd one giant leap for mankind.\n\nI almost have to apologize,\n\nFor when the hope bubbles rise.\n\nHope is disappointment delayed,\n\nBut with no history, you are easily made.\n\nTo forget on this long odyssey,\n\nAll the people before us who sailed rougher seas.\n\nAll those voices braided into a rope,\n\nWhen freedom was just a dream of a hope,\n\nTo lasso the moon, to bring forth a Door,\n\nA Door never seen in this world before.\n\nWind the rope tight to the mast,\n\nSo there’s nothing leftover to hang from our necks,\n\nWhen our victories fade from living mem’ry,\n\nAnd Wild Men foment to lead us awry.\n\nThere’s always a power untapped,\n\nAn uncharted future, barely scratched.\n\nYou just have to say the words.\n\nAnd mean them.\n\nHave something to deliver.\n\nLet every person,\n\nwho wasn’t born for this world,\n\nKnow your future is bright,\n\nif you take it, and make it yours.\n\nDon’t let them sell it,\n\nGive it away to these monsters?\n\nWhat do we say to that?\n\nGrow a spine, motherfuckers.\n\nWe are the caretakers for the next generation,\n\nOf the most powerful weapon,\n\n…in the war of ideas.\n\nYour stories,\n\nThe stories of _this_ nation,\n\nThe Story of America,\n\n…the story of a Freedom Nation.\n\nHold both Flames, stand strong in the breach,\n\nSay not here, not now, not in this place.\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the Door,\n\nAnd if _this_ stands, 250 more.\n\n### Finale\n\nThe Twin Flames are what hold the Door,\n\nAnd give us the grace to move towards,\n\nA compromise with no fixed conclusion,\n\nOther than a more perfect union.\n\nWhere all Men are created equal,\n\nWhere a Right for one, is a Right for all.\n\nBut free men will fight their liberties,\n\nWhen their victories fade from living mem’ry.\n\nThere’s no doubt, one day not so long from now,\n\nOur grandchildren will have to renew this same vow,\n\nThey will hold both Flames, stand strong in the breach,\n\nThey will say not here. Not now. Not in this place,\n\nFor one more year _they_ will hold the Door,\n\nAnd when it stands, 250 more.\n\nButwho will save us from ourselves,\n\nWhen we crawl, we crawl, but no one helps?\n\nExcept a man out of time,\n\nTwo-hundred fifty years old,\n\nHe says, half dead, while laughing:\n\nPain, is the means,\n\nto make heroes, from nothing,\n\nHold both flames, loosely, stand in the breach,\n\nSay not here, not now, not in this place,\n\nFor one more year, you will hold the door,\n\nOne more,\n\none more,\n\njust one year more,\n\nAnd if _this_ stands, 250 more.\n\nContents\n\nCute Gay Wedding. © 2026 by Christopher X Sullivan. All rights reserved.",
  "title": "If This Stands",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-24T12:45:22.881Z"
}