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Opinion | Morgan Liddick: The real meaning of American independence

Morgan Liddick
On Your Right
Morgan Liddick lives in Summit County. His column appears in every Tuesday in the Summit Daily News.
btrollinger@summitdaily.com |

Every so often, one must shout “Enough!” Today is that day.

Today is a good day to remember that this nation was founded to protect human freedom, not to provide health care, food or shelter paid for by others. It was created not to offer full and permanent employment to an army of bureaucrats and politicians but to protect our God-given rights to life, liberty and the ability to pursue our own paths and profits, as long as we do not infringe on these rights in others. Governments were instituted to accomplish these ends, not to protect us from ourselves in ways the ruling class decides appropriate. But nowadays the latter appears to be the only purpose our rulers will admit.

It may be time to dramatically change the nature of our federal government. It may be time for all sides of the political spectrum to realize that the politicians who regularly ask for our votes promise much but deliver little, save disappointment. They look only to their own advantage, not to that of the nation or of its citizens. It may finally be time for us to come together and say with a single voice: “Out! In the name of God, begone!” And begin to organize the challenges necessary to do away with the current crop of self-seeking, petty tyrants who claim to know better than we how to run our lives.



They will never, no matter what they vow, seek the general advantage without first calculating how their own is served. They have long since arranged to receive automatic raises and improvements to the perquisites of office, separating themselves further from those they claim to represent.

When given opportunities to change laws to better serve freedom or the national economy, they do nothing. When the security of the nation requires action, they dither or obstruct.



Faced with open rebellion by states and municipalities against the rule of law, they refuse to act, sowing confusion with contradictory claims of noble motives and resorts to petty legal maneuver.

They decline to meet with those they represent, preferring mock events with purchased crowds or simple absence to open discussion and exchange of views. And they seek with daily statements and slanders to further inflame the political atmosphere, so that they may be safe from reasoned challenges. They personally attack anyone who opposes them, and they use the power of the state against their opposition when they are able, despite the law.

Where they are not expressly prohibited, they increase taxes as a response to any problem. But since they are bought by a myriad of paymasters, they impose these taxes only on those who cannot pay to avoid them. The middle class is crushed by their betrayals.

Worst, to preserve their sinecures they have set us against one another. They have turned every public place, from schools to the media, into a war zone where they struggle with one another for supremacy – and where they call us all to battle one another unceasingly, lest we take a moment to think about the purpose of all this acrimony. Because if we did we would realize in a flash that it was all Kabuki theater, and their power would be at an end.

In the face of these usurpations and indignities it is high time for the vast majority of citizens; of the maligned, the ill-served, the ignored workers on whose daily efforts this nation prospers, to make changes to our government. As for leaders who see average Americans as worthless, deplorable sheep to be managed in the leaders’ interest; who lie as a matter of course; who set us against each other to further their own ends; it is time for them to go. We have tolerated them long enough; but no more. Justice, reason and above all liberty demand they be shown the door, and the sooner, the better.

Thus did the group of Americans gathered in the Pennsylvania Statehouse the heat of a Philadelphia summer more than two centuries ago speak. English is subtly different today, but the sentiment is the same: governments serve people, not the other way around. Politicians are temporary instruments, nothing more. Both can be, and should be changed if they refuse to understand these truths. Read the document they signed on July 3, 1776 if you don’t believe it. History speaks for itself there, and what it says matters.

Happy birthday, America.

Morgan Liddick writes a weekly column for the Summit Daily. Email him at mcliddick@hotmail.com.


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