The true nature of liberty

The founding fathers came up with an idea, and it was this idea which separates our idea from the ideas of other nations.  Their idea was that rights come from God, and cannot be taken away by any government.  Other men can deny you your rights, but they cannot take them away.

Contrary to this is the notion that our rights come from governments, which are created by men.  If other men give us our rights, then other men can take them away.  If other men give us our rights, then the people we elect -- such as Obama and Joe Biden and George Bush -- can make laws to take them away.

If our freedom was derived from the pens and pencils and keyboards of men, then our freedoms would not be very secure.  It is based on this notion that men have ignored the Constitution and made laws that take away our rights to choose.

Thomas Jefferson stayed up long nights thinking of this.  By his words and his pen, he wanted to make sure the freedoms that were fought for, the very rights that were denied to 99.9 percent of all men and women who lived before him, would not be denied to any person born in the United States.

The idea he and the other founding fathers devised was that rights were not born out of the minds of men, but born out of a gift of God.  It was in this way that he would assure that no man, no lawmaker, no king, no president, would ever make any law denying us our rights.

Thomas Jefferson wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

He also wrote:

"God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"

He was a brilliant man, one who not only wrote to secure his own rights, but the rights of all those who would be born after him.  If you so happen to forming in a womb of a person who doesn't believe you are a life, then your rights are denied you.

If you so happen to be born in a nation like Cuba, you will be born with rights, but they will be denied you.  You may think that you hate Castro, but you will not be able to say it or you will be severely punished, maybe even killed.  If you are born in any communist country, you will be denied your rights, but you will still have them.

If you so happen to be born in the United States, you will be born with natural rights and you will be able to keep most of them.  I say most of them because progressives have made many laws to perfect the world over the past 100 years that will deny you some of your rights.

It is for this reason that we must never stop learning about our founding fathers.  This must be taught in our schools every day, that our rights come from God. And if our schools don't teach it, this is the responsibility of fathers and mothers.

We must always be vigilant to those evil people who wish to deny us our natural rights, as some of them are born right here in this Great Nation. Freedom is not free.  Many good people have put their lives on the line, and many others have died, so that you may enjoy your God given freedoms.

Gridlock is good

One of the best things about our U.S. Constitution is the separation of powers. Many will contend all this does is cause gridlock that prevents progress from being made, yet the founding fathers would say this is good.

Very few countries have a bicameral legislature and a separate executive. Most have an executive branch that is of the same party as the legislature, and there is rarely any gridlock. Laws that are written rarely have a problem getting passed.

That's not the case in the U.S. It's very difficult for a law to be passed by both house and the executive branch. The founders wanted this because they wanted to make sure minorities had protection. They wanted to make sure legislatures couldn't pass laws that were to the disadvantage of minorities. They wanted to make sure the majority could not easily vote away the rights of the minority.

If at the last minute someone thinks a law is a bad idea, it's not too hard to throw a wrench into it in the U.S. In other countries -- in most countries -- it's hard to stop bad laws from getting passed.

The founders made it this way because they wanted to make sure no bad laws got passed. They wanted to make sure laws made were good and benefited the masses for all time, as opposed to one group of people right now.

The 2014 midterm election results were a good example of how, while the media chants otherwise, most people in this country want gridlock.  Obama was handed an opportunity to make changes, and all he did was force legislature people didn't want, such as Obamacare.  So they voted republicans into office to create gridlock to stop him.

So, while you'll often hear people talking about how gridlock is bad, how it impedes progress, the truth is that gridlock can be a necessary good,  As the old saying goes, sometimes it's better to do nothing than to do something stupid.  It is better to play it safe than to risk the future.

Democracies should not allow people to vote away their own liberties

One of the problems with democracy is they are automatically inclined to grow the government.  People are naturally inclined to make laws, and each law takes away another liberty.  In time, the government becomes big, and this comes at the expense of liberty.

A perfect example of this is the United States.  Now, I know that the founding fathers were aware of this, and it's for this reason they tried to create a republic such as they had in ancient Rome.

However, in the early 20th century progressives gained power, and they succeeded at convincing people we are a democracy. Since that time, when they have been in power, they have succeeded in voting away the rights of the minority, which, in this case, were capitalists and conservatives.

In order to do this they either had to change the Constitution, which is what happened with the 16th through 19th amendments, or ignore the Constitution, which is how the Social Security Act of 1935 and Obamacare were passed into law.

They have since convinced people that America is a democracy.  They succeeded to such an extent that even (compassionate) conservative George W. Bush referred to America as a democracy, and he said his mission in the Middle East was to spread democracy.

