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7/2/2008
Lasee on Liberty
The Fourth of July is a time of reflection for me, about our country. There are many things I am proud of and thankful for about our country. I am especially thankful for the liberties we enjoy. Particularly the right to openly and publicly state an opinion without fear (except if you disagree with liberals or aren’t PC enough) that you will disappear or be arrested.
Most of us know why we celebrate the Fourth of July – it’s Independence Day! The day the Declaration of Independence was signed. Not the day our country earned our independence. That came in September, 1787, thirteen years later. Most of us don’t know that the American Revolution actually started well before July 4, 1776, and that the United States didn’t actually become a country until over a decade later.
It was a long, difficult war. Thank you, George Washington for your perseverance.
When Benjamin Franklin was asked, shortly after the Constitutional Convention finished its work, whether they had created a monarchy or a republic, he replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin knew that this form of government that had just been created would only survive as long as the people retained the strong sense of individualism and the desire for personal freedom that had led to the Revolution in the first place.
The other Founding Fathers knew it as well. John Adams wrote: “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” The United States is the longest lasting democratic form of government that exists today. Thomas Jefferson echoed Adams, when he wrote: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Boy, did he get that right.
What our forefathers knew, and tried to convey to us, is that liberty, freedom, and a just society must be vigorously guarded. This struggle of freedom began in Boston and ended in Philadelphia nearly 20 years later. In reality, this struggle for freedom goes on forever, or until liberty is lost.
Some members of our education system, our political system, our court system, our media, and even our corporate world, have forgotten that our country was founded and became great, on the strength of the individual – not the collective. Not because of the authority of government, more accurately in spite of it. It was built on individuals working to make their own lives better, not the government doing it for them.
The Declaration of Independence represented a clean break from Europe’s political systems. Two hundred years later, we’re slipping more and more toward Europeanism. No kings, but collectivism, socialism, and fascism, the power of the state over the rights of individuals. The thought is that as long as the government is doing good, it is okay to take over and direct more and more and more of our daily lives.
Many believe it is okay to create a complete socialist or fascist state (Fascism is the private ownership of property, with the government ruling and directing how you run your business or what you do with your private property.) Many believe that the proper role for our government is to control things, so our lives will be better.
Remember, a government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.
For more insight, read Ayn Rand’s We the Living. It is a much easier read and shorter than her Atlas Shrugged.
Frank Lasee is a Republican and represents the 2nd Assembly District.
COMMENTS
emily matthews (Wed Jul 02 08:16:11 2008)
Fascism has been alive and well in the US (for farmers that is) since the 1930s-read "The Untold Story of Milk".
Why can a person could kill a deer in 50-60 degree weather (even warmer for southern states), drag it through dirt, then take it to a butcher and give the meat away, but we can't take our own animal that we killed due to a broken leg, to a butcher to cut up?
Why can't we sell direct to our neighbors, without masses of regulations (and money), but could freely GIVE away milk and meat? This is NOT about food safety, but about CONTROL. Big business in cahoots with government--BOTH parties. If farm products were so dangerous, we wouldn't even be allowed to GIVE them away.
To quote Joe Salatin, "Government officials, wined and dined by corporate giants, will (not) attempt to preserve diversity in the market place. Diversity... drives bureaucrats nuts."
Who's cleaner, a small farmer who knows animals by name, or a factory farm? Which animals are healthier-backyard chickens, or birds stuffed into a barn with less than one square foot of space each? Or worse, into a cage, where their feet grow through the cage, and are CUT OFF while the hen is still alive, in order to remove it from the cage? Yes, these things happen here! (We know people who were eyewitness of this atrocity which regularly occurs.)
Smaller farmers are systematically being regulated to death, then when they sell out, it's called "economics"! While giants like Monsanto move in, buy up land, and take no responsibility for their manure spills, etc.
The latest gov't ploy to control our animals is the NAIS, which if taken to the final level, would force us to pay to have RFID chips put into our animals. Which chips have recently been proven to cause cancer! I'll stick to eartags or tattoos, thank you!
One final quote:"We...have over- or under-estimated the functions of the welfare state...Any bureaucratization encourages the apparatus to protect its own interests, and to forget about the citizens" interests." (Archived conversation between Natta-Italian Communist party leader, and Gorbachev. "We" refers to socialists.)
The track record of Reagan, Clinton, and now Bush shows the revolving door between gov't officials and giants like Monsanto. Shame on them!
emily matthews (Wed Jul 02 08:56:25 2008)
Emily, it's called money. Corporate farmers give far more in campaign contributions than do family farmers. It's political corruption, and a system that Frank Lasee supports.
Jack Lohman (Wed Jul 02 09:09:23 2008)
I am under the impression that almost ALL politicians, of BOTH parties, are guilty of corruption of this kind. It's time to stop "voting for your party"!
emily matthews (Wed Jul 02 15:32:55 2008)
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