On the top of the Liberty Bell this verse is imprinted: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Leviticus 25:10. This article may seem like a call to arms. Well, it is intended to get folks fired up about LIBERTY, but not to take up arms just yet.
Today we are at a time in our nation’s history in which a great number of folks are looking to leaders in Washington and Raleigh to solve all the economic problems, provide for everyone’s health care, and, of course, have all the economic stimulus funds directed at each community around the nation. It’s kind of funny that local and state governments have been planning hard on what they can use stimulus funding for rather than using wisely what they already have.
With the economic news that comes out daily and politicians that are trying to control every aspect of our lives, from those local zoning ordinances that tell us what color to paint our homes to President Obama’s plan to make working taxpayers pay for everyone else’s health care, liberty-loving folks are needed now more than ever to stand up for liberty and proclaim it to others.
The principles of liberty will stand, even when they are unpopular, because they have worked in the past. Just look at the formation of this nation. When British subjects in the colonies were pressured to the limits by the Crown, they ended up revolting and forming this nation.
We live in a fallen world where people have the urge to look at their neighbors’ wealth and covet it, and now folks look to the government to provide that wealth rather than work to achieve wealth. Something is wrong with that mind-set when someone who has worked for his wealth must give money against his will to provide others with luxuries.
Dr. Adrian Rogers, Baptist pastor and author, warned back in 1984:
“Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for. That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.”
I know that the current political and economic situation may look depressing to a lot of tax-paying and freedom-loving Americans. Even now, when major political parties do not want to stand on the principle of liberty at the national and state levels, and they run from the label “right-wing extremist,” there is a light at the end of the tunnel because of individuals and groups that are not afraid to stand up for principles.
I am writing today to encourage you as a friend of liberty to get involved in the liberty movement, as so many of you have this spring by coming out to the tea parties. Now more than ever you must tell you neighbor, your fellow church and civic club members, and family to stand up for liberty. As Leviticus 25:10 says, proclaim liberty “to all the inhabitants,” while we still have the freedom to do so.
Michael Moore is program specialist at the John Locke Foundation.