R. Lee
Wrights
Contributing Editor
R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in North Carolina. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All and an editor at Free-Market.Net.
Is the Spirit of '76 Dead?
As the most-high holy day for patriotic freedom lovers across the country draws nigh, I find myself wondering whether or not the spirit of 1776 has succumbed to indifference. Has the revolutionary fire that once burned hot in the heart of Americans been reduced to a smoldering ember? Have we lost the necessary desire to question authority that forever perpetuates individual freedom? Have we become such poor caretakers that the tree of liberty now is wilted and sagging dangerously close to the ground? Please say it isn’t so.
As I have tried to point out in my most recent articles concerning understanding freedom -- and the loss thereof -- we have come uncomfortably close to forgetting what freedom really is and what liberty really means. Americans seem to think that freedom is some how determined by the State and liberty is what government allows individuals to do and say. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. Freedom is individuals governing themselves and not people living under the rule of one tyrant or a group of elected nursemaids.
Let’s face it: if you have to ask permission to do something you are not free. And yet, Americans don’t seem to be particularly bothered by having to ask for state-sanctioned permission to do every little thing. They gladly hand over their personal information to have their papers in order so that they can drive from place to place, using the excuse that it is for everyone’s own good. They timidly appear before their elected officials to ask their indulgence when they want to improve their homes. They turn a blind eye to the theft of a significant portion of their income by a bloated bureaucracy because the state has determined we all must pay “our fair share.”
Americans gladly parade their children into government propaganda factories called public schools because legislating officials have convinced them that they can educate the little tykes better than the parents themselves. And they foolishly let government remove from them the guns that are the only obstacle to involuntary servitude. All these things just to make their lives less complicated. Slavery is very uncomplicated. After all, how much independent thought is actually required to simply follow orders?
So I return to my original query – Is the spirit of ’76 dead? Perhaps a series of questions can assist us in determining whether or not to hold a wake. Would any of the founding fathers have tolerated what Americans cheerfully endure today? I hardly think so.
Does anyone really believe that Samuel Adams or John Hancock would even carry governmental paperwork on their person, much less produce said paperwork to one of the king’s men upon demand? Would George Washington or Thomas Jefferson have asked permission before adding a wing to Mt. Vernon or Monticello? Would Paul Revere, along with his fellow merchants and tradesmen, have tolerated their income being taxed because the King said that it was their duty to give their fair share? Would the founders have handed their precious children over to the state and trusted the beast Bureaucracy to properly prepare them for the cold, cruel world they would inevitably have to face? Did the citizens of Lexington and Concord just sit idly by and let the King’s soldiers march into their towns to relieve them of their cache of weapons, which were their only means of resistance? I dare say the answer to all these posers is an emphatic and obvious No!
Being the analytical sort that I am, I would have to say that when we stand the principles this country was founded upon up against those that are practiced in America today, the only logical conclusion that one can reach is – Yes, the spirit of ’76, if not already lying in the grave, is precariously close to breathing its last. No longer does the flame of that wondrous revolutionary fervor burn brightly. It has become but a small spark that has been all but extinguished completely, smothered by the apathy of the people coupled with the arrogance of elected rulers.
If the founders were alive today, they would weep at the sight of what we have become. They would see that we have grown used to atrocities that they themselves would never have tolerated. In fact, they would find that things are far worse now than the circumstances of long ago that caused loyal subjects to become traitors that called themselves patriots. So great would this revelation be that they would gather together in some out-of-the-way pub to plot the second American Revolution and pen another much-needed Declaration of Independence.
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
Thomas Jefferson
