to go up the Avenida da Liberdade on April 25

I'd love it more if we were to go up the Avenida da Liberdade. Climb to reach a better Portugal and Europe. To rise so that Freedom is individual and full, and not just tolerated by the State.

I was still born in dictatorship. But I know myself as a person in Freedom. April 25 is an important date for Portugal, and for me. It breaks a political and social cycle, eliminates a regime, and establishes a new time. Like all processes, it was not - nor is it still - an easy path. A pluralistic country always has tensions between different ideas for the future, how to manage today's problems, and how to evaluate the history that has brought us here.

But there is a symbolic charge on April 25, which has until now been monopolized by a certain way of being in politics. The left arrogates the right to claim democracy and forget that it took a lot of people to get up, at the top of a mall or on top of a tank (...)

Post-April 25 democracy saw the country's bankruptcy a few times, the tight belt of austerity, internal and external interests taking advantage of the weaknesses of the system, and even an ethical and factual corruption that we are still unraveling. For 44 years, the same faces have always been in the country's leadership, the same parties as always in the practical application of the Lampedusa paradox.

But also saw a poor, backward and often considered miserable country gaining confidence in itself. The children who had previously abandoned it to escape hunger, today go out to compete with the best in the world, in science, technology, sports, management and even art. Illiteracy and infant mortality have disappeared. The country grew, built infrastructures, innovated in certain industries. Our companies spread in a globalized world. Even some of our statesmen, whom we criticize at home, are recognized abroad. The nation that gave new worlds to the world is now part of the world, by right.

The celebration of April 25 has been centralized in a large demonstration down the Avenida da Liberdade, led by the revolutionaries and communists of 74-75, trade unionists for rights and time reductions in wage growth and the nostalgic of fracturing causes. They go down Av. da Liberdade. Perhaps because coming down all the saints help and continue to claim a new 25th of April. What they had in 1974 did not give them what they wanted?

The Liberal Initiative will also celebrate April 25, joining the demonstration. And I, a member, will be there. But I would have liked it better if we were going up Avenida da Liberdade. Up to reach a Portugal, a Europe, and a better World. To rise so that Liberty is individual and full, and not only tolerated by the State, they that even like deciding where to eat patties. A Freedom of affirmation of citizenship, action on behalf of ourselves, our families, and our community. A Freedom full of autonomy, which grows in respect for the rights of all, and the Responsibility of each one. A Freedom that does not wait, that does not go by the easy way, by the descent of the slope, but that leads us to overcome what we are, to work together, each one with their will and their initiative, and to build a More Liberal Portugal .

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