A Day of Mourning

That's what the Fourth of July has come to be for me.  We call it Independence Day but the Declaration of Independence did more than effect a political separation from Great Britain.  It defined the purpose of government:

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.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the Governed.

The purpose of government is to secure the people's God-given inalienable rights.  These are rights that don't come from government, they come before it. These are not phony rights like  health care or a "living wage," which are rights that can only come at the expense of someone else.  The natural inalienable rights are the rights to live at peace with your fellow human beings.

The evidence is all  too clear that American citizens by and large no longer hold to this view.  The only inference we can draw from innumerable "idiot-on-the-street" interviews as well as from election results is that today's Americans think the role of government is to provide them with free stuff at their neighbor's expense and to control that neighbor's behavior for his own good.

Look at the people we elect to office from the presidency on down and tell me we haven't abandoned the ideals that made this country great.  Like Esau, we have sold our birthright for a bowl of stew.