Freedom and Independence

In honor of Independence Day, I would like to revisit some of the ideals at the core of this country’s experiment in self-governance.


“We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.”

The Declaration of Independence severed the colonies’ dependence upon England but the idea of individual independence was at the center of the Founders’ thinking. Being independent means you are free to fend for yourself, are trusted to exercise your freedoms and allowed to succeed or fail as a result of your own decisions without interference. Yet today, many politicians seem to want to take this independence away and make people more dependent on the government. This is the opposite of what the Founders intended. The government should be dependent upon and subject to “the consent of the governed”. When the opposite is being done when politicians make it so the people must be dependent upon and beholden to them, our freedoms suffer.

George Washington wrote, “The power under the Constitution will always be in the people”. Our Constitution does start with the words “We the People”, after all.

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

When politicians say one thing during their campaigns but do the opposite after they’re elected, this says that they don’t care about what the people think or want. When politicians take away peoples’ ability to make choices for themselves, it says that they don’t trust you with the ability to make decisions. They think they know better than you how to run your own life so they try to dictate everything. Politicians demonstrate elitist arrogance, distrust of freedom, and disdain for the people.