Rare News Desk
In his weekly address today, President Obama urged all Americans to “live up to the words of that Declaration of Independence” and — he seems to think — the progressive ideals contained within.
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Mr. Obama seizes on that immortal phrase “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” claiming that it means America’s founders meant to create a country where people were “free to think and worship and live as we please”. He spoke of an America “shaped” by generations of farmers, teachers, engineers, and politicians all working together to fulfill this American Dream.
Mr. Obama couldn’t be more wrong. It’s telling that nowhere in his address does he actually cite the Declaration itself. Had Mr. Obama gone back and read the document he would have seen that it has nothing to do with creating a nation where people could live as they please or a country that was only made better when its citizens were “all pulling in the same direction.”
Had he read the passage on which his address was based, Mr. Obama would have discovered some interesting things about the nation our founding fathers sought to create. First, had he read to the end of that sentence he would have found that ours is a nation founded on inalienable rights. These inalienable rights are endowed to us by our creator, and no government can take them away — among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That pursuit of happiness is not government’s to define — it is the individual’s. Life and liberty are equally inalienable. The first is necessary for the second and it is a founding purpose of American government to preserve them. It is a principle of our country that no government can take them away.
That is a lesson Mr. Obama would do well to learn. America was founded to protect our God-given liberties, not to be a transactional welfare state where liberty is a currency used to purchase government benefits.
Another passage Mr. Obama should have read is the one that says “that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Had he read it, and studied the opinions of the men who wrote it, he would have realized that while America is no Athenian democracy it is one where the people’s representatives are to give the utmost weight to the opinions of the governed.
Our government was not meant to be a caretaker of anything but our liberties. It was not meant to nudge us in the direction our leaders think we should go nor to be our caregiver and provider. It was meant to be neither mother nor father. The will of the governed is to be respected, and a government that passes legislation opposed by the public robs the people of the very liberty government is supposed to protect.
A third passage Mr. Obama should have read says “prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” This passage was written to demonstrate that the reasons for America’s separation from Great Britain were not minor grievances. Our founders established the principle that changing government was no small matter because such change caused great social upheaval and brought with it unpredictable results, results that were likely to be injurious to liberty.
Government cannot be both liberty’s steward and society’s engineer and our government was meant to be the former.
The true principles of the Declaration of Independence are that the people have God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of their own happiness, that government’s purpose is to preserve and protect these rights, and that government’s power derives from the consent of the governed — a consent that is to be respected.
These are the principles to which our founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
Matt Cover is Content Editor at Rare. Follow him on Twitter @MattCover
