Today is worthy of celebration
By Erick Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It may surprise you as it surprised me. There are some people, largely those who lean toward the libertarian view on life, who will not celebrate this day as our Independence Day. They say we are no longer an independent people and this day is not worth celebrating. In their effort to shock people with their near atheist view of American exceptionalism, they profoundly miss the point.
I tend to agree with them. We have embraced a national government at the expense of ourselves and our states. For this very reason, we should celebrate this day all the more.
232 years ago, a group of men pledged their lives, their fortune, and their honor to rebel against a tyrant who refused to recognize them as free people subject to the laws of the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was a very conservative revolution — the men wanted to be recognized as free men like the other British subjects on the island and, when not so recognized, threw off the shackles of tyranny that these free men might be free.
Those who believe we are no longer free fail to recognize that we are no longer free through our own actions. We have, collectively, chosen actions to make us less free. Those who believe we are no longer free should therefore highlight the example of our founders more so than any other group.
Today is not the day to proclaim our Independence Day no longer has any meaning. Today is the day to celebrate our Independence Day to show what might be yet again if a free people chose again to be free of the shackles of a federal government that increasingly seeks to make a free people again dependent.
A Christian in the midst of those who have thrown off the faith has a duty to proclaim the gospel even louder and pray even harder for the lost. One committed to the first principles of this nation has a similar duty when surrounded by those who have forgotten those first principles. And just as Easter and Christmas are the two high holy days for the Christian, Independence Day and Constitution Day should be viewed the same by those disenchanted by our present lack of every day independence.
So celebrate and rejoice. Today is the day a free people rose up and restored their freedom through independence.
An additional note on Rush Limbaugh, the $400 million man. — Comments (15) »
Today is worthy of celebration 7 Comments (0 topical, 7 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I have known demeaning this day. Today celebrates a great march forward for freedom. How could they possibly turn their backs on that.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
they pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. THe word sacred is important--otherwise, great post!
The 16th amendment instituting the national income tax is mainly responsible for the collectivism that we see today. The truth is that many in my generation, late baby boomers, know nothing different. It is important to keep educating us and this site and other conservative sites really help to do that.
The 16th amendment, which was instituted to finance war, has taken too much money out of the states where it is earned. After the war the money kept pouring in. Representatives from the states began to try to funnel the excess back to their states for pet projects. Over time this practice has become the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" system that we see now.
If that money had stayed in the states where it belongs, you wouldn't have the pandering and partisanship that exists now. States that wish to have a more socialist economy and governmental structure could do so and would have to deal with the consequences. States desiring a more libertarian economy and governmental structure would also be able to do so.
It was never the intention to have the states send representatives to fight for the return of money to their state, but to protect the interests of the state in national matters. Truly the only way to change this convoluted and destructive system of government is to abolish the individual federal income tax and have each state pay a proscribed amount to the federal government to fund only those duties laid out in the constitution.
I'm not sure how each state would be billed, according to population or size or whatever. But, it would be up to each state to decide how to collect that tax. This would leave funds in the hands of the state legislators who are most accountable to the people and the people would have a much more direct input as to how their money is used.
God has placed obvious limits on man's intelligence but none what-so-ever on his stupidity.
If you'd like to rail against the 16th amendment, I suggest you do so in your own diary. That's the beauty of Red State: You get a whole part of the site to yourself to post original analysis and reporting.
thank you,
This was not an attempt to hijack any thread but was exactly on message. Why are we less free and independent? Why have we embraced the national government at the expense of ourselves and our state. What I gave is my opinion on what has gone wrong and why the national government is so much stronger than the states.
What better way to renew our independence that to remove the federal government from state business? That is what the founders envisioned, free states united to protect and defend each other for the common good of all.
The post suggested that it is important for that independence to be proclaimed and celebrated, rather than to withdraw and whine about the current state of affairs.
I merely gave my opinion as to how that might happen.
God has placed obvious limits on man's intelligence but none what-so-ever on his stupidity.
But the simple fact of the matter is that we are no longer independent in any important way. We may remain independent of foreign power to a large extent, but we are certainly dependent upon a government which is mostly indistinquishable from those we are so proud of being independent of. Compare our current government to that of Britain. Are we really all that much different political from what we would today be had we lost our War of Independence? And to whatever extent we remain different, the odds don't look good that we will be so for very much longer. And, BTW, I'm the furtherest thing from a libertarian. I'm merely a pragmatic Jeffersonian realist.
Any celebration of this day should include a recognition that the principles we were founded upon have largely been abandoned, as well as a personal rededication to the fight for a return to those principles.