Independence Day
By James Simpson
Potomac News
July 4, 2007

Happy Independence Day!

Today we celebrate the time in our young nation’s history when we decided that King George and England had become too burdensome, and that the only solution was to break away from them and create a new nation where the abuses and insults to freedom would not be tolerated.

We have come a long way since then. It’s amazing what a little time and some prosperity will do to a people. Let us consider a few of the facts laid out by our founding fathers regarding the Tyrannical King of England and similarities to today.

Yesteryear: “He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.”

Today: States are not given their federal tax dollars until they adhere to the No Child Left Behind Act. And this is not the only instance; there are many federal mandates that withhold tax dollars from being returned to the states until they comply with federal laws.

Yesteryear: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Today: There is more bureaucracy then our founders, in their worst nightmare, could have dreamed would exist. The red tape to simply start a business is overwhelming. And the number of agencies that must be traversed in our day-to-day lives is beyond excessive. Of course, there is one big difference, they no longer come to harass us … they now demand that we go to them.

Yesteryear: “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation”

Today: We are now subject to more United Nations laws than most people realize. Our government regularly passes legislation that reduces our sovereignty and subjugates us to the whims of the totalitarian and tyrannical regimes that run the UN.

The list goes on …

The fact is that our government has become something quite different than the founders intended. And there is not, in my humble opinion, much of a chance of it getting any better. The snowball is rolling downhill and gaining in size and momentum.

Many people have become apathetic, and a number of people are upset with the direction we are headed. As we lose more freedoms people will become more unruly. There are already movements to solidify support in several states by those who do not agree with the way things are turning out.

Libertarians have started moving to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project, which is an attempt to concentrate folks in a single location in order to make changes necessary to promote and protect liberty. The idea is that once a critical mass has begun in one state, and changes are made to the laws of the state allowing it more freedom and therefore greater prosperity, the domino effect will start spreading it to other states.

The other movement is in South Carolina where a number of folks have decided to congregate in an effort to return our country to its Christian roots, starting with changes at the state level.

Both of these are admirable, but it usually takes pain for people to actually change direction. In time, and probably not that far into the future, Americans will start to feel the pain. As we socialize more of our economy, and as the nation gets more into debt in order to prop up socialist ideals that have never worked at any time or any place in the world, the realization of our erroneous laws and our tax and spend policies will come back to haunt us.

Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that, “Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

And another brilliant insight by de Tocqueville, “Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”

We need to change our ways or things could get, well, uncomfortable. I pray that we are able to change our direction without the bloodshed that was necessary in the late 1700’s. However, in the mean time I hope everyone will take some time today to remember the sacrifices of our founding fathers and the brave men and women who decided that Liberty and Freedom were worth fighting for and risked the fortunes and lives in order that future generations could live in peace and not be subjected to oppressive and tyrannical government.

James Simpson lives in Lake Ridge.