As I watched my grandsons (almost 12 and almost 10) open their presents on Christmas morning 2009, I was impressed that in addition to their excitement (more evident in Mason, the younger one than Matthew, the older who has a façade of cool) they also were relaxed and unafraid. By that I mean they had no fear that their parents, grandparents or even the other brother would suddenly and arbitrarily decide to take back some of the presents or break them or restrict their use. They were in an environment where their property was inviolate.
In other words, they had complete freedom to do what they wanted with their property as long as they weren’t hurting somebody else. The authority figures in their lives guaranteed it. This, I contend, is the ideal situation for human beings.
The corresponding authority figures in the lives of all of us are the various levels of government. If government protected our private property and then let us alone, we would all be living in a state of perfect freedom. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. The role of government has expanded enormously from that envisioned by the founders of our country and, as economist Walter Williams says, “We lose our freedom an inch at a time.”
Government attacks on private property include taxes, regulations about its use and eminent domain—the taking of property by government. We are sliding down a slippery slope toward oblivion. I fear a future for our grandchildren in which the U.S. will be reduced to the status of a third-world country. Gone will be prosperity and the high standard of living we enjoy. Gone will be what’s left of our freedom. In their place will be a bankrupt country. Our grandchildren will be saddled with government debits that they will be unable to repay. The dollar will be worthless and Big Brother will be declaring that debt is prosperity and taxes are freedom.
Government is spending money it doesn’t have on unwinnable wars that don’t make any sense. Included in them are not only wars in places like Afghanistan, a war that nobody can give a coherent explanation for, but the so-called war on drugs. We take away the freedom of people to do as they wish with their bodies (which should be their property) and spend billions of their dollars enforcing these laws that increase crime and cause the police to invade the houses of innocent people, but can never stop the drug trade. We didn’t learn our lesson from prohibition.
Government is guaranteeing us universal health care with actions that will result in rationed care and a lowered standard of living. It is trying to spend us into prosperity while fighting useless wars. It is promising “guns and butter.” Soon we may have neither. If government debt keeps mounting we will be too weak to fight our legitimate enemies and there will be no money left for butter.
My grandsons have a lively interest in the world outside their home, and they already have inklings that they aren’t living in a world of absolute freedom. Will they watch this world deteriorate as they grow older into one where their freedom has disappeared altogether? I fear for their future. Only we can prevent the worst from happening. What are we doing to prevent it?
