Culture challenge of the week: economic freedom
“Tell us about the American miracle.”
It was in 1983 when West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke those words to President Ronald Reagan. They were gathered at the annual Group of Seven economic summit attended by the heads of the leading industrialized nations.
Reagan had succeeded in turning America’s ailing economy into a healthy and thriving one, and the leaders wanted to know how he did it. Reagan’s policies were defeating inflation and unemployment at a time when the rest of the world was still in recession. His key theme in answering them was to talk about how overtaxation and burdensome government stifle the economy and individuals, and how economic freedom and limited government unleash the creativity and passion of the individual, causing them to pursue their dreams and thrive. Reagan preached, and practiced, the old-time gospel of economic freedom.
Today, Americans are stifled by big government, smothered by overregulation, and taxed to death. Our Founding Fathers who risked everything they had — their fortunes, their families, their lives — to secure freedom for us would not recognize our current economic reality as anything even close to the economic liberty they worked so hard to secure. The gospel of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has been twisted, virtually eliminating the critical economic principles that make everyone truly able to pursue happiness.
It’s time to reclaim a bit of that old-time religion. It’s time to secure liberty for our own people by cutting taxes, reducing regulations and shrinking the size of government. We’ve got to free individuals to use our God-given talents and imaginations to build a better life for ourselves and their children, or we will eventually lose our liberty altogether.
How to save your family from big government
Get involved in the political process. Maybe you hate politics — but love it or hate it, our elected officials rule our economic system, and they are elected through a political process. You can sit it out and get whatever they want to hand you, or you can work to make your voice heard and work to elect the new Ronald Reagans who will return to you the opportunity to determine your economic future.
You simply can’t spark an “American miracle” if you put your faith, first and foremost, in government. You have to believe in the individual. You have to trust that free men and women will innovate and strive in ways that aren’t possible when big government stands over them, watching and scolding like an unwelcome nanny.
Advocates of big government may profess concern for “the little guy,” but their policies clearly show they don’t believe in him. This view puts them at odds with our Founding Fathers — the ones who wrote the very documents we celebrate each year: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Taking a cue from Thomas Paine, who declared government “a necessary evil,” our Founding Fathers fashioned a form of self-government that carefully defined the powers of government — which, it must always be understood, come from the “consent of the governed.”
As Thomas Jefferson said at his first inauguration in 1801: “What more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens — a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. (For those unfamiliar with “felicities” — it means “happiness.”)
If you are ready to truly celebrate American freedom and all the benefits that liberty can bring your family and your future, check out the opportunities to get involved at the website of the Tea Party Patriots, www.teapartypatriots.org
• Rebecca Hagelin can be reached at rebecca@howtosaveyourfamily.com
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