Today we celebrate the 4th of July because it was then in 1776 we declared our independence from the British monarchy of King George. But it wasn't just the King that we were free from. It was freedom from tyranny, the rule by force of some men over the lives of others.
The founders had a new idea for creating a "more perfect union." It was to create a government that gets its just powers from the consent of the governed, an idea so radical it is still not understood as clearly as it should be today.
It was the concept of inalienable individual rights that made such a society possible. Even this concept of rights is also poorly understood today. Some people--and some politicians-- think a right is a right to things before before one earns them, like a right to a job or health care.
The right to life does not mean the government must provide us with the food, clothing and shelter we need. It means only that we are free to provide these things for ourselves with only one requirement: that we refrain from violating the same rights of everyone else.
In such a free market system the government does have a role. It is that of a protector of rights thus it must have a presence like that of a patrolman who is there to be summoned if a citizen's rights are violated.
It is a system where people are free to make a dollar servicing the wants and needs of other people. What a great win-win, life promoting, happiness creating system that is!
But this system is under attack because its principles are not being taught in our schools anymore. Our young people are finding it difficult to love and respect a nation they know nothing about and whose history has been reoriented to focus on most of her mistakes and not her accomplishments.
We have turned over to government our roads and bridges to maintain at their leisure, our children's education for it to decide what our kids will be taught and not taught. We let the government control our health care so the Gavin Newsomes, (California) Gretchen Whitmers (Michigan) and Andrew Cuomos (New York) et al, can decide what is good and bad for us and force it on us with the force of law.
Benjamin Franklin when asked what kind of society he and the founders were creating said: "A Republic, if you can keep it."
Well we are in danger of losing it. Look how many so-called educated people today think we are supposed to be a democracy. So today let's thank the founders and resolve to take back our marketplace from the government and keep that freedom for future generations.
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