The motivation to gain great power exists at all times, whether is it power in business, in markets, in politics, in government, in religion, or in organizations and families. In fact, the pursuit of power and its appropriate use are necessary in the creative and leadership process of business, organizations, religion, government, etc.
However, individual liberty ONLY comes and remains from constant vigilance and constant battle against the forces of power, most CRITICALLY when business, religion, or socially active intellectual organizations become LINKED with government leading to totalitarian systems: fascism, corporatism, theocracy, socialism, communism, etc.
The moment these these organizations become “LINKED” with government they GAIN the “FORCE” of LAW. Corruption and tyranny must inexorably begin.
We mistakenly trusted our “government” for we loved our “country”. This trust choice our founders pled that future generations, like ours, never to make. They warned that “Progress and Emergency” were the reasons given by government and intellectuals to take liberty, from “We, the People”, as has occurred over, and over again, for 1000′s of years. Now once again, we have fallen into the same, time-worn trap, because we do not know our history or understand our founding ideas.
It is axiomatic: liberty requires an educated citizenry, not educated by the same government that is progressively striving to control them.
[Tier 1 Comment: All education should be independently local, and separated from state, federal, or government control, under parental control, by the funds they invest at the school of their choice.]
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
George Washington
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788
“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
Louis D. Brandeis
“A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.”
Baron de Montesquieu
“When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.”
Dorothy Thompson
The problem is that much of our liberty has already been given up voluntarily, democratically, or shifted toward government via progressive case law. Regaining our liberty once again is a problem of tremendous social, intellectual, and political magnitude.
