Monday, October 27, 2008

Liberty and tyranny

On April 16, 1864, the founder of the Republican Party, President Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of a long and difficult war to rid America of slavery, spoke in Baltimore, Maryland. Here is part of what he had to say.
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names—liberty and tyranny.

America is at a crossroads where we must decide between liberty and tyranny.

On the one hand, we have BO, a candidate who supports "spreading the wealth around," a euphamism for government confiscation of what you earn and redistribution to someone else who didn't earn it. Lincoln describes this act of doing what you please with the product of other men's labor as tyranny.

On the other hand we have John McCain and Sarah Palin who recognize that when the government gets out of the way and allows you to do as you please with the product of your own labor, that liberty flourishes and prosperity grows so that more people have access to it's benefits.

It really comes down to how we view the purpose of government.

If government is intended to manage every aspect of how we live our lives and regulate the distribution of resources to make sure that every person has an equal amount, if we turn to government as the solution to every problem, we are giving vast, dangerous, and unchecked power to government which must result in tyranny and the squelching of innovation and achievement which is the cornerstone of America's success.

But if the role of government is to protect the basic human rights and liberties which all men receive from God, to assure that all people have equal and unfettered opportunity to achieve all that they can and to prosper from the fruits of their innovations and hard work, we can unleash the engine of capitalism and liberty to create plenty of wealth to be spread around by the free market.

The choice could not be clearer. Which will we choose, America? Liberty or tyranny. We are about to find out.

3 comments:

an Donalbane said...

Ted = The Anti-Obama

an Donalbane said...

>>But if the role of government is to protect the basic human rights and liberties which all men receive from God, to assure that all people have equal and unfettered opportunity to achieve all that they can and to prosper from the fruits of their innovations and hard work, we can unleash the engine of capitalism and liberty to create plenty of wealth to be spread around by the free market.<<

'Allowing' the free market to spread the wealth is the last thing the incoming Democratic hegemony wishes to have happen. Any notion of spreading wealth they might have is secondary to their goal of amassing power and creating supplicants of heretofore sovereign citizens.

an Donalbane said...

In essence the role of the Democratic party in the United States is as the chief poster child (in the aggregate) for Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP).

Differing from Schadenfreude, in which one takes delight from another's misfortune or suffering, the Dems' objective in the practice of MSbP is to create a widespread set of circumstances (see logical fallacies, e.g. "straw men", "red herrings", etc) by which to undermine public confidence, real or perceived, for the purpose of presenting their "solutions". It's in the presentation of the "solutions" that these self-anointed saviors desire aggrandizement and concentration of political power.

Paraphrasing a Chicago song from a generation or so ago: "America Needs You, Calvin Coolidge".





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome