From: *Travis*
Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2009
Subject: It's Common Sense by Jim DeMint
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July 6, 2009
*Do you know what Freedom is?* *A special commentary from United States
Senator Jim DeMint* A few months ago, I was on CNN talking about the future
of the Republican Party. As I always do, I predicted that we could
certainly regain our national majority, if we first rally around our great,
unifying principle of freedom. The anchor cut me off: “What the h--- does
that mean? … *Freedom*?”
Anyone wondering why America is losing its freedom can find an answer in
that question. After all, how can we preserve and defend freedom if we don’t
even know what it is? To help remind Americans of our shared heritage of
freedom and to rally them to reclaim that heritage for ourselves and our
children, I wrote a book, out this week, called *Saving Freedom: We Can Stop
America’s Slide Toward
Socialism<http://www.dat-e-baseonline.com/front/a.asp?arg=8F7D995F927E7565626A7A7C628B73798C6A7273817A79>
. *
Freedom is not a gift from government, but a right given to us by God. We
believe that every human being is endowed with “certain unalienable Rights,”
including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In 1787, our
Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia to forge a new system of government,
designed to “form a more perfect union” and guarantee Americans, in the
words of Ronald Reagan, “the maximum of personal liberty consistent with
order.”
Paramount among the reasons this system succeeded in America was our
political and religious culture that accepted the inextricable connection
between personal freedom and personal responsibility. It was understood
that, for every question in life not answered by government, individuals,
families, and neighborhoods must work out answers for themselves. The
Founders knew that the natural order of things was for government to expand
at the expense of personal liberty, so their Constitution was based on an
implicit bargain – the less government *does for you*, the less government
can do *to you*.
Today, our once-limited federal government has betrayed those founding
principles. It tries to be all things to all people, yet despite its good
intentions, government action usually does more harm than good. Look
around: every system Washington touches – health care, education, energy,
infrastructure, mortgage lending – quickly begins to break down. In some
recent cases, including the automobile bankruptcies and the Wall Street
bailouts, even the rule of law itself has been subordinated to the good
intentions of politicians and bureaucrats. And yet government’s solution to
the problems it causes is always … *more* *government*. To solve problems
created by government’s role in our schools or health care, Congress now
proposes a complete federal takeover of these systems!
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What Washington refuses to understand is that government systems will always
fail because they are not free. Private schools perform better than public
schools. Private health insurance provides better care than government
programs, and controls its own costs. And on and on. Without the
competitive pressures and transparency of a free market, government agencies
have no motivation to improve their services. After 10 years in Washington,
I have concluded that both parties are slow to recognize this one simple
fact: freedom works, and government doesn’t.
That’s why I wrote *Saving Freedom*. Washington simply will not change on
its own. To change our politics, we first have to change our culture. We
need to remember that freedom demands responsibility. We need to reject
politicians who promise us something for nothing, and instead take back both
our freedoms and the responsibilities that go with them. We must not only
end our growing dependence on government; we must become independent in our
own right.
Given the space and choices to make our own decisions, whether in education,
health care, civil society, or in business – the American people will
thrive, as they always have. But the political class in Washington will not
easily return the power it has taken from us – we must take it back, in two
ways.
First, we must remake America’s culture of responsibility: in our family
life, in our communities, and in our businesses. We must prepare our nation
for its rebirth of freedom, so that when government finally does begin to
change, our culture and economy can hit the ground running.
And second, this cultural renewal must assert itself in the political
arena. Elected politicians are only as unresponsive as their constituents
allow. They know that every letter and email and phone call represents
hundreds more just like them. They know that Big Government’s worst enemy
is an informed citizenry, ready at the next election to punish anyone who
infringes on our God-given and constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms. Get
involved, and I promise – we will see results.
Freedom can be saved, but it can’t free itself. Like the patriots of Bunker
Hill and Philadelphia, of Gettysburg and Normandy, our generation must now
take up that banner for ourselves. Saving Freedom is never easy, but it’s
always worth it. Please read *Saving
Freedom<http://www.dat-e-baseonline.com/front/a.asp?arg=8F7D995F927E7565626A7A7C628B73798C6A7273817B71>
* and join the fight!
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