Parker: A New Birth of American Freedom, Again

Noting a Gallup July 4th poll showing 71% of Americans think the Founders would be "disappointed" by the way the country has turned out, Star Parker argues that many Americans are living a contradiction: they hold the ideals of freedom while allowing those freedoms to be slowly eroded.

It is hard for me to believe that many in our country see no contradiction in believing that freedom can be an American ideal while half of Americans live in households getting some sort of government benefits.

Or that somehow a country can be thought of as free in which forty cents of every dollar the national economy produces goes to government at either the federal, state, or local level.

Or that government can put us in debt to the tune of the total value of the annual output of our economy.

Or that the real debt burden sitting on the American public is some $90 trillion – more than five times the size of our GDP – that represents the unfunded liabilities of social security, Medicare, and other government programs.

How can we see this as a free, moral country when we legally and casually use abortion as a means of birth control and provide hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider?

Or that government can tell us what kind of health care we need and must buy and can tell employers what kind of health care they must provide.

Or that government can force employers to provide birth control and abortion pills to employees, even, as in the case of the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby, it violates their religious convictions.

Or that children go to public schools where it is illegal to pray or teach traditional family values.

Parker calls for "courageous leadership that will lead us back to the path of freedom and moral principle that inspired our founders and which is our destiny."

Cheney: Start Fighting Back, Conservatives!

President Reagan warned that we are always one generation away from losing freedom in America. Liz Cheney argues it will be lost much sooner if conservatives don't get back in the fight, and she doesn't mean 'moving left'.

The president has launched a war on Americans' Second Amendment rights. He has launched a war on religious freedom. He has launched a war on fossil fuels. He is working to nationalize one-sixth of the economy with job-killing ObamaCare. He wants to collect a greater portion of every American paycheck, not for the purpose of paying down the national debt but to expand his governing machine. He doesn't believe in creating a bigger pie with more opportunity for all. He believes in greater redistribution of a much smaller pie. If you're unsure of what this America would look like, google "Cyprus" or "Greece."
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We are conservatives. We believe in limited government, low taxes, a strong national defense, individual freedoms, self-reliance, the importance of the family, and the miracle and authority of America's founding documents. We know that government is best that governs least and governs closest to the people. We know that the private sector is the engine of economic growth. We know that America is the exceptional nation, the best that has ever existed. We know that the men and women who wear the uniform of the U.S. military are the greatest fighting force and the greatest force for good that the world has ever known. We know that preventing this president from enacting devastating policies is not obstructionism. It is patriotism.

Read the full piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Obamacare: We Shall Never Give Up!

The High Court’s decision today letting Obamacare stand may mark the end of this one legal journey, but it will not mark the end of Americans’ quest to preserve their God-given freedom.

The Court today has given America’s radical Leftists a constitutional platform on which to establish a thoroughly wealth redistributionist society. Left in place, Americans are no longer individuals endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, but serfs begging Washington on bended knee for their bread. It cannot stand.

It is a time to remember the words of Winston Churchill, “This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never given in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

To understand the weight of the mountain of taxes the High Court today authorized, see Americans for Tax Reform’s list of new and increased taxes.

Servants Have Neither Choices nor Responsibility

Warning that "a free man is responsible for his choices [while] a servant has neither choices nor responsibility," John Hayward challenges Mayor Bloomberg's argument for a 16-oz soda ban and the larger risk it poses to Americans.

In the United States, liberals have spent generations selling the illusion of “independence” without responsibility – the promise of government benefits provided at no great cost to individual liberty. This illusion shattered forever when the American Left finally achieved its dream of government-controlled health care. The true cost of dependency could no longer be concealed. The Catholic Church is no longer free to follow its religious conscience. Contrary to President Obama’s assurances, you don’t get to keep your old plan if you liked it.

Servants Have Neither Choices Nor Responsibility

Warning that "A free man is responsible for his choices" while "a servant has neither choices nor responsibility," John Hayward challenges Mayor Bloomberg's argument for the 16 oz soda ban.

Bloomberg’s soda ban is just one sobering reminder that independence and responsibility are inextricably linked.  If people don’t want to accept responsibility for their actions, they must sacrifice their liberty as well...

In the United States, liberals have spent generations selling the illusion of "independence" without responsibility — the promise of government benefits provided at no great cost to individual liberty. This illusion shattered forever when the American Left finally achieved its dream of government-controlled health care. The true cost of dependency could no longer be concealed. The Catholic Church is no longer free to follow its religious conscience. Contrary to President Obama’s assurances, you don’t get to keep your old plan if you liked it.

The War on Obesity is still fairly young, as political crusades go, but it has spotlighted the loss of liberty that inevitably accompanies dependence. If the government is to be held accountable for financing your health care, it must have power over your life, in order to keep those socialized costs down. Once the basic premise of socialism is accepted, and everyone is collectively obliged to pay for everyone else, this only makes sense. 

And if New Yorkers don't stand up to Bloomberg's "benevolent tyranny"?

...there will eventually be no purpose in complaining about it, because you’ll never get your lost choices back. You will be expected to grow comfortable with a more limited range of motion, within the perpetually shrinking cage your betters have designed for you. You will become steadily less responsible for your life, and the lives of your children, which is very soothing. You’ll also be less free, by definition, as your “unacceptable” choices are taken away. It is widely assumed that Americans are no longer the sort of people who grow angry over such things.