Give Dave Diamond liberty or give him…freedom?

Knowing the difference between the two, according to the Modesto afternoon radio talk show host, is one of the integral components in firmly understanding the United States Constitution and the rights that it affords individual citizens and society as a whole.

Diamond said that the Colonies had freedom as conferred by the crown before and during the American Revolution but they didn’t have true personal liberty.

As the speaker at the Manteca Patriots Tea Party meeting Thursday night at Chez Shari, Diamond – who lives in Manteca and is also known as Dave Bowman – used his constitutional knowledge to outline how the diverse group of men who created history’s greatest “living document” did so thinking not of themselves but of those that would come centuries after them.

That revelation, Bowman said, came into crystal clear focus for him when his son was born last year. He looked back at his lineage and saw that the sacrifices that his ancestors made were all made so that this new life could enjoy and appreciate the liberty and freedom that America affords.

“The framers weren’t looking to benefit themselves,” he said. “The constitution has to be a living document because it has outlived everybody who wrote it and it still serves for whom they meant it.”

Bowman’s message was music to Bruce Lownsbery’s ears.

Just over a month ago Lownsbery looked on with nervous anticipation as people filtered into Chez Shari for the inaugural meeting of the Manteca Patriots. It is a group that he and a pair of friends decided to start after a shared experience dealing with the city left them all with a bad taste in their mouth.

Now that the group is into its second month and will be coming up on their fourth meeting – gathering the second and fourth Thursday at Chez Shari – Lownsbery said the outlines of what the group can become should be able to come into focus soon.

All he knows right now is that education about issues, and informative speakers like Bowman, are things he wants to keep on the group’s agenda.

“I know that for myself I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to constitutional issues, and it was researching something that happened that really planted the seed for this,” he said. “I think that part of what we heard tonight is that we need people to step up and hold our government accountable.

“I think that if you look around right now you see that it’s not just conservatives that are upset with the way that things are going – there are a lot of liberals out there that want to see things change as well. 

“I think that everybody has something that they can bring to the table when it comes to things like this. I think people need to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’ – something is radically wrong and things need to change. We want this to be an outlet for that.”