Rights and the Rhetoric of Revolutionaries

http://patrioticbear.blogspot.com/2009/11/rights-and-rhetorid-of-revolutionaries.html

One of the fundamental aspects of this nation that has made it exceptional in the world is the recognition by our founders of the divinely appointed, "natural" rights of individuals and the individual political sovereignty that descends from those rights. The founders understood that rights have their origin beyond the reach of men and man-made governments--that governments and men may either properly acknowledge, defend and protect those rights, or attempt to abridge and infringe upon them. But it is not in their power to grant or to destroy them. Our unique founding documents acknowledge these rights as beyond government control that we "are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The idea of individual sovereignty is part of the idea that a man (or woman, of course), placed alone on a continent has within himself the divine creative spark that impels him to exert his influence on his surroundings, organizing, ordering and improving to enhance his own happiness and that of any that may become associated with him. By virtue of his creative, ordering input, he creates property and the rights attendant to property--to do with and use as he sees fit to enhance his own "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness."

Should our figurative man happen upon another, similarly engaged in organizing, creating and ordering the resources available they may exchange the fruits of their labors according to the value each places upon them and according to their wishes. Hence, a free market economy is born and regulated through self determination and self-rule--with each person retaining their sovereignty within the sphere of their influence.

Of course, as more and more people are added to this mix and the complexity of their efforts and exchanges increases, people may yield a portion of their sovereignty to representatives who serve to make and enforce rules designed to promote, protect and enhance the fundamental rights of each. The terms "rights, justice, liberty, equity" and many others were clearly understood and well defined by our founders who were themselves revolutionaries. But they were unique in world history in that they did not lightly cast off the order and structure of their former government without a thorough understanding first, of what that implied and second, that something would have to replace the old system to avoid a descent into total anarchy. Each of our founders had passionate beliefs in how best to protect those fundamental and natural rights and they heatedly debated those beliefs, forging our Constitution and Bill of Rights. They knew full well the cost of wrestling those rights free of the grip of tyrants and the blood of patriots and martyrs has frequently flowed ever since to renew the commitment to preserve them.

But likewise over the course of time, new revolutionaries, hostile to those fundamental rights and indeed to the truths upon which they are founded, have arisen. Politicians have carefully crafted new rhetorical arts to alter the carefully defined terms with which our society was raised and so familiar--terms like, "rights, justice, equity," until we now find ourselves having gone "through the looking glass" into an alternate reality that is 180 degrees out of phase of what the founders established. Things are literally upside down and the the understanding of our Constitution and the foundational truths upon which it was constructed are nearly lost.

Today, we hear an active debate about whether "health care" is a right or not. The simple fact that this is even a question is evidence of the cognitive and moral decay that has taken place. Returning to our figurative two lonely inhabitants of the planet, for us to argue that the first man has a "right" to health care means that with that right, he is authorized to compel the second to learn medicine and provide that care to him for free--essentially enslaving the other man to satisfy that "right." It's ludicrous on its face and certainly no different when the numbers of people involved is increased to the present population. And the result is the same--slavery.

Granted, in our time we have the benevolent government assuring us that while those enslaved to provide the care will be compensated for their bondage, that same government will enslave those in need of health care and confiscate their wealth and the fruits of their own labors to provide that compensation. So, it's an equitable sharing of the benefits of slavery among all but the government and political elites who will spend the spoils of the enslaved as they wish and live lives of lavish luxury at the expense of others.

Today's politician, to achieve that dream of unlimited power, uses the same words and phrases that inspired our founders, but the terms are dramatically different, as is shown in the case of the creation of new "rights." With terms like "economic justice" (who could be against that?!) and others, they smoothly and assuringly convince the people to cede their individual liberty and their political sovereignty to their future masters. Of course the pols make everything sound wonderful and they carefully select their language to soften the blows that come with surrendered liberties. They smile. They kiss our babies. They warmly take our hands in theirs--hands that are unmarred by common labor and soft to the point of being creepy--and look sympathetically into our eyes as they vow to "fight" for our endlessly multiplying "rights" while never a word is spoken about responsibility or cost.

And we, like sheep, submissively and quietly acquiesce because we don't want to contemplate that there might be someone who would cheerfully enslave us and rob us of all we own and all we are. Hence the bitter rebuke that still rings down through the centuries from Samuel Adams:

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"

We each have a duty to ourselves and our children and to one another to be truly "animated" in this contest for our freedom. This does not mean we should be obsessed with politics or the antics of those deranged clowns who occupy the halls of power in our country. But we must jealously watch them and stop them when they misuse their positions to drain from us our sovereignty and our wealth to enhance their own. They are criminals who cloak their actions in legislative and high-minded deceptive rhetoric, but criminals none the less. And we must be engaged if we are to prevent their ascendancy over us. We must engage proportional to the love we have for our liberty and our individual sovereignty and our property over which we are stewards.

The enemy, now within our gates, espouses the complete dissolution of moral underpinnings and are actively and openly hostile to every religion (except Islam, of course). Our academics, our media, our entertainers all mock faith and morality at every conceivable opportunity while loudly demanding more "rights" associated with their aberrant and amoral behaviors. This shouldn't surprise us, as those they revere have provided their marching orders:

"[We]... openly declare that [our] ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions... Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality." Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party—1848

Contrast that with these words from John Adams: We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

So, the die is cast again. We are in an ongoing conflict between those who want self rule and self government (who understand that means self restraint and bridled human passions) and those who demand a growing number of "rights" to unleash the worst passions within every human heart and to parade them at will before the world to the entire overthrow of individual liberty. They are openly in favor of a subdued "collective" that labors at the behest and to the perpetual benefit of a political elite.

Thus when conservatives and patriots speak of slavery in the present debate, it is not mere hyperbole. It is based on a recognition of the struggle that has raged since time immemorial and likely will a long time to come.

We cannot shrink from the "contest of freedom" in fearful times like these. It is in this type of struggle that our commitment to keep liberty alive is forged and made strongest. As Samuel Adams pointed out, softness and ease are what lead to servitude and slavery. Only those who are "animated" and engaged in the struggle will develop the strength necessary to both preserve liberty and endure the burdens of personal responsibility attendant to self rule.

Helen Keller taught us, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

Ronald Reagan, in his farewell address to the nation declared, "An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over thirty-five or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.

"...Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs [protection].
...
"If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are."

From Thomas Paine we read, "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

And finally, from George Washington, "We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."

The key, in my estimation, is to live up to Mr. Obama's estimation of a patriot, "clinging [jealously] to [our] guns and Bibles" and the United States Constitution. We should be at once grateful to God for the opportunity to be tried in this crucible--to earn the right to stand with those previous generations who have successfully defended and proven faithful-- and pray for the strength to endure and emerge victorious. I am confident that defenders of principles of truth, liberty, morality and virtue will ultimately defeat the Marxist movement at work in our time. In so doing we will earn the reverent gratitude of generations yet unborn as have those who went before us.

May God bless us in this present contest and may He continue to bless this great nation.