From: The Founding Fathers
To: The Current Generation of Americans
On the 225th anniversary of our independence, those of us
you call the Founding Fathers have assembled in Continental Heaven to assess the
condition of the Republic we bequeathed to you.
It's true America has become the wealthiest, most
powerful nation on Earth. But so was the British Empire in 1776. Before we get
specific, we must confess that we are annoyed by your habit of misinterpreting
our words. Take the First Amendment, where we said Congress shall make no law
"respecting an establishment of religion." You usually neglect the other half of
the injunction, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." As anyone in the
First Congress, which passed the amendment, could have told you, "establishment
of religion" means an established church, which all are forced to support. We
never intended to create a virtue-less Republic, by prohibiting public
expressions of faith. In the Declaration of Independence, we acknowledged that
rights are endowed by our Creator. Absent a Creator, there are no inalienable
rights.
In the Second Amendment, we said the right to keep and
bear arms shall not be infringed. In our day, if private citizens hadn't owned
guns there would have been no Lexington and Concord. Why would we bother
guaranteeing a collective right to arm state militias? The rights enumerated in
the first 10 amendments are restraints on government, not grants of power to it.
If you ever wake up to what's going on, your leaders will have cause to fear an
armed citizenry.
We viewed elective office as a sacrifice. For your
politicians, it's an opportunity. We rid America of a monarchy. You've
established an elected aristocracy. We were farmers, merchants and professionals
who resumed our careers after a brief term of service and never lost touch with
our constituents. You are governed by an elite so different from you as to
almost constitute a separate species. Your elected rulers hold office for 20 or
30 years, becoming increasingly detached from their roots, while rewarding
themselves with lavish emoluments and pensions.
We revolted over a modest tax on tea. Your tax burden is
staggering. Despite the enormous expenditures of your prodigal politicians, even
they can't spend it all. And still, many resist returning the federal surplus to
its rightful owners. We rejected taxation without representation. You condone
your own serfdom.
In the Declaration, we complained that King George III
had "sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat their
substance." You complacently tolerate a bureaucracy that resembles all Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Eat out their substance? Today, almost one in 13
Americans works for a branch of the government. Harass our people? There are
bureaucrats to tell you how to run your business, build on your property and
raise your children. Government makes decisions for you regarding your health,
safety and welfare.
We envisioned the judiciary as a coequal branch of
government that interprets laws based on the clear meaning of language. Your
courts have become a law unto themselves.....raising taxes, deciding elections,
ordering private relationships and substituting their will for that of
legislators.
We warned you against entangling alliances. You are eager
to form defensive pacts with postage-stamp countries whose security couldn't
conceivably be related to your own. This will only serve to drag you into their
petty quarrels, sapping your strength.
We recognized that government and society must rest on
divine wisdom. George Washington observed, "Reason and experience both forbid us
to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of a religious
principle." You cultivate national immorality, in the apparent belief that
abortion, adolescent access to pornography, cohabitation, public distribution of
prophylactics and compulsory acceptance of perversion will somehow lead to a
society whose citizens have the self-discipline to sacrifice for the common
good.
Benjamin Franklin said we gave you a Republic "if you can
keep it." From our vantage point, it does not look promising, Were we alive
today, we'd raise another rebellion!
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