A POINT OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE: Every Generation Must Decide for Themselves

Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, a group of ordinary men and women declared something extraordinary: That no one man was born to rule another.

That no title, no crown, no bloodline could make one person the master of another person’s life.

They wrote those words with trembling hands. They risked their freedom to sign their names. And when the ink dried, the world changed. Because for the first time in human history, the right to govern was not claimed from God by a king, it was claimed from heaven by the people themselves.

We gather today under that same idea.

Simple. Profound. Still radical.

That in America, there are no kings.

But every generation must decide whether we still mean it, whether we still believe that freedom belongs to all of us, not just the loudest, the richest, or the most powerful among us.

Liberty doesn’t collapse all at once. It erodes, one excuse at a time, one emergency at a time, one “necessary evil” at a time.

It’s not lost in revolution. It’s lost in resignation, when people grow tired, when they stop showing up, when they decide it’s easier to be ruled than to be responsible.

And so we drift.

We drift toward power without accountability. Toward leaders who promise they alone can fix it. Toward systems that serve themselves instead of the people they were built to protect.

Every generation faces this temptation: to trade liberty for the illusion of safety, to seek a savior instead of a servant, to forget that government is not the master of the people, but the instrument of their will.

But the American idea, the one that still stirs us, has never been about perfection.
It’s about perseverance. It’s about the slow, stubborn work of a people determined to make freedom real for everyone.

Our founders knew this would never be easy.

They didn’t give us a finished nation; they gave us a framework.
They didn’t hand down certainty; they handed down responsibility.
They trusted that each generation—yours, mine, our children’s—would keep taking its turn.

They knew we would stumble. That we would argue. That we would fail to live up to our ideals. But they also knew something deeper. That the cure for democracy’s flaws has never been less democracy. It has always been more.

So the question before us is not whether America is broken.
It’s whether we are still willing to keep her promises.

That’s what “No Kings” means.
It’s not defiance for defiance’s sake.
It’s a reminder that freedom comes with work,
and that the highest office in this nation is still citizen.

Citizens who read, think, pray, vote, and serve.
Citizens who don’t wait for orders from Washington to do what’s right in their own towns.
Citizens who understand that the hard work of self-government begins with listening, and ends with courage.

In my years as a dentist and as your representative, I’ve learned something about people: Most of the healing we need doesn’t come from the powerful.

It comes from the patient.
It comes from ordinary men and women who show up every day, to teach, to build, to care, to lead quietly, without applause, without fear, and without permission.

They are the backbone of this Republic.
And they remind me that the measure of our nation has never been the height of our monuments, but the depth of our decency.

So today, I ask you, not for anger, not for applause, but for endurance.
Because the work of freedom is not the work of a moment. It is the work of a lifetime.

And it depends on each of us refusing to kneel to cynicism, refusing to surrender to despair, refusing to let our divisions become our destiny.

We must be the generation that remembers what those signatures on parchment once promised, that we the people would govern ourselves. That truth would be our crown, and justice our throne.

We must guard against those who would place themselves above the law, or put party above country.

We must stand firm when others grow weary.

We must lift one another when the weight of the world feels too heavy to carry alone.

Because our freedom doesn’t live in Washington or Salem or any marble building.
It lives here, in the hearts of citizens who still believe that character matters, truth matters, and that no man, no woman, no movement is greater than the Republic itself.

My friends, we were never meant to kneel before crowns or parties or strongmen.
We were meant to stand, shoulder to shoulder, as equals under God and the law.

The world will test that. Power always does.
But the miracle of America is not that we are perfect.
It’s that we are free to become better.

So long as we remember who we are;
So long as we remember that our birthright is liberty, not loyalty;
So long as we remember that in this country, the people rule;

There will be no kings in America.

Not now. Not ever.

Thank you.
God bless you.
And God bless this Republic.

If this message resonates with you, and if you still believe Oregon can be governed by reason instead of rage, then I hope you’ll subscribe to A Point of Personal Privilege. That’s where I share the work behind the headlines, the principles behind the votes, and the ideas that can still bring us together.