Independence Day–A Celebration of What?
It’s mostly coincidence, really, that I’m getting back to my blog on Independence Day weekend–but somehow appropriate nonetheless. This blog is dedicated to furthering the cause of human freedom, the same cause that so many people associate with America and with the 4th of July. We tell ourselves we’re celebrating our independence from the oppressive rule of the British crown. We say that we’re celebrating freedom. How quaint. Some even make the odd, but increasingly common, mistake of claiming that July 4th is a celebration of democracy–as if it was somehow nobler to be a slave to a master of your choosing rather than to one imposed from outside.
But why do we feel such pride in the founding of our republic when it long ago ceased to be the free land that the Founding Fathers envisioned? My best guess is that most of us came up through the government school system, which was designed from the beginning to engender simple, conforming, unquestioning, nationalistic group-think among all members of the population. The thought of a mass of individuals demanding to know where their freedom went was too much to bear for those in control of things at the beginning of the 20th century. Behind the veneer of patriotic pride, what we’ve really been taught is that the way to solve our problems is to use the faceless leviathan of government to initiate force against our neighbor and call it “the public good.”
Democrats blame Republicans for taking away our freedom. Republicans blame Democrats. As I ponder the current state of our country, I can’t help but think that we’ve got only ourselves to blame.
If you use the government to confiscate your neighbors’ money at gunpoint to give to those who did not earn it, then don’t be surprised when that government, at your neighbors’ behest, uses force to prevent you from marrying your significant other.
If you use the government to prevent your neighbor from possessing or using a particular plant or chemical substance, then don’t be surprised when that government forces you to register or turn in your gun.
If you use the government to prevent your neighbor from hiring a willing worker from another country, don’t be surprised when that government destroys your business through environmental, safety, labor, and wage regulations.
If you ask the government to send your neighbors’ children to die on the beaches of Normandy, then don’t be surprised when it sends your grandchildren to die in the sands of the Middle East.
If you’ve chosen to solve your problems through coercion rather than through the voluntary cooperation and mutually beneficial economic transactions that set us apart from lower life forms, then you need only look in the mirror when you ponder where your freedoms have gone.
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