Yet it's not democracies we want to to spread, it's republics. Democracies can vote for terrorist or progressive leaders.  While progressives don't want terrorist leaders, they do want progressive leaders.  This would not happen in a republican government.

In his 2011 book, "Liberty Defined," Ron Paul said that people in a democracy should not be allowed to vote away the liberties of the minority.  In fact, if we could go back in time, the founding fathers should have made this one of the first amendments: "No law can be made that takes away the liberties of others."

You could word this amendment another way too: "No law should be made to force people to do things for their own good, because that would assume that the majority knows what's for the best of the minority, which isn't always the case."

Actually, no such amendment is required, so long as the Constitution were followed.  However, the founders did perceive the Constitution to be misinterpreted, and it's for this reason they established the Bill of Rights.

Are GPS trackers in cars really good?

Are GPS trackers in cars good?  They -- that being the experts -- say it is, and that it should be mandatory for our own good. They say that they can be used to know if you were speeding prior to an accident.  They say it can be used to find you if you get lost.  It can be used to solve crimes.

But it also makes it so the government knows where we are at all times.  It allows companies to keep track of employees.  So it can be good, they say.  And it's true, it can, or at least has the potential, to be beneficial..

But it can also be used against you.  It can be used by your boss to say, "hey, you said you were here, but you were not here."

Students have been found guilty of keeping track of kids, when they were at home in their rooms.  Is that a good thing?

The government can use it to know how much you drive, and they have already talked about making laws to tax you per mile that you drive.  Is that good?

Bottom line: proponents of making GPS trackers in cars say it is for your own good.  Opponents of it say it is yet another effort to take away more of our liberties.

Selfishness has destroyed great nations, and may destroy ours

What destroys nations is selfishness and greed.  I'm not just talking about rich people, I'm referring to the nation in general.  When we, as a nation, put our own personal desires ahead of our nation, the entire nation fails.  It is such selfishness that even brought down the mighty Roman Empire.  

Consider that Roman slaves did most of the work, and that each citizen of Rome had at least one slave, but more than likely many slaves. The citizens of Rome took advantage of the slaves, who did all the work, to live luxurious lifestyles.  But once wars ended and slaves were gone, the citizens didn't know how to work.  So the nation collapsed.  

This wasn't the only reason, but it was one of many contributing factors into the collapse of Rome.  People, the rich and the poor, kept asking for more from the government, and the government kept giving them more.  They did, in essence, create a nation of entitlement programs.  The cost of these programs ultimately became so great the nation collapsed from within and without.  

Now we have an American nation that has, for the past 100 or so years, slowly become a nation of entitlements.  The poor keep asking for more from the rich in the form of entitlements, and they become so comfortable that they can never get off of welfare.  They become so comfortable that they have no incentive to ever get up and go to work.  

The rich, on the other hand, often champion for these same government programs because it will benefit them.  Obamacare, for instance, was championed for by hospitals and insurance companies because they thought that it would create more customers for them.  In the end, it has merely created one more entitlement program whose cost is higher premiums, fewer insured, fewer employed, and more regulations for both consumers and employers.  

Now, I am not opposed to helping the poor and the needy.  Few of us are opposed to helping the poor and the needy.  But this has gone beyond just helping the poor and the needy.  It become more of a "what have you done for me lately" government.  

The more power you give to the government, the more power it will take. This is a historical trend that has occurred in nearly every government ever created. It was this, in essence, that brought down both ancient Greece and the mighty Roman Empire. 

If you give the government the power to tax, it will tax more.  If you give the government the power to create entitlements, it will create to many.  If you give the government the power to make laws "for our own good," they will creating laws based on idealistic myths.  

Worse, once the government makes a law, it takes away one more freedom. Whenever the government makes a new entitlement, people will not want to give it back, and politicians will not vote to eliminate for fear of angering voters.  

I think the idealistic, progressive movement began with an effort to benefit the underclass.  They had many victories, creating laws giving women the right to vote, and laws protecting workers.  But then they started to go too far, which is what government is known to do.  This is one of the reasons why the founders championed that government was a necessary evil.  

Government is necessary in order to create a safe environment for the people to thrive, although too much government, most often created for selfish gain, creates an evil empire that cannot thrive.  

A think a good quote to sum this up comes from Benjamin Franklin.  He said: "I am for doing good to the poor... I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it..."

It's time we, as Americans, stop thinking as individuals who want to make laws for our own personal gain.  Instead, we must start working together as one to protect and preserve the liberties our Constitution was created to protect.