The Cause of Liberty The Cause of LibertyIf you haven’t heard, April 23rd is Tax Freedom Day. Up until Tax Freedom Day, everything you’ve earned has gone to the government. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this video is funny. Cheer up, you have eight more months to earn money for your own bills!
Illegal immigration poses serious problems for America, on many levels and for many different reasons. It absolutely must be dealt with if we wish to preserve our heritage and culture and “establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, [and] provide for the common defence…”
It is, in fact, such a monumental and profound issue that to arrive at and enact long-term solutions will require us to raise the level, temper the tone, and deepen the wisdom of the current discussion.
We’ve all witnessed or taken part in furious debates about illegal immigration, and undoubtedly received intense mass emails about it. The issue is definitely a turbulent fire raging across America.
My immediate concerns have less to do with illegal immigration as a fact, and more with the virulence surrounding the issue. It’s imperative that we extinguish the flames of fear and enmity and find solutions initiated by love and kindness, infused with human dignity and respect, and based in justice and principle.
Specifically, there are three destructive tendencies that must be eliminated from the anti-illegal immigration stance in order to raise the level of the debate and find real and lasting solutions. These are… Continue reading »
The next time you’re asked about your political affiliation or leaning, say that you’re a problem-solver.
Because I often write about politics, I’m frequently asked what political party I belong to, or if I’m a liberal or a conservative. I always struggle with the answer because politics and society seem much too complex to pigeonhole ourselves into such sweeping generalizations.
For example, I believe that we are stewards of the earth, and as such, we should take care of it and maintain its beauty and sustain its productivity. So does this make me an environmentalist liberal? I believe that the proper role of government is to protect unalienable rights, including the rights of conceived but unborn children. I must be a conservative then, right? I adhere to Thomas Jefferson’s idea of foreign policy, “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Since our current neo-conservative foreign policy is at direct odds with this, then I must be a liberal.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. The broad and confusing labels of “conservative” and “liberal,” “Republican” and “Democrat” are prohibitively confining in an age when our problems are immensely complex, party lines are increasingly obscure, platforms are highly evolutionary, and our values seemingly too diverse to find common ground.
Pulitzer-prize winning historian and author of 1776 David McCullough once said something in an interview that resonated with my independent-thinking mind. He said, “….we’re all in this together. And I feel very strongly that we need people who are there to help solve problems. I wish we had a Problem-Solver Party because we have very big problems that need solving. And I think a lot of our attention is addressed to the wrong problems.”
Ah, if only…
If only we had a political party that was actually concerned with solving root problems, rather than selling the people on temporary Bandaids. If only there were politicians concerned with more than proving their opponents wrong, or amassing self-aggrandizing power. If only we had public servants who actually did what their title suggests: served the people out of a sense of true public virtue, as opposed to simply seeking the security of a government job.
I think that Mr. McCullough is on to something, and he just may have the solution that millions of Americans have been searching for. Wouldn’t that be something: an army of open-minded, principle-based, and independent thinkers united behind the common cause of solving problems? Surrendering ego, getting beyond shallow labels, and really being a force for deep, sustainable, and positive change?
The next time someone asks me if I’m a conservative or a liberal, I’m going to answer, “I’m a Problem-Solver.” I invite you to join the new party, or rather, the new political ideal.
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“I did it again!” I muttered quietly to myself, frustrated as I realized I had slept through my alarm.
The clock read 6:10 a.m., a full forty minutes after the set alarm time. I play basketball three days a week at 6 a.m., and since the gym I play in is fifteen minutes from my home, I set my alarm for 5:30.
I lay for a few minutes, feeling the frustration. As a freelance writer, I spend the bulk of my time in front of a computer screen, so it’s imperative that I meet my exercise schedule if I don’t want my body to fall apart.
Then, in those quiet moments thinking to myself in the dark, it dawned on me what had occurred, and that it was a parallel to so many other things in life.
“My choice to sleep in this morning was made last night!” I realized. I had chosen to stay up until 11:00 the night before working on a project. Then, oddly enough, I was mad at my body for not waking up to my alarm. But by then it was too late; I was beyond the free realm of choice and had entered the inexorable realm of consequence.
How many choices do we make on a daily basis, for which we do not see the consequences until later in life? Then, when we experience the consequences, how often do we get angry and frustrated because we’re not getting what we want?
In a broader sense, this is what is happening to America at large. We’re frustrated with the size of our national deficit and the impending Social Security crisis, yet this was a choice we made over 70 years ago with the New Deal. New Deal for citizens in the 1930’s; very Bad Deal for us today.
We hold peace rallies after spending precious time from our lives watching movies saturated with violence. We spend millions on ads and programs to reduce teenage pregnancy after infiltrating the media and our homes with inappropriate movies, magazines, and other media that encourage such behavior (then, of course, we think the answer is abortion).
Every choice carries a consequence. When America accepts this, she will be resurrected from her current travails. And it starts with you and I, as individual citizens.
What will you choose today, and how will the consequences of that choice manifest later in your life?
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If you were left wondering whether you should laugh or cry after reading my last post, you got the point.
America really is at a crossroads, a momentous point in history infinitely more critical than anything Rome, Greece, or the ancient Israelites ever faced because of how much our decisions impact the rest of humanity.
However, I’m an optimist at heart and believe that Americans can and will conquer any challenge, no matter how difficult or even if it is self-imposed. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “It is a part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate, to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.”
With this in mind, I wish to transcend the gloomy picture painted in my last post and offer the ten most important things that average Americans can do to ensure that our current decline doesn’t engulf us and last interminably.
According to George Wythe College, “Classics are original works of depth and substance–writing, painting, sculpture, philosophy, music, theory, law, etc.–that engage the student in the great questions of life. Works that have wide application and scope, they offer valuable ideas to a variety of cultures and times, and can be applied to nations as well as communities, families and individuals. These timeless works change us and ask the hard questions that cut to the core of human nature and human institutions.”
Study the nature and anatomy of freedom through classics. Learn what it takes to preserve and promote freedom for yourself and your posterity.
Similar groups were formed long before the American Revolution erupted, and they had an integral role in shaping the views and direction of the entire populace. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
We’re flooded with an infinite variety of ways to divert us from our highest potential and purpose. When entertainment becomes excessive, it prevents us from living the ideals necessary to sustain freedom.
Love and serve your family. Be true to your spouse, be kind and inspiring to and patient with your children. Take responsibility for the education of your children. Build America from the inside out with the solid bricks of family values and relationships.
World peace will never be achieved until individuals become conscious of their own contribution to or detraction from that goal.
5. Be a person of integrity.Keep your word, no matter how difficult, no matter how tempting it may be to follow the crowd and become casual. Do what you say you will do. Live what you say you believe.
As I have written elsewhere, “The ultimate measure of a person’s integrity is how they act when they are absolutely alone, and what they do when no one else will ever know. It is the quiet moments spent in solitude that determine if you are true to what you say you believe in.”
Know the Constitution backward and forward. Study its foundations. Study the works that its creators read. Learn what habeas corpus, bills of attainder, and ex post facto laws are. Learn what the different branches of government are authorized to do, and prohibited from doing. Know the intended balance between the States and the Federal Government.
Discover, develop, and utilize your natural gifts and abilities. Do what you were born to do, even if it takes quitting your current job. Live the spirit of providence in your life. In the words of Steve Farber, “Do what you love in the service of those who love what you do.”
And the number one way to lead an American Renaissance is… Continue reading »