Why does liberty mean so much to me? A slice of family history

I get very agitated when I see politicians – Republicans, Democrats or those of any other stripe – enacting legislation which tears down the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded.  Why does it bother me so much?  Many of the reasons I could cite are reasons I share with most other conservatives in this country, but some of the reasons are much more personal.

My ancestors were some of the earliest European émigrés to America.  They helped to settle the New York colony, and fought actively for America’s independence.

Michael Weigand, along with others of his religious community, came to the New World to escape the political tyranny and religious persecution of 18^th century Europe.  With his family, he left his homeland in the Rhine river area (modern Germany) after being burned out three times in ten years by the armies of Louis XIV.  As refugees they fled through Holland to England.

Queen Ann took pity on them and granted the group a tract of land along the Hudson River where they settled in 1708.  The settlement they helped to develop eventually became Newburgh, New York.

Map of land granted by Queen Anne - divided by family

Later, several of Michael’s descendants fought against the British in the War of Independence.  John, Martin, Matthew, Michael (a grandson) and Tobias Wygant all served as enlisted men in the New York militia.  Their unit was called out many times over the course of the War to defend their homes and families.

Martin owned a tavern in Newburgh
which served as a rendezvous point for the Fourth Regiment, and for a time allowed General Anthony Wayne to headquarter in his home.  George Washington himself set up a headquarters in Newburgh at the Hasbrouck House during the last year and a half of the war.
While this might seem like distant history, it has great meaning for me because these are my people.  My ancestors endured great tribulation leaving their homeland and helping to settle this country.  And they went to war to maintain the right to govern themselves.

Now our Congress, and a President who seems to care nothing for the history and traditions of this country and its people, want to undermine that right to self-governance.  As a nation founded on the ideals of self-government we cannot allow this to stand.  As John Adams reminds us, once freedom is surrendered it is very difficult to regain.

Many other families in this country have ancestral stories similar to mine.  Share your stories.  Share them with your representative in Congress.  Send them to the President.  Remind our leaders that they serve us, and that we (and our ancestors) are not amused.

Underlying issues in the health-care debate

There are two fundamentally different views on the nature of human rights at the heart of the current health care debate.  The “positive rights” or “natural rights” tradition holds that basic human rights are inherent in our being.  They are seen as gifts from Nature or Nature’s God, and therefore exist prior to government.  Since government does not grant them it does not control, direct or guarantee them.  In this view, people make choices for themselves as they exercise personal liberty to direct their own lives, and create governments as necessary to help referee conflicts which inevitably arise between individuals exercising those rights.
In the “negative rights” tradition, rights are granted by government.  People are only allowed to do what a sovereign government allows permission for them to do.  Because rights are granted by the government, the government also controls their exercise.

Our Founders advocated a positive rights view.  Jefferson enumerated “the pursuit of happiness” not “the guarantee of happiness” among those rights he said were unalienable.  He had good reason for this.  If government is held to be the source or guarantor of happiness it can also take that happiness away.

Advocating for health care guaranteed as a “right”, paid for and delivered by the federal government is advocating at the same time for government to control the exercise of that right, including when and where care will be given.  If the government is paying for care, the government will naturally determine which tests are allowed to diagnose a problem, how many can be given, which procedures are allowed, etc. If you think insurance companies are intrusive and obstructionist, just wait until a federal agency dictates how health care is run.

While inconvenience, longer wait time and rationed care seem to be inevitable outcomes of the federal takeover of health care, the most damning outcome is likely to be surrendering more of our personal liberty – turning more and more control over to a federal master.  Benjamin Franklin said it this way:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Like many other conservatives have said before me, the more fundamental issue here is about much more than health care – it is about the proper role of government.  We want government to do less to us and for us -- and leave us alone to direct our own lives.  They want it to do more, and seem willing to accept the chains that are eventually forged in the process.

Getting in the game

(Posted originally on March 24 at stevew.blogivists.com)

Enough. When I started this blog in November I intended to write often. Then I got a case of the guilts --  “Why should anyone care what I think?”, “There are enough people sharing opinions out there already – what good could one more voice be?”

