This week Capitol Commentary is going to publish five articles about Freedom. They will appear each day at 4 AM EST and will cover various aspects of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Wacky Wednesday will re-appear next week, sorry for the inconvenience.
Governments do not want their people to have freedom.
This is a basic point which needs to be understood whether we are discussing modern Liberals or Conservatives.
The purpose of Government is to govern which is an active status.
Governments cannot govern unless one of two things happen:
- People do not follow the laws.
- There are laws for people to follow.
Everything which follows is based upon those two statements.
But every freedom a person has is simply one less thing a Government can regulate and control. For example, our Bill of Rights says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Thus, we have the Right to criticize our elected officials and our Government.
The Founding Fathers realized this provision was to keep the Government honest but to some of the people in the Government it is a threat because their selfish plans might get exposed and thwarted because it is human nature to be selfish and power hungry and these traits have been exhibited in every Government that has ever existed.
Americans have the Right “to keep and bear Arms.”
Governments do not like their citizens armed.
Again, the Founding Fathers gave us this Right because it is to keep a check on Government which is why, in the Declaration of Independence, they wrote:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it[.]
However Governments exist so as to continue to exist and, were it written today, our Constitution would not allow us to own firearms. Indeed, Democrats have been trying for many decades to ban all guns and tie us down with as many laws as possible.
Any power given to a citizen which diminishes the power of Government to govern is a threat to that Government because it could contribute to the end of that Government. And if the People are unarmed, what chance do they stand to abolish their Government if it should become necessary as it was under King George III?
The Declaration of Independence was written at a unique time in human history when one group of well educated, intelligent people were attempting to right the wrongs inflicted upon them by an unjust, despotic regime. Their numbers were relatively few, their resources were small, and their probability of taking on – and defeating – the most powerful Empire since the Romans was tiny.
It was this spirit that gave rise to our Constitution which gave freedom to the People and tied the hands of the Government.
And within a generation or two of the Revolutionary War, people have been trying to take the rope which constrained Government and, instead, use it to constrain the People.
What has spurred me to write on this topic is not only what I see as the micro-management of people by the Government – Federal, State, and City – but also this alarming statement by the president:
Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democraticallyelected Congress.
And I’d just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.
We may be nothing before we are born and nothing after we die but, while we are alive, we have Freedom and, without that, why bother to exist?