“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”                                                                                                                                           Samuel Adams
Are we missing the real reason why the American Colonists decided to sever their ties with England?  Most of us can remember the School House Rock videos that proclaimed the dispute was over “taxation without representation”.  While that was one of a long list of grievances, it was not the primary reason that we declared our independence. As a matter of fact “Taxation without Representation” was Number 17 out of 27 stated grievances. Are we falling for a trick that was brought on by the Progressives, that economics is the only reason to elect a President or Congressman?
The Founding Fathers believed that we should never elect anyone based upon economics. Instead, we should elect people that are “virtuous and moral”. With virtue and morality, comes fiscal responsibility and sound social judgment. Since most of us have been taught that “Taxation without Representation” is the sole reason we fought the Revolutionary War, it is understandable why most Americans are willing to put fiscal responsibility over moral character.
A Republic, like we have in the United States, can only be maintained by a “virtuous and moral” population. But how can we remain or even become virtuous and moral, when a recent poll reveals that less than 38% of Americans attend church on a weekly basis? Or that some preachers are preaching “social justice” from the pulpit? America is losing its way both economically and socially because we have failed to recognize that the America is “One Nation under God”. America was in fact, founded upon Christian principles, but in the past 100 years, we have allowed the “Progressives” to turn the argument from “morals and virtues” to “economics”. With the cooperation of the Main Stream Media and Hollywood, the Progressives are turning America away from God and toward the Progressive idol – Government.
We have been conditioned to prefer financial security over liberty, and politicians are becoming experts at creating financial situations where Americans are willing to surrender their liberty so they can experience a little more security in their personal and business lives. As a result, government continues to create more financial crises only to offer us solutions that include giving up our financial and personal liberty. For example, in 1933, as a result of “The Great Depression”, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 criminalizing the possession of monetary gold by an individual. Upon seizing the citizen’s gold by the government, FDR declared the price of gold to increase from $20.67 per ounce to $35.00 per ounce, resulting in a windfall to the government of 69%. Again, the American public lost while the government won.
The question that remains to be answered by our generation; do we love wealth, or in this case the illusion of wealth, greater than liberty, or is it still “the economy, stupid?
Brian is the Executive Director for the Greeley 9-12 Project, to learn more visit www.greeley912.net