Liberty – Part II

Last week I wrote about my trip to Washington, D.C. to celebrate Independence Day with my wife and children. As I traveled through our nation’s capital I saw references to freedom and liberty; celebrating our successful independence from England. Later in the week we journeyed to Williamsburg, VA and toured the Colonial Williamsburg settlement. Experiencing history again, the history I learned as a school child brought renewed appreciation to the freedom fight our forefathers faced.

I believe all men are equal in the desire for a single objective, freedom. Last year I wrote about the requirement and acceptance of taxation in trade from living in a civilized society. Similarly, our Revolutionary Heroes did not object to taxation, but to their loss of representation. In Boston the revolt began and soon the other colonies had to decide to whether to offer their support for independence. Like a child leaving home, these English subjects living in the colonies had never faced life alone and were heavily dependent on England. Facing this fear meant gaining the freedom to self-govern and envelop the spirit of the Magna Carta.

In Williamsburg, while sitting in the Courthouse I was treated to a speech and review of laws in 1770. Although subject to English law, the residents enjoyed many freedoms for which we now fight. For instance, all men were required to own a gun, and to not do so required a license for exemption. Licenses were required to do things outside the law, not those already guaranteed by the law. Today we seem to have traveled backward, requiring licenses to own guns, fish, drive a car, practice medicine, or even work as a beautician; none of which are against the law. It is this strange change, or incrementalism which silently erodes our freedom and steals our liberty.

Sadly, in my own lifetime I have seen my experience in airports change, bag searches at theme parks begin, and my newborn children required, by law, to get a social security card although he will not work for nearly two decades. “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and lost it, have never known it again." -- Ronald Reagan