Comment E-mail Print Bio Archives

Is it all over in America? This is a question which has been asked, I suppose, since its founding. It is reported that when Ben Franklin was asked after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, if America was a republic or a monarchy he replied, "A republic...If you can keep it." So, even at the birth of our nation, there were doubts as to the feasibility of a government whose powers were reserved to "We, the People." Never had a great nation survived without a group or groups of individuals seizing the reins and using governmental power to strip the rights from the people.

Fear of governmental abuse was so great in many of the Founders, that in addition to clearly spelling out the duties of the three branches of our government in the Constitution, they added the Bill of Rights to restrain possible depredations by future generations. Yet some were opposed to this addition, arguing that the enumeration of certain rights that were sacrosanct would leave others open to attack. They need not have worried. Their prescient redundancy has not served its purpose; not for a lack of brilliancy on the part of its crafters, but for the sloth of its heirs.

Most of the Founders knew that in order to secure their liberty, future Americans would have to be just as vigilant and zealous in regard to their God-given rights as were they. As Samuel Adams put it: "No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders."

Over the years, the worst fears of Franklin and Adams have been realized. The intentional dumbing-down of American citizens and the ridicule of virtue and the objective truths on which this nation was founded have been afoot for generations. Yet, one can't help feel that there are still some things inherent to most Americans; that the love of freedom still beats in the national breast, though unheard in many quarters amidst the cacophony of media propaganda and populist sloganeering.

What is needed to stem the tide of encroaching cradle-to-grave government control of our lives, is a series of hard questions put to the American people, to shake them out of their complacency and ignorance. Simply put and honestly asked, these are but a few suggestions for those who would hope to hold back the wave of Socialism that is well-past licking at our shores.

Should the government be involved in private industry? If people who have spent years in these industries can't make a go of them--in no small part due to government regulation and interference--can the government itself? In the past eight years, men like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, an MBA and CEO respectively, were held up to ridicule and abuse, while the present administration is fat with folks who have never earned a paycheck in the private sector in their lives. Yet we are expecting them to save the banking and auto industries. Does this make any sense?

>> Continued -- Page 1 2