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Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com.

The theme for today is Self-Evident Truths and Abuses.

For Freedom-Lovers and Freedom-Builders, this means our historic successes are exceeded only by our current failures in freedom-building.

Building upon the fundamental assumption that governments derive “their Just Powers from the Consent of the Governed,” our Declaration of Independence dedicated our governance to the achievement of growth “ideals” for its people.

With this foundation, We the People created a Constitution to pursue Life, Liberty, Safety, and Happiness. Over the course of a little over 200 years, We the People have built the greatest nation in the history of the world, The United States of America:

• Its 50 states, some of them larger than most countries, have lived together peacefully and productively over nearly 150 years, thus reflecting the freest political system ever known.
• Among its 50 states, the GDPs of several number among the top 30 countries in the world, thus reflecting the freest and most wealth-generating system in the history of the world.
• Perhaps most important, the citizens of its 50 states have been designated by the Constitution as the policymakers of the freest representative democratic governance in the history of the world.

So what’s the problem? The U.S. has truly demonstrated itself to be The Great Experiment—nay, The Greatest Experiment in the history of humankind.

We reached from the “real” to the “ideal.” We climbed the highest mountains in the history of civilization. We viewed the “peaks” ahead of us. Then we retreated!

Self-Evident Abuses

The problem is that we are now abusing the very truths we have established.

1. We, the People have erected the most culturally related society ever, both within our national boundaries and between ourselves and other nations, even enemies—witness the collaborative Hoover Plan after World War I and the Marshall and MacArthur Plans after World War II.

The First Problem, then, is This: We, the People no longer collaborate culturally. We, the People compete independently!

2. We, the People have erected the most productive and profitable economic system ever, both within our borders and between and among those of the rest of the world—witness the continuing initiatives to generate Free Enterprise Trade Relationships throughout the world.

The Second Problem, then, is This: We, the People no longer sponsor entrepreneurially-driven Free Enterprise! We, the People, now support the totalitarian command-and-control market systems of Global Multinational Corporations, corporations which have no loyalty to the American freedoms that bore them.

3. We, the People have erected the most representative democratic governance system ever—witness the historic flow of democratic changes within and between generations of our representatives and administrations.

The Third Problem, then, is This: We, the People are no longer the policy-makers our Constitution empowered. We, the People have been reduced to the dependent minions of the authoritarian edicts of our now-evolving “Chain-of-Command Society.”

On these dimensions alone, We, the People—We, the Policy-Makers—have failed to elect leaders who serve the “ideals” that ensure our Life, Liberty, Safety, and Happiness. Indeed, we have elected representatives who have intentionally undermined these ideals in our time.

We simply cannot raise generations of people with First World Freedoms, and treat them with Third World Tyranny.

On this topic, The Declaration of Independence has its own recommendations:

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Objective, 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.

In 1776, The Declaration of Independence told us this: “If you don’t like it, fix it!” This admonition still stands today.

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People… must take back the reigns of leadership.

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”