Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater

As America appears to swirl down the drain under the current maladministration, and as the new normal of 9-10% unemployment, crushing debt, and diplomacy by the wiki-wonks compromises our credibility it’s time to recall that there must be limits if there’s to be freedom. President Obama believes the Constitution is flawed, because it only speaks of “negative” liberties and it merely restrains government instead of empowering it. This reveals a lack of understanding of the American Experiment that is breath-taking to behold in the man elected to defend the Constitution.


A constitutional novice, let alone a supposed constitutional scholar, should know the reason for a written constitution is to set limits for government so that individual liberty and freedom can bloom. This has been true since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. It was true when the Miracle at Philadelphia produced the Constitution, and it’s true today. If government is not limited it is limitless.

What should be taught has not been taught. What should be known is not known. And what should be self-evident remains hidden in plain sight: “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.” These words ring down the halls of History reverberating in the heart of every Patriot. Flowing from this same well-spring of wisdom is the reason for the institution of government, the source of the social contract which holds us together as a people: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Two hundred and thirty-four years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great culture war, and testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. These Dispatches from the History of the Future are brought forth on a great battle-field of that war: the media.

The world will little note, nor long remember what is said here, but it will never forget what patriotic authors have done and are doing. It is fitting for we who labor in the field of communications to dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the task remaining before us that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Therefore, no matter if a certain Dispatch elicits praise or condemnation, whether it agrees or disagrees with every nuance of each individual it is hoped that positions will be taken in context. That people will react to articles and not headlines. To disagree on matters of foreign relations does not distract from our unity of vision that limited government, personal freedom, and individual liberty are the source and the summit of the American Experiment. Another pearl of wisdom from our forefathers may also be relevant to the necessity of not allowing divisions to divide us, “We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.”

A free press and people willing to share their thoughts whether popular or unpopular have long been the bane of tyrants. Those who seek to order the lives of others and to micromanage the fate of nations cannot abide the literature of liberty or the discourse of free people boldly proclaiming that the government that governs least governs best. Thus, these Dispatches from the History of the Future have been banned by the editors of the elite from China to Denver.

A quick review of recent history (Germany & Japan) teaches that nations which were once enemies can become friends, and those who were friends (Iran) can become enemies. This alone should direct us to the wisdom of George Washington, “The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” To base our future foreign relations upon our past chains us to backward thinking and tunnel vision, two things our current enemies are exploiting on a daily basis. Please take your shoes off and prepare for the porno scan or grope.

Let us not lose sight of the sacred cause for which we labor: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let us stand together against the assault upon freedom that is the growth of Progressive government. The time is fast approaching when no matter how dedicated some may be to America remaining on the beat as the world’s policeman, building nations in our own image and chasing the mirage of security through empire, the burden of garrisons in ninety nations, and wars in several more will compel us to retire to the security of our borders.

This does not mean isolationism for we cannot retreat from commerce. It does however mean the time has come to once again heed the wisdom of our first President, “Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?”

The time is also fast approaching when the words of our founders may once again ring clear in a land losing sight of our focus: limited government, liberty, and personal freedom. A time when the words of Jefferson will once again make tyrants quake, “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.” Let all patriots stand together for truth, justice and the American way.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.