My hometown, Greenwood Village, is 75 years old.  We were created in the same year: 1950.  Those were golden years in a golden time. 

We learned foundational truths about living and life.  Our fathers had come back from a terrible world war, victorious.  Our mothers had skimped and saved and fretted for the safety of their loved ones and the entire future of individual freedom.  Our world was free of dictators.  Our combined sacrifice and discipline had proven stronger than the evil that had initiated a world conflict and attempted to have its way over our freedom.

This was the golden moment when we united in a common goal to preserve individual freedom through exercise of our G-d-given rights as detailed in our profound Constitution.

Diversity and morality were not demanded by a central control agency, but exercised by every citizen because it was the way we were taught to live by our parents and grandparents.  It was a universally known truth that united our citizens in common ethical behavior.

All freedom springs from the individual willing to stand against any tyrant, especially if that tyrant is our own government.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, traveled America in the early 1800s.  His keen and astonished observation was that Americans, even those living remotely on the frontier, were intelligently conversant in the meaning of a constitutional republic.  The least educated person understood the principle that had forged America.  It wasn’t some unattractive law, but the deep understanding of what it meant to be free. 

The vast majority of citizens lived by a code enlightened by the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to Life, Liberty and Ownership of Property.”  This knowledge of the divine decree was held in each individual’s heart, not enforced by some agency.  The higher entity was our Creator, not some man-made law. 

Therefore, all citizens lived by this creed and acted according to the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  We developed mutual respect for one another’s rights because, by respecting each individual’s rights, we sustained our own freedom.  We would never take another’s property because someone else could take ours.

Lurking behind the scenes was a darker concept that didn’t come to light for decades in our own nation.  That dark concept was central control by an all-powerful government.  Our fathers had fought the same evil in world war against an all-powerful central government; it was called National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or the Nazis.  We fought the central control aspects of communism in Russia and the CCP in China.  That battle rages today, as it has through eternity.

Sadly, our own nation has felt the deleterious effects of central control through our own government’s expansion of powers not granted it in the Constitution.  Add up all the taxes and fees you pay to the city, county, state, and nation for the privilege of living here. 

All money spent by the government must first be taken from the citizen.  Many of us pay 30% to 50% of our income to the government in taxes and fees.  I don’t think we are getting a good deal. 

Consider the vicious cycle of excessive spending by a government entity: They can tax us at will and put us into debt on a whim, all to fund their addiction to spending, to central control.  Remember that simple phrase in the Declaration: “inalienable right” to ownership of our property.

I’m not suggesting there is a cabal of malcontents actively colluding to destroy our freedom.  Rather, many who chose a career in government think, erroneously, that government is always the solution.  Since they think they are smarter than anyone else, they believe in the infallibility of bureaucracy.  After all, they can’t be greedy like capitalists...  Yet we see so many examples of taxpayers’ money flowing into NGOs and enriching these bureaucrats.

When the government over-spends and still makes commitments, that same government entity puts every citizen into debt by issuing Treasury bonds.  Politicians and bureaucrats do not honor the third freedom enumerated in the Declaration — namely, the individual right to ownership of property.  Our right to own what we have earned is subtended by a government willing to tax, spend, and put debt on our shoulders.  Do we really own anything when a bureaucrat can take it?

It is ironic that in 1950, we had just defeated a nation dedicated to central control through its government, and less than 75 years later, we face the same threat inside our own nation.  Our own government has extended its grasp far beyond that envisioned in our founding documents.  Fortunately, we can readily reverse this trend to oppression by understanding and adhering to the original, and still valid, principle of limited government so that the individual will remain free. 

I wouldn’t want to live any other place than right here in America.  We are still a shining beacon for individual freedom.  We need only enlighten our fellow citizens to this principle.  Truth will do the rest. 

Jay Davidson is founder and CEO of a commercial bank. He is a student of the Austrian School of Economics and a dedicated capitalist.  He believes that there is a direct connection joining individual right and responsibility, our Constitution, capitalism, and the intent of our Creator.

Image: PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay, Pixabay License.