Controlling A Nations Economy Means Controlling That Nation's People
Have voters, as Reagan warned, just sentenced our children to a thousand years of darkness?
The title to this article was taken for one of Ronald Reagan's speeches. It is as true as truth gets. Ronald Reagan, the icon of the conservative movement in America, understood the fundamental truth of the Founding Fathers of America.
The Founding Fathers of America understood that a strong central government would never work in a republican form of government, the form of government they gave the American people. They knew that. They had just declared the independence of Americans from the "strong central government" of King George of Great Britain. They understood that for Americans to thrive and become a great nation of great people the government should provide one thing… freedom. They knew the American government should provide security from any and all enemies that presented a threat to the freedom of the American people so the American people could make the seeds of liberty grow and flourish.
Meeting in Philadelphia in 1776 they labored to create a constitution, the bedrock foundation of this nation, dedicated to the idea that the people would control their own destiny, not the government, that the people would make or break this experiment in democracy, not the government, that the labors of the people, known as business, would be free to create and manufacture, to sell, and to create wealth and keep that wealth or distribute it as they chose, not the government.
The constitution is as simple a governing document as has ever been written. It was drawn up to protect the people of this country from its government. Our Founding Fathers had just turned their backs on government, which had insinuated itself into the lives and businesses of its colonists to the point that those colonists rebelled and said: "No more!" With the constitution, the Founding Fathers put in writing the limits of the new American government.
For the past 232 years the constitution has been a fly in the ointment to the political left everywhere on earth. When a people yearning to breath free, anywhere on the globe, look for a way, for a pattern, for directions on how to set up a non-repressive government, they turn to the US Constitution. There must be a reason. There is. Because it works!
Today, however, Americans themselves are ready to toss the constitution overboard and cling to a government, drunk on power and ready to do exactly the same thing King George did, insinuate itself into every aspect of the American people's life. So bent on desecration of the constitution are they, that 52 % of the American voters cast their ballots for a man who has declared his allegiance to creating a strong central government, which will take away the freedoms, the liberty, our forefathers fought, bled, and died to give us. They have declared their overwhelming willingness to toss the democratic form of government in favor of a socialist form of government, which will guarantee cradle to the grave security. They voted "yes" to exchanging liberty for security. They voted to turn their backs on all the heroes of American history to follow in the footsteps of the Pied Piper of Socialism the now President-Elect of the United States of America.
Again, let's turn to Ronald Reagan for clarity. In 1964 Reagan said the following:
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government." This idea? That government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
Reagan went on to say:
The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
About financial security, Reagan had this to say:
There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.
Reagan wound up this jewel of a speech by saying the following:
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 first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
The question I would ask today is … have we done all we could do? It seems to me the 700 billion dollar bailout of our financial markets should be filed under "Controlling the people by controlling the people's economy."
As I view the America the voters of this nation created on November fourth, I am inclined to say that, indeed, we have, just as Reagan warned, sentenced our children to a thousand years of darkness.
J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in "America First".
He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an "in the field" and "on-air" news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.
Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to "old Lutheranism" to express and exercise his faith.
In addition to appearing at WEBCommentary, J.D. Longstreet's articles are posted as:
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