Rights and Wrongs

I have rights. They were given to my by my Creator. They were not bestowed on me by my government. They were not granted me by my government. My government recognizes that they are mine by virtue of a higher power. We are free men. We are governed, but never ruled.

I can speak my mind, and no one can stop me because it is my right. I do not fear for my liberty, my papers or my property because my government explicitly recognizes my personal sovorignty as my right. I have the right to defend myself and my family. These rights make me an independent and free man. Our independence is the essence of our freedom.

In this day and age when the economy seems to be the most important thing we think about, it's is interesting to note that not one of these rights can be bought with money. They were all paid for in the blood of our forefathers on battlefields at home and abroad. From cold huts at Valley Forge, to the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, our rights have been paid for. From the windswept beaches at Normandy and the sea wall at Inchon harbor to the dark and muddy waters of Bassic River, to Basra, and Kabul, the price of freedom has been paid time and again. Perhaps the truth is that freedom is never paid for in full, but has to be paid for by each generation.

Rights, it seems to me, are liberating things. Rights are what enable me to make choices. As our country slithers up on a more 'socialized' approach to things, and we find that we have a 'right' to health care, and a 'right' to own a home, and a 'right' to a job, we ought to think carefully about these rights. With each of these 'rights', comes a trade-off. Our 'right' to health care means we lose our control over our own health care decisions. Our 'right' to own a home has already undermined sound lending practices and has caused our mortagage crisis. A 'right' to a job has bad trade-offs too. There are too many of them to list here. If you're really interested, just ask someone who lived in the Soviet Union. The government guaranteed everyone a job there, too.

These new rights are not liberatingl. They are imprisoning. They don't set me free. The make me dependant. They take away my choices and give someone else dominion over me. They change me from a free man in a free land into a vassel in a subjecated land. Who is it that will exersize dominon over me? The neo-aristocracy, our governmental beaurocracy, that is who.

The elected bastards in the government who tempt you to surrender to them your independence will take from you your freedom. They would beg you to trade freedoms paid for in blood for 'entitlements' bought with sweat of others. They will whisper to you that you have a right to all things, but not the ability to attain them for yourself. As they softly tell you that it's all free, they slowly slip the velvet manacles of servatude on you. Governmental dependence is the is a prison from which few ever escape. It shackels the American Spirit to the dead weight of the public trough. It fosters poverty, hopelessness, incompetence, and complatency. The mirage of free services soon evaporates into the desert reality of broken promises, and shattered dreams.

What the thieving weasles in government won't tell you is that for the government to give something to you, it has to first take it away from someone else. The government has no authority to take from you what you have lawfully earned, and to give it to another in the name of 'fairness'. Our forefathers paid in blood for our freedom from this. With lies, half-truths, deceptions and manipulation, the scoundrals in government are subverting our independence and stealing our freedoms, and that of our children.

The Vandals are stealing our rights, and we are letting them do it.

That is wrong.