OPINION:
Thomas Jefferson would be shocked and appalled if he could see what America has done to this grand experiment since he drafted the Declaration of Independence. On Independence Day 2011, Mr. Jefferson would not be celebrating our independence but rather encouraging Americans to revolt once again.
America has compromised the Founding Fathers’ dreams of a limited federal government for a centralized federal government that is bloated, grossly ineffective, putridly expansive, irresponsible, tremendously expensive and soullessly bureaucratic.
Our federal government is more burdensome, costly and controlling than the British government of King George 235 years ago, the very beast that our Founding Fathers took up arms against and fired a freedom shot that was heard around the world.
The Founders recognized the costly quagmire of an all-powerful and centralized federal government. Mr. Jefferson, who arguably was the smartest man ever to have taken up residence in the White House, wrote, “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
Our Founders wrote our Constitution to limit the powers of the federal government. That hasn’t stopped our professional politicians from violating the Constitution and doing what they want when they want and to whom they want from their gilded mahogany thrones in Washington. They have zero respect for the Constitution. They pay lip service to it when it serves their political need.
On our embarrassing, apathetic watch, we have allowed our republic to be financially raped, pillaged and plundered by our King George-like professional politicians, who buy our votes with our tax dollars by creating vast federal handout programs, departments and agencies that Uncle Sugar Daddy was never intended or designed to create or manage. The result: America is tens and tens of trillions of dollars in debt.
Statesmen such as Mr. Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington and others would not have condoned this grotesque financial irresponsibility emanating out of the toxic swamp of Washington. Again quoting Mr. Jefferson, “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.”
Those patriots, Tea Party members and other concerned Americans who speak about financial responsibility, champion limited government and promote the ideals of our Founding Fathers are often maligned, lampooned and condemned as intellectual lightweights, radicals and even racists by various cowards.
The Tea Partyers have it right. They understand that our republic can only be saved by advocating the very principles, vision and ideals of those men and women who risked their lives, sacred honor and fortunes to give birth to America.
Tea Partyers, members of various other patriotic organizations and other rank-and-file concerned Americans should take solace in the words of John Adams when he wrote about the American Revolution in 1818, “This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.”
On this Independence Day, sit down with your children, loved ones, friends, neighbors and co-workers and read the Declaration of Independence and discuss it. Get them to commit to a new uprising in which our King George politicians are dethroned and run out of Washington. Be a patriot and save America.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another …
Happy Independence Day. God bless America.
Ted Nugent is an American rock ’n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is the author of “Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns & Rock ’N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).
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