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Opinion

Do You Wonder What Is Happening In America Today?

[Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 2.12.2010, republished 1.4.21… the continued relevance of these words will be evident to the reader.]

Liberty is not built on the doctrine that a few nobles have a right to inherit the earth. No! No! It stands on this principle: That the meanest and lowest of the people are, by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and nature, as well entitled to the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat and clothes to wear as the nobles or the king. That is liberty… and liberty will reign in America!

— John Adams

From our earliest days, the Founders, even before declaring independence, asserted that human rights flow from the Creator. This single principle, more than any other, promoted the idea of democratic republic while simultaneously repudiating the idea a king or mere human institution was, or ever could be, the purveyor of rights.

Now, a few ‘nobles’ believe they have a right to inherit the earth, and these ‘nobles’ are the monarchs apparent, those presuming assumption of the throne, extremists led by Obama, those gathered to destroy the spirit of independence, individualism, and liberty itself. They deny our Judeo-Christian heritage, which gave birth to freedom, and they work feverishly to remove the Creator from all considerations of public policy. Thus they set themselves against the very spirit of Americanism and face a growing and aggressive opposition from people who refuse to be dominated.

One does not need to be a Christian or a person of faith to understand the essential protection to liberty provided by the Creator, that one’s individual rights are unalienable thanks to that protection, that liberty is thereby preserved, and government can never convince the people to forfeit, for as the Creator reigns, so reigns liberty.

[Added for the 1.4.21 reprint:] Only a virtuous people are capable of self-government allowing for liberty, and only a God-fearing people possess the kind of virtue required for self-government to succeed. Thus, virtue and liberty are inextricably linked.

This was the idea all the Founders gathered around, agreed to, promoted, and sustained all through the rumblings of discontent in the colonies, right through the Declaration, the darkest days of the revolution, and afterward when the fledgling republic struggled to find its legs.
What is happening today is a repeat of history, a repeat of inspired dissent, a rebirth of inspiration in American hearts in love with liberty, realizing again the debt we owe so many who bought this precious freedom with their own blood.

While the nobles sneer, the meanest and lowest take to the streets to protest government usurpations.

While the nobles dine and congratulate one another, lusting to inherit the earth, the meanest and lowest organize and communicate and fashion weapons of resistance, given full expression at the ballot box, and thank God for that box, for without it real bullets would fly.

While the king and his nobles scheme to dominate and manipulate the people by taxation, executive orders, administrative rules, legislative trickery, judicial activism, bureaucratic despotism, and the ceding of sovereignty to foreign powers, the meanest and the lowest rediscover the strength that flows from the Creator’s endowments, fueling a new revolution, which will again throw off the cruel chains of slavery.

And while the nobles and their king squander the hard-won fruit of the people’s labor, gorging themselves at the people’s table, the meanest and the lowest redouble their efforts, recruiting an army of rebels devoted each day to the utter defeat of those who would lead us into years of darkness.

On this, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, we would be wise to heed his words:

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
[September 11, 1858, Speech at Edwardsville]

We planted those seeds in November 2008. We are reaping the harvest. Now it is time to clear the land, cultivate, and replant in hopes of harvesting a new crop of liberty and prosperity for our children and our children’s children.

Allan Erickson

Allan Erickson---Christian, husband, father, journalist, businessman, screenwriter, and author of The Cross & the Constitution in the Age of Incoherence, Tate Publishing, 2012.

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