Independence Day...

July fourth is right around the corner, Independence Day. The skies will be full of fireworks, the lakes full of boaters, backyards full of barbecue and beer, and parades all celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. We throw around words like “independence” “liberty”, and “freedom”. Ask almost any American and they'll tell you “it's a free Country”, but are we really a free people?

Freedom is a word we throw around almost daily in this country, but have any of you thought about what it meant to be free? The dictionary defines freedom as: the state of being free; exemption from external control, interference, regulation; the power to determine action without restraint. Most of you probably think those definitions fit your lives fairly well, but do they really?I'd like to believe that we live in a free country, but more and more our freedoms are being eroded, and sadly the citizens of this country give those rights away so easily that it makes me believe that most don't truly want freedom.

Freedom is something that only a society based on personal responsibility can have. Personal responsibility is what makes people save for their retirement. Personal responsibility is the thing that causes people to save or get insurance to cover their health needs. It's the thing that causes people to put shampoo on the outside of their bodies, and to not use electrical appliances in the shower. It's the thing that puts a man on trial for murder instead of his gun.

Freedom would be allowing people to send their kids to whatever school they thought would best teach their children, it would be allowing their children to pray to whatever god they chose in those same schools. Freedom would be not getting a ticket for failure to wear your seatbelt. Freedom would be having the choice to not spay and neuter your pet, or to choose how many pets you owned.

No folks, the reality is that we are not free because we don't want the responsibility for our actions. Instead of working hard and saving money, we would rather the government take care of us in retirement and supply us with health care. We'd prefer that the government educate our children and teach them right from wrong instead of doing it ourselves. We want the government to give us a false sense of security by giving us a number to call in case of an emergency, instead of protecting our property and family. We want the productive to pay more in taxes so the unproductive can remain unproductive.

Freedom has a cost, and that cost is personal responsibility. Over the last one hundred years we've lost a lot of our responsibilities, we've given them to others to take care of so we aren't burdened with them, but along with those responsibilities we gave away our freedoms. So this fourth of July while the fireworks are going off and the burgers are burning, remember the Bill of Rights, remember the Constitution, and remember the reasons the founders of this country declared independence from the government that ruled them.

If we aren't willing to be responsible for our persons to gain our freedom from the countless regulations that our government has put in place to protect us from ourselves, we might as well call July fourth Hypocrites day, the day we say we are free, but aren't willing to be responsible enough to deal with freedom.

Torqued.