Government for or against the people

Regrettably, most governments around the world deal with the governed in the latter fashion. In fact, governments that truly promote individual freedoms are the exception rather than the rule.

For most of its history, the U.S. government was one of those rare exceptions. In fact, individual freedom was one of the very pillars upon which our nation was founded. Our Founding Fathers considered individual freedom so important that they actually codified numerous specific personal liberties in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

And throughout much of America’s history, individual freedoms were further expanded and more explicitly protected by acts of Congress and state legislatures, federal and state courts, and even countless municipalities across our nation.

Since our founding, America has faced many threats to these freedoms. In years passed, most of those threats arose from external sources. However, even here in the “land of the free,” there have always been those few who labored internally to restrict and even eliminate certain individual liberties. Nevertheless, for the most part, Americans have successfully defended their individual freedoms from both external and internal threats.

However, in recent years, two things have changed: we Americans have become less effective at protecting our freedoms, and the majority of threats to our freedoms are now internal. These internal threats emanate predominantly from the hearts and minds of liberals bent on transforming America into a socialist nation. The recipe for liberal success contains three key ingredients: politicians, influence, and money.

This is how it works: it’s no secret that most politicians’ greatest weakness is their desire to remain in office. Liberals focus their attack on this weakness by accomplishing two key tasks – convincing a group of voters that government can provide for all their needs and convincing politicians that this group of voters will vote for them if they support certain initiatives. Liberals often further grease the wheels of influence peddling by raising large amounts of money to support these politicians.

Of course, some politicians don’t fall for this ruse. These are most often people of solid character who are more concerned for the welfare of their constituents than they are with lining their own pockets at public expense. The problem is that there seems to be fewer and fewer of these principled individuals seeking to serve the public through elective office. Why? One reason is that liberals have become experts at character assassination.

Many decent people who would otherwise serve decide against doing so because the personal cost in terms of invasion of privacy and assaults on character is simply too high. Over time, this tactic by liberals tends to select for a more corrupt and morally bankrupt group of politicians. When those political leaders who stand for personal liberty become the minority, all our freedoms, so hard won and so long defended, are put to the risk.

Liberals inside and outside the U.S. government are working steadily, under many guises, to undermine and diminish our personal freedoms as guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Our greatest weakness, of course, is apathy - as Sir Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Our next greatest weakness, however, is found in those we elect to protect our rights. Should they fail us, our government will no longer be “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” but, rather, against the people.