“The government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.”
Barry Goldwater
The ratification of our Constitution is an interesting story. Like today, not everyone thought it was a good plan for operating a government. A sound legal argument can be made that the men who wrote the document and sent it to the States to ratify as the new supreme law of the land, had no authority to do so.
Some of the men who helped craft the new Constitution, and participated in the debates inside Independence Hall, refused to sign the final product. Men like Patrick Henry, George Mason, James Monroe, and Richard Henry Lee opposed its adoption. They defended it once the decision was made.
They thought the Constitution centralized too much power in the hands of the federal government. They had all kinds of strange ideas of what such a government, unchecked by the States and guarantees of personal liberty, might do. They had nightmares of things like direct taxation (income tax), unbridled spending, and using a standing army to prevent States from leaving the Union.
Fortunately, none of that happened—in their lifetimes. They did get their Bill of Rights reluctantly added. However, I wonder what they would think of the modern corrupt applications of those safeguards of liberty.
It is impossible to find, save for those bent on forcing an agenda into the reading, the “right” to healthcare, privacy, education, minimum wages, housing, or trespass. Those things were fabricated from the hot air of politicians promising everything to everyone.
Morally, we are better people now, therefore we can trust those we elect to act for the good of all rather than personal gain—that is the assertion of Progressives and liberals who have become millionaires while “serving” the people. They still don’t have everything they want—you still have a sliver of liberty—and the arms to defend it.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
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