Let Freedom Ring, a study of Liberty.

I have long been a fan of American history and the founding fathers, the greatest of which I believe was Benjamin Franklin. This evening while writing another blog I had the television on behind me and had to stop for a while when a show came on about Franklin's life. I went back to writing and left the television on the same channel. After the Franklin show was a show about the Liberty Bell. I was over listening while writing and was surprised to hear about the inscription that is on the side of the Liberty Bell.

"Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof Lev. XXV X." 

That's Leviticus 25:10 if you’re a little rusty on Roman numerals as I am. Liberty is something the founding fathers had a firm grasp of and desire for. In fact, these authors of American democracy understood this concept more than any other generation of Americans since. 

I found the work of Alexander Tyler in another book I have been reading and came across his study of Democracy. He studied the world's greatest democracies and came to this conclusion:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

§  From bondage to spiritual faith;

§  From spiritual faith to great courage;

§  From courage to liberty;

§  From liberty to abundance;

§  From abundance to complacency;

§  From complacency to apathy;

§  From apathy to dependence;

§  From dependence back into bondage."

 

These 8 steps begin in bondage and end in bondage. I don't know why that is, but it appears pretty accurate. With all of the news today about bail outs and stimulus’s, this is kind of scary. 

In my opinion, America is in the stage of dependence. The federal government depends on other nations to buy our debt. The states depend on the federal government to supplement their budgets. A huge portion, probably nearly half of the citizens rely on the government for some level of financial support. Our businesses, our banks, our families, all depend on on government money. 

 

Have you heard "the government that gives you everything can take it all away." It's funny how we slave away for a dollar bill that says "IN GOD WE TRUST" yet we don't look to God to provide for our needs, we look to government! 

Where else have we heard the word Liberty used by the founding fathers? How about on July 4^th of 1776? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The founding fathers were not fools. They knew that God was the author of Liberty.

 

If dependence leads to bondage, who would you rather be a slave to? If one is a slave, then there must be a master. If you depend on the government, then you will eventually be in bondage to the government. If you are in bondage then you are a slave. If we are then ourselves slaves, then government in this case must surely be the master. Is this the genius of those who signed the Declaration of Independence at the birth of this nation? Is that what Abraham Lincoln meant when at Gettysburg he said "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"? 

 

It is my hope for America that we will turn back to God to meet our needs. Every generation of Americans have faced diversity. Every generation before us has overcome those obstacles and paved the way for this generation. Will we be the last generation to enjoy a higher quality of living than our predecessors? Ronald Reagan said it best in 1964. The choice is still ours, and the options are still the same.

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."

- Ronald Reagan