So, Our Government Now Thinks it Owns Us?

The issue, whether its ObamaCare, or Gun Control, Fast and Furious, the over reach of agencies like the TSA, the EPA, the ATF, or HHS, is individual liberty. Our system of government is built on the idea of ordered liberty, in which each citizen maintains his responsibilities and duties to each other citizen, and is therefore blessed with liberty to pursue his own happiness. If a citizen does not perform his duties to other citizens, those citizens will necessarily take action to stop him, or acting collectively will take away his liberties.  Understanding and keeping in mind these basic concepts allows you to navigate the seemingly small arguments between Left and Right. They will also help you understand Fay Voshell's outrage as you read Washington's Message to Americans: We Own You. The thesis of Voshell's piece can be found in the first few graphs:

The president's Roanoke speech, the full text of which may be found here, goes beyond mere insult to American entrepreneurs.

Certainly his words are offensive enough to business builders and owners; however, they go beyond mere insult. They go beyond the implication that the collective trumps the individual. They go beyond the trampling of the American dream. They even go beyond a direct attack on personal achievement and the fluid hierarchy that have characterized the American middle class.

His core message, combined with other red-light indicators of a radically leftist political philosophy which includes wealth redistribution, is the message of the almighty and sovereign State:

"We own you."

Here, Voshell gets to the core of Leftist thought, the conceit that the State owns each of us, and is therefore entitled to order us about, to force us to have children, as Hitler did, or to curtail our reproductive activities as did China. It is free to order us to eat our vegetables, to refrain from red meat, or to buy our soft drinks in smaller containers. In short, the State is free to poke and prod, and shape us into what it wants because it owns us, like chattel.  But the thing that makes the United States unique among the nations of the world is that for the first time, the individual citizen was seen to be the source of government, not the other way around.  Governments were seen as a necessary evil, that the citizens could change if it failed to act in their interests, or could revolt against if it acted against their long term interests.  Such ideas, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, were revolutionary, and had never been put into practice before.  Many thought they would not work.

Interestingly, our Progressive ( actually regressive) politicians actually want to take us back to an ancient regime, from which we managed to free ourselves only 236 years ago:

It has been a while since the antique philosophy of the absolute divine right of kings and/or the State has been posited as a positive good. It's been a long time since Thomas Hobbes' argument that an absolute sovereign state could cure the innate tendency toward individualistic selfishness of human beings has been put forth.

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For in the current administration's words and actions, we are seeing a trend that portends the complete inversion of the relationship of the American government and the individual citizen as outlined by its foundational documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We are being told that the individual owes his existence to the State instead of the State owing its existence to the people.

The lessons of history have been systematically cut from the curriculum of most schools in favor of teaching skills like "keyboarding" and computers. I have long argued that children don't need to be taught these skills, as they will learn them on there own. Children can always be depended on to figure out the latest and greatest, and to exploit them for their own ends.  But musty old history about long dead men, taken out of context, needs to be made relevant to the lives of children today.  And there is a lot of history to cover.

Frankly, I am convinced that history has been removed from the curriculum, and that what remains is so twisted to satisfy an agenda.  The State, remember, owns us, and wants to make of us good workers earning money to pay as taxes to our owners.  The purpose of education has ceased to be to educate, and has become mere vocational training.  Much of what I, for instance, have learned about history, I have learned on my own.  The more I learn, the more I find I need to know.

Fay Voshell sounds an optimistic note as she believes we will be saved in the end:

But in the end, the Good, the True, and the Just prevail. There is hope. America's people, her institutions, her churches, her businesses, her character, and her foundations yet remain. All are inimical to authoritarianism, be it left or right. Therefore, she will not go quietly into the night.

I know it is sinful, and betrays a lack of faith, but I wonder if it is not too late.