Where Did We Go Wrong

At the dawn of our Republic, Samuel Adams stated, "If you love wealth more than liberty, and the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us..." Patrick Henry famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death." The United States of America was founded upon the belief that an all powerful government, even a benevolent one, was by its very nature a tyrannical one. One of our guiding principles has always been that a dependent people cannot be a free people.

Even the architect of the modern welfare state said as much. Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated in 1935, "The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Shocking, isn't it. The man who did more to create dependency in the American people recognized the fact that dependence destroys morality and human desire to achieve.

As late as the 1960s, Democrat, John Kennedy urged that we "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". Barry Goldwater, the conservative conscience, said that he had no interest in streamlining government, instead he wanted to make it smaller and eliminate programs, saying, "And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests, " I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

Ronald Reagan famously said that government is the problem, not the solution.

In our current climate, though, terms like "liberty", "self reliance", "limited government" are as archaic as "thee", "thou" and "forsooth". Our economic worries have caused us to want to replace the independent eagle as our national symbol and replace it with a litter of piglets sucking at the teats of a sow.

We have two presidential candidates who are trying to outdo each other with money to the masses. Barack Obama is a naive socialist fool. He has no concept of personal liberty except to protect terrorists and abortions. Unfortunately, though, in spite of his claims to be a Reagan conservative, John McCain isn't much better. Senator McCain wrongly claims that too little regulation caused our current situation. He wants to spend $300 billion to buy up risky mortgages. If it weren't for Sarah Palin, no one, no one, would be proclaiming the values of federalism, limited government and freedom.

Who's at fault, though? Not the politicians. We don't have statesmen. We have politicians who want to get elected and re-elected and maintain their power. They understand human nature. Politicians are no different than Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor, "In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'"

We are too quick to trade liberty for security. Life is hard. Life has struggles. Life has risks. I know it sounds trite, but those struggles and risks build character. I have often said that the United States was founded by mutts. Our forbears were the misfits of the world. A good example is the Scotch-Irish that populated my part of this country.

The Scotch-Irish were unwelcome anywhere in Great Britain. They were the wrong religion. They had the wrong political views and they wanted to be left alone. They viewed the government with distrust because their history had taught them that anytime the government showed up, it was only to rape and pillage. They believed that they could take care of themselves, their family and their community. They didn't want or need a powerful national bureaucracy to meet their needs.

Their story is somewhat unique, but not the underlying belief. We are a nation of pioneers. Our ancestors didn't wait for the government to build a bridge across the Mississippi River. We have historically loved freedom and accepted the risks that came with it. In fact, when FDR began formulating the New Deal one of his aides told him that his biggest obstacle would be that the notion of self reliance was almost a religion in this nation. Not anymore.

Each successive generation in the 20th Century has expected more and more from the Federal government. Academics argue that self reliance was a myth anyway. They argue that urbanization has made it necessary to become more communal in our outlook. Politicians have successfully pitted taxpayers against benefit receivers.

We are fast approaching a time where the benefit receivers actually outumber the taxpayers. Withholding has created a view that we aren't paying taxes. We look forward to rebate checks where the Federal government is nice enough to give us back OUR money. We willingly give more and more power to Federal bureaucracies in hopes that we won't have to worry about sickness, joblessness, homelessness and hunger.

We, foolishly, believe the same government that gave us Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Department of Education will competently manage our healthcare system. We ignorantly believe that we can give the Federal government more power and not lose freedom.

As I write this, I really don't think that many people care. Freedom is a precious gift. However, like the frog in the pot of warming water, if freedom is taken away a little at a time, we'll never notice our destruction.