Residents talk of gratitude during July 4

Happy (belated) Independence Day!

Our family enjoyed gathering with friends — old and new — at parades and celebrations throughout the area.

We often talk about American pride, and everybody knows the famous chorus from the Lee Greenwood song: “And I’m Proud to be an American!”

And we saw a lot of pride and joy on the parade routes in Marengo, Oxford and Williamsburg this year. It was great fun, and it was unifying.

But as I listened to various speakers this year, one word kept popping up in my mind. Gratitude.

The freedoms we have been given did not appear out of nowhere. Many people have fought in wars, legislatures, courtrooms, the media, bars and coffee shops to maintain these freedoms, and they still do today.

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I am grateful for the opportunity we have been given to participate in our government. It is an extremely rare opportunity. It has almost never been seen throughout human history.

I am grateful to all those who came before us to establish the revolutionary ideas that define the best parts of America. And I am trying to do my own small part to preserve those best parts. I do it out of gratitude.

I hope you are grateful (and proud) too and that you will continue to participate in our revolutionary system. It would be a shame if we ignored the gift we have been given.

One other quick point, because it is the main question I’m getting these days, what’s going on with the CO2-Pipeline-Eminent-Domain issue?

As you know, I have been an outspoken opponent of the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines since before I was even elected. I won’t rehash all my arguments, but I will just say that I believe it is an unconstitutional use of eminent domain because those specific pipelines are not for “public use.”

I am extremely disappointed in the Governor’s veto of the bill we passed that would have stopped unconstitutional eminent domain.

I voted to hold a special session of the legislature to override that veto. The House had plenty of votes to make that happen, but Senate leadership declined to take any action.

I will continue to work in the next session to protect your property rights.

As I mentioned previously, I will provide another update on bills we passed in the House this year.