Battle for Liberty is Being Won

The erosion of individual liberty since Sept. 11, 2001 is nothing more than a continued history of the battle between the forces of liberty and the forces of control. The good news is that in the long run scheme of things the liberty forces are winning since more individuals today live in freedom as opposed to millennia ago. However, this does not mean we can just ignore the forces of control. We must be forever vigilant and guard against those who would take or convince us to give up our inalienable rights.

In establishing the Bill of Rights, our founders acknowledged two very important truths. One, that government does not grant rights, it acknowledges them, and two, that government officials are the servants to whom people delegate powers, not the masters who dispense privileges.

The inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence exist independently and lie outside the power of government. They are sacrosanct. All individuals are born with them and therefore make up the individual himself. As noted in the great Declaration, the only legitimate function of government is to secure and protect the inalienable rights of all individuals.

The Constitution carefully enumerates the powers the American people delegate to the federal government and it specifically denies the federal government any powers not so delegated. Any government that infringes upon an individual’s inalienable rights is engaged in an intolerable usurpation.

The history of the United States is the story of a government constantly attempting to outgrow the constitutional box it was put in and of a people constantly struggling to stuff it back into that box. Unfortunately, government has grown so far beyond its constitutional bounds that the box can barely be seen anymore.

With the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terrorism, the war on guns, and all of the other wars the federal government is currently fighting, there are many who would have us trade a little liberty for a little security each time our government has to fight one of these wars until we have a USA Patriot Act allowing the FBI to spy on library patrons, and hundreds, possibly even thousands of individuals, held in prison without charge, counsel or even public acknowledgement that they have been “detained.”

A free people must be as uncompromising in the defense of liberty as individuals are in their attacks on it. Barry Goldwater once said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Our founders believed in this philosophy. They established a new government based on individual liberty for themselves and us, their posterity. Eternal vigilance truly is the price of liberty, and the most important duty of any free people is to control its government, else it will control them.

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The Freedom Library scholarship class is now into its eighth year. Stop by The Freedom Library every Tuesday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. to learn and understand the meaning of the U.S. Constitution and the founders’ ideas on liberty.

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Howard J. Blitz is a local libertarian and president of The Freedom Library Inc., 2435 S. 8th Ave. He is also on KJOK Radio AM 1400 at 7:50 every Tuesday morning with “On The Edge With Howie Blitz” and “A Liberty Moment." His e-mail address is info@freedomlibrary.org