Archive for July, 2009

This Independence Day, amidst the hamburgers, the hotdogs, and the fireworks, I am taken back to grade school and the stories of what happened in Philadelphia 233 years ago. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence were simple men: farmers, doctors, store owners, bankers, lawyers, and judges, some were self-educated, but all were outlaws. Had their plan not worked, and the British had one the war, they would have been charged with treason and hanged. But they didn’t seem to care. They were determined to make a government for the people and by people; a government with a limited central control; a government where people had direct influence over its control; a government where people were free to worship; a government where people were free to protect themselves, their family, and their property; a government that protected those less fortunate; an envied government; a government with integrity.

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.” Declaration of Independence, 1776

So what happened to the revolutionary dream? What happened to “by the people for the people?” Why do we only elect career politicians who have been to an Ivy League law school? Why does the government insist on making itself “bigger and better?” What happened to personal freedoms and personal responsibility? We can’t pray in school, but we can murder a seven month old baby as she is being delivered. It is unconstitutional for us to say “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, but it’s not unconstitutional to stop a small group of political activists from putting a campaign ad in the local newspaper. And now, according to the Supreme Court, all property in America is ultimately owned by the government.

So where are the outlaws? Where are the Thomas Jefferson’s, the John Adams’s, the Samuel Chase’s, the Ben Franklin’s, the Thomas Nelson’s- where are the people who would risk life and limb for the protection of individual freedoms and property rights?