I have been silent for too long. But today, as I was watching the television, I had my eyes opened to what is going on in this country. And it is truly and utterly despicable. I am sickened by watching what is becoming of the country that I so dearly love, and that our Founding Fathers fought and died so hard for. But sadly, too many Americans do not listen any more to their words. Those words spoke truth, and it came from a knowledge that what we have and what was given to us comes from a higher power, one not of this earth. "Freedom," Benjamin Franklin said, "is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature." But nobody acknowledges this wisdom any more. It is forgotten and ignored by far too many, and remembered by so few.
Too many Americans are buying into the thought that only the government can bestow freedom upon the people. Have they not read the Declaration of Independence which states that we are endowed by our Creator with certain, unalienable rights? And yet they expect a group of people who have promised them "Hope" and "Change" to secure that freedom to all Americans, when all that these people are going to do is try and level the playing field, so to speak, and make all people "equal." That is not what freedom is about. Equality is not freedom! Equality is being the same as the person next to you, and every single person having everything in common. That is what the Soviets tried. Everybody had the same kind of clothes, and the same type of housing, and, if they could afford it, the same kind of car! Is that freedom? No!!!!!!
Freedom, or liberty, as it is also known, is about having choices, and the ability to live one's life without outside interference from others. John Adams said: "I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by." That is how this country was founded! The men who founded it believed that freedom was the ability to do what we want to do, and to make a better life for oneself, and not have anybody else tell us otherwise. Adams then goes on to say that the "definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory." To Adams, and to the other Founders, freedom through the law isn't enough, because laws aren't meant to give freedom! Laws are meant to restrict. That is their purpose. But that is exactly what the majority in government want to do. They want to pass laws that give freedom to all. For example, they want to pass a massive health care bill that gives everybody the right to health care. But what they will not say is through this law, if you make a certain amount of money, well, we are going to take more of it from you, because you are impeding on other people's rights. How are they infringing? They can't give a real reason, because there isn't one. What they are doing is impeding, through laws, on a person's right to be successful and make a living for themselves. Laws can't give freedom folks. It is not only improbable, but impossible. Don't buy into it.
But unfortunately, too many Americans are buying into it, and the ones that are standing up for their Constitutional freedoms and remembering the words of our Founders are being ridiculed, and called a mob, and accused to clinging to their guns and religion. What so many Americans don't understand can be best stated in the words of James Madison. He said: "I believe that there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." And it is true! We are not seeing a violent overthrow of the Founders ideals and what this country was founded on. No, we have been watching this happen slowly for almost a century, starting with the trust busting of Teddy Roosevelt, the era of Woodrow Wilson, the New Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and then moving to the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson, and now, we come to the modern era. The government is now trying to tell us, the American people, how to live, and what to say. They are trying to pass bills to make certain things that were once "commodities" into "rights." But by doing that, they are taking other freedoms away from other individuals. And that is not liberty at all. That is tyranny.
These politicians are also attempting to silence those who do not agree with them by trying to push forward a revamped "Fairness Doctrine" and trying to create so-called "net neutrality" by governing the usage of the internet. This also is another blatant, though quiet, attempt at infringement on American liberty. Thomas Jefferson wrote that our "liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot by limited without being lost." It does not matter that a certain newspaper, talk show host or news network does not agree with your political point of view. They have the right to their opinion, just as the opposing party has the right to theirs. It is the right of every American to hold and form their own opinions without being told that they cannot think that way. It goes back to what Adams said about liberty being the right to do as you would be done by. If you want to have your opinion, that is great. You have that right, as do all 300 million Americans, and those other 299,999,999 have the right to disagree with you as well. That is how liberty works.
Those who are undertaking this underhanded usurpation of American liberties do not want you to know what they are doing. They are holding backroom meetings and shutting anybody who opposes them out. But once again, that goes completely contrary to what the Founders intended, because John Adams said that "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right . . . and a desire to know, but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." But they don't want you to know their conduct, because they know that if you knew, they would be voted out as soon as the next election cycle comes around. And there would go their grasp on power. And they don't want to lose the power that the Founders never meant for the national legislature to have.
So, my dear friends, we must all stand up to the, dare I say, tyranny of government that has arisen in Washington, and say that enough is enough! We must tell them that we are tired of them telling us what we should do, and instead they need to listen to us, the people who vote, and who are the real authority in this country. They are there representing us, and they need to do their job, or they are getting the proverbial pink slip next November. Let us do what John Adams said, and "dare to read, think, speak, and write." Because, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the immortal words that define what this nation was founded to be: "The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." It doesn't rest in the halls of Congress, friends, but in your hands alone.
Publius
