Inaugural Post – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Penned by  Thomas Jefferson in the “Declaration of Independence” these key and enduring principles of “unalienable Rights,” granted by our Creator, both empower and limit the government of the United States of America.  Where did our founding fathers get these ideas and how have these ideas been incorporated into our Constitution and the fabric of American life to create the freest nation on earth?

This blog is dedicated to pursuing and examining the philosophical, political, religious and economic principles which underlie our freedoms and liberty.  We are also interested in identifying the dangers to and the forces that may be eroding our freedom.

We are designing our blog for the average citizen who loves this country.  We are not interested in political labels, political parties or engaging in endless intellectual babbling.  Our goal is to speak in plain English so that we can move the cause of freedom forward by looking to the enduring principles and ideas that will explain, preserve and restore our precious freedoms. We hope that these ideas will inspire you toward taking actions to protect your freedoms and to live in a way so as to promote the freedom philosophy.

Frederic Bastiat, Statesman, Essayist and Economist, was a renowned champion of individual freedom.  In 1850 he published his most famous and enduring work, “The Law.” Bastiat, like others, recognized that the greatest single threat to liberty is government.  Like the signers of our Declaration of Independence, Bastiat echoes their vision, saying, “…these three gifts [life, liberty and property] from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.  Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws.  On the contrary, it is the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

It is important to note that these “unalienable Rights” were granted to all men by God not by government. We have given our consent to government “to secure these rights.”  Moving forward, we will examine how we are doing as a society in preserving these fundamental rights. We will do this For Freedom’s Sake!