For a nation that has long prided itself on being the personification of freedom in an otherwise unfree world, we’ve been sending some pretty mixed messages lately.
If one is to believe our so-called mainstream and conservative media outlets, we are essentially being offered a choice of aligning ourselves with the lying socialists or the racist imperialists.
It’s a classic false dilemma of having to choose between socialism and imperialism. Lovers of freedom must emphatically reject this dichotomy if they are serious about the cause of liberty.
Constitutional attorney and longtime freedom advocate Jacob Hornberger correctly notes that the “isms” aren’t what pose the greatest long-term threat to our liberties. Instead, he zeros in on the following:
“…the moral degeneracy…that is reflected by increasing numbers of people who see nothing wrong with torture, political confiscation and redistribution of wealth, wars of aggression and occupations, destruction of civil liberties, and the prosecution and punishment of people committing economic crimes and tax violations.”
Each of the problems listed above are rooted in the deliberate departure from our nation’s founding principles.
Instead of turning to proven principles like limited government, respect for inalienable rights, and the free market, we have placed our faith in parties and personalities that keep us perpetually stirred up against one another.
Too many Americans have allowed their hatred of their political enemies to overshadow their love of freedom.
Another equally fatal blindness that is affecting a majority of Americans is the notion that the character of our nation flows from our leadership in Washington D.C. rather than from the combined character of our citizenry.
A nation of morally degenerate people would continue to decline even under the most inspired leadership.
The only cure that should inspire any confidence is the one where each of us strives to develop our character and improve personally as if our nation’s fate depended upon it.
Of course, the number of people who are willing to actually do this is statistically so small that an electron microscope would be required to accurately measure it. But as anthropologist Margaret Mead stated:
“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
When a small group of thoughtful people aligns their efforts with what the signers of the Declaration of Independence referred to as Divine Providence, that’s when miraculous things happen such as we saw at our nation’s founding.
As John Eidsmoe points out in Christianity and the Constitution, that’s why Constitutional Convention delegate Gouverneur Morris correctly anticipated as early as 1789 that the burgeoning French Revolution would end very differently from its American counterpart due to lack of morals among the French people.
Morris recognized that self-government requires more than simply throwing off the chains of the despot. It requires education and respect for laws that were based upon absolute moral truths, rather than laws which were likely to be exploited at the whims of men.
Perhaps this is why Morris, along with George Washington and John Adams, each described religion and morality as being among the essential prerequisites for a free society.
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Bryan Hyde is a radio host, husband, father, graduate student at George Wythe University, and seeker of truth. He does professional voice work through his company One Clear Voice.
Bryan blogs at The White Rose Society and writes firearm reviews for The Truth About Guns. He and his wife Becky are raising their six children in Cedar City, Utah.
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Bravo…Light in the darkness…so true are your words…(a crystal clear example is in the story of Jonah and Nineveh (Jonah 3:1-10)If Nineveh’s citizens had not first heeded the warning and taken the steps to change their own lives’ direction, their king might not have had reason to follow their example…and Nineveh would have been destoyed. This human tendency to wander off the mark has been repeated through history. The results are truly avoidable tragedies…yet few, if any, countries have avoided them. We are suppose to reflect Light upon this world, but we can not as long as we remain in a quagmire of self inflicted darkness.