A Preview of My Upcoming July 4th Series on Substack

Each year, as we inch closer to the Fourth of July, I find myself drawn into a strange mix of emotions—gratitude, reflection, awe, and, increasingly, concern. Not because I don’t love the celebration. I do. I love the fireworks, the flags, the cookouts, and the lawn chairs lined up before sunrise to stake out a spot for the parade. I love that we still gather with friends and strangers alike, united—if only for a day—by something bigger than ourselves.

But what nags at me more each year is the creeping realization that we’re beginning to forget.

We’re forgetting how improbable liberty is.
We’re forgetting what freedom cost.
And most dangerously—we’re forgetting that it can be lost.

So next week, on my Substack newsletter, I’ll be running a five-part series leading up to Independence Day. It’s called “Liberty, Memory, and the Cost of Forgetting.” It’s not a civics lesson. It’s not a lecture. It’s certainly not a political rant. It’s a set of reflections—on history, behavior, sacrifice, and the fragile thread that still holds democracy together.

In this preview, I want to tell you why I’m writing this series—and why I think you should join me next week to read along.

Freedom Wasn’t Inevitable

We’re so far removed from 1776 that it almost feels like folklore. But make no mistake—the men who signed the Declaration of Independence weren’t reenactors in powdered wigs. They were rebels.

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the document that would become the American Declaration of Independence, he wasn’t writing in the quiet confidence that it would one day hang behind museum glass. He was drafting a formal act of treason. They were saying to the most powerful empire on earth, “We’re done. And we’re ready to fight.”

It wasn’t a movement backed by tanks or treasure. The colonies were scattered, disunited, and deeply conflicted. But those 56 signers did it anyway—risking their lives, families, and fortunes on a hunch that freedom might be possible.

We now refer to that moment as if it were inevitable. But nothing about it was.

That’s how liberty begins—not as a given, but as a gamble.

In Day 1 of the series, we’ll revisit 1776 not with reverence, but with realism. What did it actually mean to defy a king? What were the odds? Why does it matter that they did it anyway?

🧠 False Security in a Comfortable Age

Today, liberty feels permanent. We have elections. We have free speech (however chaotic it gets online). We complain about our leaders in public and mostly don’t fear a knock on the door.

But here’s the thing: liberty has always been a temporary arrangement. It only endures if each generation chooses it—deliberately, not accidentally.

In Day 2, I’ll explore how democracies fade—not with a bang, but with neglect. Freedom doesn’t usually vanish overnight. It slips, erodes, recedes. Sometimes through fear. More often through forgetting.

We’ll look at modern democracies that once seemed stable but crumbled under complacency. I’ll ask hard questions about the blind spots that come from comfort, and the myth that “it can’t happen here.”

🏫 The Disappearing Civic Memory

When I was young, schools still taught civics. We read the Constitution. We memorized the preamble. We learned not just the names of the Founding Fathers but why they mattered—and why the system they built was revolutionary, not just functional.

Today, those lessons are fading.

In Day 3, I’ll tackle what we teach—and more importantly, what we no longer teach—about democracy, history, and liberty. This isn’t about left or right. It’s about memory and meaning.

If young Americans don’t understand the complexity of their nation’s founding, the paradoxes and the progress, how can they protect it? How can they know what’s at stake if they don’t know what was once risked?

We’ve traded civics for cynicism, nuance for noise. The result? A generation that may inherit liberty, but not understand why it matters.

⚔️ The Cost That’s Easy to Miss

In Day 4, we’ll take a step back from the headlines and remember what liberty has cost—not in theory, but in blood, hunger, sacrifice, and silence.

The soldiers who froze at Valley Forge. The immigrants who fought in World Wars for a country they barely knew. The mothers who lost sons. The nurses who treated the wounded without asking party or race. The citizens who marched, protested, voted, and worked their entire lives in service of a freer, fairer future.

Freedom has never been free. But more dangerously, it has rarely been fairly distributed.

And yet, Americans—generation after generation—have shown up anyway. Not because they were certain of victory, but because they believed the fight was worth it.

We’ll honor those stories—not just the famous ones, but the forgotten.

🎇 What the Fireworks Should Remind Us

Finally, on July 4th, Day 5 will be a reflection on what this holiday should really mean.

Yes, we should celebrate. We should gather, grill, cheer, and marvel at the rockets’ red glare. But we should also remember:

Fireworks are symbols. They’re not substitutes.

Freedom is not maintained through nostalgia or rituals. It’s upheld through vigilance, gratitude, and a willingness to listen to one another across the fault lines of culture and belief.

I’ll end the series with an invitation—to reflect, to appreciate, and to recommit to a country that has never been perfect but remains worth the effort.

🎯 Why This Series, and Why Now?

Because liberty doesn’t just depend on law. It depends on memory.
And memory, if we’re not careful, fades faster than we think.

This isn’t a political project. It’s a human one.

Whether you’re conservative, liberal, or just trying to find your way through the noise, I believe there’s something grounding about returning to the founding ideas—not to idolize them, but to wrestle with them honestly.

Because the future of liberty won’t be shaped by perfect knowledge.
It will be shaped by whether we remember to care.

📬 Join Me on Substack Next Week

This five-part series will run on my Substack newsletter, Bowlin’s Alley, beginning Sunday, June 30 through Thursday, July 4.

If you’re already a subscriber, you’ll get each post delivered directly to your inbox. If not, I hope you’ll consider subscribing—whether free or paid—and joining a thoughtful, growing community of readers who value reflection over outrage and dialogue over division.

Click here to subscribe: https://lylebowlin.substack.com

Let’s spend this 4th of July not just celebrating freedom—but remembering what it took, and what it still takes, to keep it.

See you next week,
– Lyle