At the conclusion of the 1800 election for the Presidency, Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address to the nation included the reminder that “a wise and frugal government (the sum of good government)… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
Jefferson was a Republican in the truest sense of the word, not in the party definition as we think of it today. He believed that republicanism (small “r”) was a set of institutional arrangements (laws, rights, social processes,) but was highly dependent for its very survival and growth on the character of the people that made up the Republic.
The Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate this coming weekend, has the familiar words, “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… That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Follow up:
The “consent of the governed” is determined by our Electoral process. As a consequence, today we have an open Socialist as President who is able to freely and with little opposition “take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” due to the “character of the people that make up the Republic”. We could argue nuances all day about how this happened, whether it is right, wrong or indifferent and on and on. For those of us who have a degree in Common Sense, it is painfully obvious that the institutions on which this nation was founded are not simply under threat, they are under direct and open assault. With each advance (many of which are blatantly anti-Constitution) made by this current power group, the nation as a whole is losing the battle to stabilize our foundations for the future because this particular Government has displayed anything but a custodial degree of “just powers”.
Today, it is power for power’s sake. It is a precursor of tyranny and oppression and worse things to come. It darkens the spirit of optimism and steals from generations not yet conceived. There is little sense of adherence to the concept of custodial service or of preserving and enhancing freedoms for future generations. Republicans and the Republican Party of today have no resemblance to the Republican Party of Jefferson, Lincoln or Reagan.
As an example of power for power’s sake, the recent vote to “take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” in the form of the Cap and Trade debacle has been supported by the typical East Coast-West Coast consortium of “Republicans” shown below. Even 44 Democrats had the courage to vote against this breach of trust.
Michael Castle (DE)
Mary Bono Mack (CA)
Dave Leonard Lance (NJ)
Dave Reichert (WA)
John McHugh (NY)
Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
Chris Smith (NJ)
Mark Kirk (IL)
As we prepare to celebrate our Independence Day this weekend, be mindful of how precarious that grand tradition rests on “the character of the people that make up the Republic”. And that includes each and every one of us.
–Techpro
Comment feed for this post
