Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald March 15, 2010

While watching my regular round of news shows, on one a politician was describing his fear of lost freedoms should the current bills in Congress, and some more recent, passed. When asked what freedoms have you lost or do you think you will lose, the reply was a dance around a direct answer. It seems the answer was so obvious that he hadn’t adequately thought of it.
We all live in the land of the free, right? Or do we?
The concept of freedom when the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution they were very clear. They were so clear that when it was suggested that an amendment should be added to enumerate them, it was argued that the specific description would empower the courts to further define the meaning thereby diminishing the freedoms that were held so dear.
To better understand the freedoms and what they meant to the founders I suggest that you read not only the Federalist Papers but the Anti-Federalist Papers as well.
Why is it so muddy now and how is it that things that we held dear have been just taken for granted and then traded in for government payments.
Some of the original settlers had different views than were permitted by the Church of England and wanted the opportunity to try to advance themselves commercially, own their own property and perhaps become socially prominent without being born to it. Essentially, they wanted to make their own choices in life without seeking the approval of the local lord or other government official as was often the case in the nanny states in Europe where the Royalty made and enforced the rules.
This resulted in the first “Tea Party” and the birth of a new nation.
Based on the idea:
“That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We are afforded the right to pursue happiness without permission of an overlord as was previously the case. This idea was carried on in the following:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Two of the first reasons for this action were:
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:”
“and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

In some cases our rulers have moved the policies of government of even these sacred freedoms out of the hands of “We the people”. This is now indeed the case.
We must now think for ourselves, not blindly accept when the government says we are not smart enough to understand. Have we not been told that, only government folks, with “College letters after their name”, are the only ones that know what is right?
I can certainly think of things that I learned in high school and college such as the interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has changed but not to help “We he people” pursue happiness.
The meaning of the Bill of Rights has been substantially changed by the federal government to benefit some at the expense of other supposedly equal people, to make them more equal.
It was the intention that only the rights specified in the Constitution were permitted to the national government and all others were to be reserved to the states. The state constitution would specify what powers that government had, and then on down the ladder powers went, with the majority of freedoms reserved to the individual. This is no longer the case!
In the early days of our nation it was common for family members to watch out for and help their family. Sometimes there was a contributing labor or kind to build a barn or a new home for the newly married couple. Helping neighbors when there was illness was common even in my youth. In fact only one family I knew took public assistance. Communities took care of their own problems and in reality the neighbors knew best what was needed. Also it was a rarity that someone misused those that helped.
I also wonder how the government knows better than the neighbors in the community what need exists and how it should be fulfilled.
A bigger issue involves what the government extracts from the people it helps.
The government always makes conditiones that must be satisfied before a neighbor’s tax money in the form of assistance is given, but there is no understanding that efforts should be made to repay the largess or even be charitable to another neighbor, perhaps by babysitting while the single mom next door works. More important to our survival, however, is what else the government requires for its assistance.
So many of our freedoms have been eroded that there is only space to briefly focus on the one issue that supports all of what our future is; education.
Money is confiscated from each of us by the federal income tax some of which is given to the states and then the local schools; but at what a cost.
In order to get the money there are a myriad of requirements that must be met to get that money back in our schools, it does not come back equally, either. Perhaps the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ will ring a bell!
The federal government determines what is taught, by whom and how; or the school loses the public dole.
We the people have no control of what is taught and how it is presented in our schools, as well as what cannot be taught there. We do not even have input in choosing the books to be used.
Currently the worst school system in the U.S. “Washington, D.C., spends around $20,000 of our hard earned dollars per student and has the poorest record of success. Locally, many of our schools are spending many thousands of dollars per student and large numbers never finish successfully. Further, we are not permitted an alternative.
Education here in Texas is something special and cherished. One of the reasons given at the time of the revolution from Mexico, was that the government of that time did not provide a public education.
The Texas Declaration of Independence states:
“It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government. “
When one considers the importance our early Texans place on education, I find it difficult to accept the cavalier attitude our rulers have in accepting the direction from the federal government in how our children are educated . Perhaps it is just the money that falls loose!
In my early years I went to a two room school with grades one through three in one room with one teacher and grades four through six in the other. When my brother and I went to a bigger school in a bigger village with one grade or subject per classroom, we were scholastically ahead of our peers.
Should we choose to join together as a neighborhood and teach our children, we can’t get our money back to even buy materials! Nor can we get refund of the amount being spent per student to find a better school, even when our school is not competent. The rational is that the money would take away from a school that is not doing its job. This could well result in poor performance being perpetuated and the continuation of policies that are better for the politicos than the students.
I always believed that parents working in the communities were to determine what is to be instilled in our children’s minds, now our schools don’t even tell the parents what is going on in school and frequently withholds or abridges records.
When were any of us allowed to say how funds are being spent by the school system or the College and still we pay through income tax to the federal government that it gives to the state if it does things the way the administration wants. Then the state passes some on if the local schools do what they say.
It just goes on and on with laws that: limit who we can trade with and under what conditions; who can do what job; how you build your store, what can be sold , when and how and what must be reported to the government.
The worst of it is it doesn’t get better, only worse.
We only need to watch the news to see the lawsuits to find where other freedoms are being lost.
Two of the three major parties support big nanny governments that seek to control more and more of life’s choices so no one can fail and learn to be better all the while seeking happiness. Remember the insurance company, car makers and bank bailouts. Could it be that the nanny laws are the reasons why our industries have failed and disappeared? Even more freedoms are lost, the freedom to learn what works best.
There is always a third choice for less government interference, more freedom, and less tax. Vote your conscience not what the tv comedian says.

1. Chris Rowan says:

   March 19, 2010 at 2:59 pm

   Well stated, Fred. I agree wholehartedly.

   The fraud and waste in our educational system is chicken scratch compared to what’s coming under Obamacare, though.

   Good to know you’re out there, Fred.

   -Chris

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