K Steele

Well Regulated Militia K Steele

Julie Collins wonders why there isn't an amendment in the Bill of Rights for the right just to be left alone. Eighteen should be one of the best years of her life, a time of optimism for the future. Instead, as she looks to the dawn of adulthood all she sees is pessimism around herself with little hope for improvement in the conditions slowly crushing her family. But her grandfathers instilled her with longing for liberty, one by his death and the other by his life of struggle against tyranny, and this yearning within her for freedom refuses to capitulate to greedy despots. "We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor," ended The Declaration of Independence. Inspired by these words of Thomas Jefferson, the words of John Locke, the Magna Carta, Aristotle and Cicero, Julie educates herself to the cause of liberty. More than just hollow words to her, with the shadow of oppression hanging over them she decides it is time to take a stand for justice; it is time for her to join the militia.