Somebody Asked a Question...

"Should government inspire loyalty, freedom or dependence in citizens?"

So asks cam8510 under the heading, Political Ideology.

A fair question, don't you think?

I mean really: Just what should government inspire in its citizens? Should it inspire anything at all?

Can it even inspire?

As I said in my answer to the question, freedom is not inspired. It is a birthright. Freedom however, can be affected by government.

Freedom itself is an inspiration, and an aspiration.

Free people are inspired. We are inspired to achieve, to excel, to find that which makes our lives most satisfying.

Freedom allows us to choose our own path, to create, to believe. To live, not merely exist.

The oppressed look to free people, and aspire to freedom.

Freedom is hard-won. Freedom has a cost, all too often paid in blood.

Freedom requires vigilance, lest it be taken away by government.

Freedom cannot be inspired by government, but it can be affirmed and defended by government.

There can be no freedom without responsibility.

Government can and should inspire personal responsibility in its citizens.

Each of us should be responsible for our own lives and our own actions. It should be we, and not government who feeds, houses, clothes and yes, even sees to our and our family's health.

We, as citizens, have responsibilities not only to ourselves, but to our communities, our society and our nation. It is we who decide what path we as a nation will follow through the ballot, not a monarch on a throne, or a dictator in a bunker. If we do not assume the responsibility to educate ourselves as to our choices and take those choices to the polls, a dictator will surely lift that burden from us.

It is we who have the responsibility to keep our homes safe.

At our nation's founding we, the people assumed the responsibility to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused, and we the people assumed the burden of proof against the accused. We must be responsible enough to decide such based on fact, not whether or not we find the accused personally likable. And we must be responsible enough to serve when called upon to do so, and not find some excuse or other to shirk that responsibility.

At the top of the list of that which the founding fathers most cherished and expounded upon almost daily is self-reliance.

I can only rely on myself to provide for my family and will not depend on government.

You and I have no right and no business depending on government, you are not owed a living. The government hasn't the time and, as our national debt demonstrates, the wherewithal to provide for you.

Do I really have to explain further?

Great album from the Doobie Brothers, by the way...

But dig this under that heading:

"It is precisely this clinging to victimhood as a means of demonstrating one’s virtue and advancing one’s well-being that has led us into a society in which welfare and quotas are “civil rights,” government handouts are “entitlements,” and payment to girls having babies out of wedlock are “compassionate,” while hard-working, ambitious people are “greedy,” punishment of crime is “oppression,” and an independent thinker who stands for courage and self-reliance is dismissed as an “Uncle Tom.” J. Tucker Alford.

Couldn't have said it better.