Well, America is less free now that it was before Sunday March 21st because 3 more congressmen voted for a bill that tramples on Constitutional principles than voted against it. The debate and vote on “health care” was a travesty. So perhaps we do need more voices advocating the “First Principles” of government embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Founders knew what they were doing. They wrote these documents after careful study of the successes and failures of governments throughout history. The principles upon which they built our government were designed to protect us from the abuses of a tyrannical government – even one which starts with “good intentions’. As Alexander Hamilton put it:

a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Several things seem very clear after Sunday’s vote. Here are a few:

1) People are confused about “rights”. Where the writers of the Declaration mention “unalienable rights” they did not mean that the government could or should guarantee its people prosperity, health, or any other personal good – only that we should be free to pursue them. No government can guarantee those ends. It can only get in the way of its people achieving them by attempting to. Even a causal reading of history makes this clear. As Congressman Paul Ryan said Sunday night “We’ve seen this movie before. It doesn’t end well.”

2) Because people are confused about rights and the proper role of government, our federal government is out of control. It is headed by men and women who either do not understood or do not value the principles embodied in the Constitution. Republican or Democrat - they need to be educated or replaced. More importantly, we as a people need to educate ourselves about the ideals established in the Declaration and the Constitution. They need to be taught in our homes, our churches and our schools.

3) (Most importantly) Too many in our country have abandoned God, and we are suffering for that. Despite what the non-believers say, we are (or were at least) a Christian nation. While the Founders did not want a state religion (they had seen enough abuses of power stemming from that nightmare wedding to avoid it) they believed strongly in the value of religion in the public square, and in the lives of the people. They clearly believed that a Constitutional government could only work with a people who were basically moral and virtuous, who could and would govern themselves largely without having to depend on laws to determine what they should and should not do. Those are the outcomes of honest and sincere devotion to Christian discipleship. This is not to say that non-Christians cannot be virtuous, only that a truly Christian walk puts people on the path to sound self-government. Unfortunately when people (or corporations) do not govern themselves in a way that generates respect for others, ethical conduct and charity for the poor, there is vacuum which invites more government regulation.

I don’t believe that I have any special insight into everything the Founders meant, and certainly no authority to interpret their meaning. There is plenty of debate on that among people who are more knowledgeable than I am – but some things that they meant are pretty clear. I don’t pretend to be a “final word” on any of this but to contribute to the conversation about where we are headed as a country, to encourage that conversation to include those principles that the Founders clearly intended our government to be based on, and to keep that conversation going.

Why this blog?

(Originally posted at stevew.blogivists.com 11/15/2009)

TheseTruths

Thomas Jefferson introduced the main ideas in the Declaration of Independence by stating: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.... He was asserting that the basic rights he would later list are not granted by government, but are granted by God and inherent in every individual human being. He was asserting that the validity of these basic natural rights was clear and obvious in the very fact of man's existence as a creation of God. He was asserting that these natural rights come before government, and that it is to defend these rights that man created government in the first place. The kind of government envisioned by the Founders, and framed in the Constitution, flows from the Declaration’s statement of basic human rights and the role government should play in their defense.

Unfortunately, the Founders’ creation of a government limited to defending such basic human rights as were “self-evident” has long since been forgotten by most of our elected officials. Leaders of both parties seem largely ignorant, if not completely dismissive, of the role of government laid out in our Founding documents. While many compelling and important arguments can be made regarding policy proposals, the first should be “does the government have the authority to do this?” If it does not, other issues are irrelevant.

As citizens and voters, we must hold our elected officials accountable for governing in a way that is limited to those functions and purposes allowed by the Constitution. Ignoring these limits has invited government to usurp powers for itself which the founders never intended. We must educate ourselves, educate our representatives when necessary, remind them constantly, and insist on their attention and fidelity to Constitutional government. Given how far we have drifted in the last century, it may seem naïve to even propose. Better late than never.