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Letters to the editor
Letter submitted to the Taylor Daily Press: Celebrating the 4th of July without independence Editor: (Wednesday) we celebrate our nation's birth, announced to the world some 231 years ago through a remarkable document: the Declaration of Independence. In that document the founders set forth both the reasons that impelled them to independence and, more important, the moral vision that has inspired past generations, and millions more around the world, ever since. Individual liberty, secured by limited government: that is its essence. When the founders penned this famous declaration they began, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Thus they invoked the long standing tradition of natural law, which holds that there is a “higher law” of right and wrong from which to derive human law. They then continued “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 ....” Our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means that when we are born (endowed by our Creator) each of us has a right to plan and live our own life as we think best, to pursue happiness in our own way, by our own work, provided that in doing so we respect the rights of others to do the same. In as much as all mankind is “created equal,” no one person has rights superior to those of anyone else. That right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which is nothing less than the foundation of individual freedom, is the key to understanding the declaration's basic cardinal moral truths. Happiness, after all, is an individual, subjective notion. What makes you happy is not necessarily what makes me happy. You like vanilla; I like chocolate. That's what makes life interesting. It would be a dull world if our tastes were all the same. In a free society, we have a right to practice whatever religion, pursue a livelihood without government restrictions, travel when and wherever we want without accounting to anyone except perhaps to family, and buy whatever product we wish, as long as we respect the rights of others in the process. Following the Declaration of Independence from the English King, the Founding Fathers formed a sovereign Constitutional Republican form of government that placed limits on the delegated powers to the newly formed government that was to last until the end of time. They rejected democracy. Today, the founders' vision of “created equal” has been undermined by the socialist progressive movement by their redefining the term as “equal outcomes for all people.” This echoes of Karl Marx's tenant, “To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability.” Simply stated, the government will decide whether you have too much of pursuit of happiness (compared to) someone else and you must give up part of your pursuit of happiness. In essence, the government has imposed itself with a superior right over each of us. Since the early 1900s great strides have been made by the power elites using an incremental strategy to replace our Constitutional Republic with a socialist model. Every day that the government creates a new program ‘for our own good,' it forces us all to like vanilla. Who made the power elites our lords and masters? These power elites treat our Constitution as if it were toilet paper. Government has forsaken its purpose for existence - to protect and secure our rights - but rather is at war with it, telling us that it knows best, that it will decide for us. We are less free, more heavily taxed, heavily regulated, and worse governed than our ancestors under British rule. You don't believe me, then read the Declaration of Independence and you will readily relate to the charges made by our Founding Fathers of the abuses of King George III to the abuses of our 20th and 21st century government. These elite power brokers have created hundreds of government agencies to control our lives. Very soon the FDA will classify all vitamins, herbs, supplements and other natural substances used as health promoters, including water, when used to treat dehydration, as regulated drugs. The EPA tells us what size commode we must buy. Federal, state, county, city and district governments condemn our property to allow commercial development so as to expand the government's taxable base. They've create more taxing districts to squeeze more taxes from our hard labors. Even our farm animals will be controlled by the Department of Agriculture as they will be required to be tagged with an electronic identification number and all sorts of records kept on each animal. Don't forget the government monopoly of our educational systems; try prying your education taxes from the government to send your kids to the school of your choice. We have private corporations, with government's approval, grabbing control of the water beneath our private property, and soon we will all be required to have a government issued identification card. Without this national identification card one will not be able to travel by any public transportation, ... enter any governmental buildings and only the Lord knows what other restrictions will be placed on us if we don't have this government issued identification. Doesn't this remind you of Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union - “show me your papers.” This last government edict will complete the power control over our lives. The following personal liberties are now firmly under the control of the government: Our births, our marriages, our vehicles, our homesteads, our animals, our farms, our income (IRS Form 1040), our businesses, our occupations - plumbers, physicians, dentists, engineers, beauticians, etc. all require a government license - our education system, our bank accounts and investments, our toilets, the control of all prescription drugs and now the final governmental control - ourselves. Every one of these former liberties is controlled by the government with some sort of registration or licensure that's entered in a government database to keep track of our every activity. So, as we grill our hamburgers, watch the parade and fireworks, let's not forget that our God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been incrementally stolen from us by our elected officials - both Democrats and Republicans - all in the name of control and power with the end result being the creation of the North American Union and eventually a One World Government (UN) under a socialist style government. Goodbye to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the sovereignty of the United States. Henry L. Naizer Austin
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