Liberties Must Be Fought And Voted For

All citizens have an obligation to defend freedom at any cost.  In the absence of defense, freedoms will pass...

Thomas Jefferson wrote in The Declaration of Independence after compiling the sentiments common among colonists: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creators with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

This declaration suggests …”you have a sacred obligation to take the most serious possible steps and undergo the most serious kinds of personal risks in defense of this freedom that is your natural right; and you must rise up against those who seek to subdue you—wherever and whenever they appear.” Source: Naomi Wolf, Give Me Liberty, Copyright © 2008, pp. 18-19.

The Declaration of Independence demands we always and categorically rise up in person against threats to liberty. Our threats to liberty are in nearly every walk-of-life, such as court systems that demand lawyers, building codes that overreach, wiretapping, detainment without representation, etc. The encroachment of socialism has been gaining steam for decades. Our liberty is not served by giving the government unregulated control of our rights. If we readily give our rights away, we’ll soon have none.

If you are oppressed or subdued, the Declaration of Independence challenges you to rise up and defend yourself. You may feel that you are a lone voice pitted against a huge machine, but don’t let that dissuade your fight. 

In answering disputes to the right to slaves, Lincoln pointed out that those opposing slavery in the North had to “crucify” their feelings about it to carry on business as usual. This is not freedom.

Liberty, Wolf, writes, “is being waged through, unglamorously enough bureaucracy.” Liberty is slowly eroded through incremental actions, each so elusive alone, that we don’t realize the impact of them all taken together. 

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories.” Thomas Jefferson.