A Sad Birthday for Jefferson |
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| By Marsha Enright and Gen LaGreca | |||
| Tuesday, 13 April 2010 10:23 | |||
On a spring day in 1743, a towering
figure in our
country’s founding was born: Thomas Jefferson. His skillful hand carved
much of
the character of America.
Today, however, what Jefferson so
painstakingly
crafted lies pulverized almost to stone dust. Were he alive to celebrate
his birthday
this April 13, instead of sipping champagne, he might want to drown his
sorrow
in whiskey.
What has happened to the revolutionary
ideas he
penned on the parchment that is the soul of America, the Declaration of
Independence? How many of today’s citizens—and elected
officials—understand the
stirring proclamation that every person possesses certain “unalienable
rights,”
among which are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?
Today, most Americans don’t understand
their
rights; the entire concept has been hopelessly muddied. Many now believe
that
if they want or need anything—from health care, to a “decent” salary, to
help
paying their mortgage—that they have a “right,” through government
taxation and
regulation, to compel others to provide it for them. As a result, our
actual
rights have been eroded at an ever-increasing pace.
So, in homage to Thomas Jefferson, and
with his
guidance, let’s examine some features of our real rights, to
set the
record straight.
According to Jefferson, our rights are unalienable.This means that individuals possess rights in virtue of being
human. They
are neither granted nor invalidated by any person, king, congress, or
group.
Might does not make right; individual rights are a sacred temple that
even the
will of the people must respect. “[T]he majority, oppressing an
individual,”
says Jefferson, “is guilty of a crime . . . and by acting on the law of
the
strongest breaks up the foundations of society.” Further, because they
stem
from universals of human nature, these rights are legitimate in all
societies and all eras. As such and properly understood, they
form the
rock-solid foundation of our freedom.
Contrary to modern misinterpretations,
our real
rights—to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—are rights
to
take action; they are not entitlements to goods and services.
Jefferson
defined liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within
limits
drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” This means we may act in
our
own behalf, for example, to earn money and buy health care, but we may not
expect the government to tax and regulate others to provide us with
health care
for free.
Rights belong to us as individuals,
with
each of us possessing exactly the same ones. There are no “rights” of
groups—be
they farmers, seniors, students, workers, homeowners, or the like—to any
special privileges at the expense of others. According to Jefferson,
“Congress
has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only
those
specifically enumerated [in the Constitution].” What, then, would he
have
thought of our current government’s using taxpayers’ money to provide
privileges to countless special-interest groups—through bank bailouts,
government-backed mortgages, programs for the arts, government housing,
car-company loans, etc.?
As understood by Jefferson and his
contemporaries,
our rights include the right to property, which entitles us to
keep
the things that we legitimately acquire. Does a rich person have less of
a
right to property than a poor person? According to Jefferson: “To take
from one
because it is thought his own industry . . . has acquired too much, in
order to
spare others who . . . have not exercised equal industry and skill is to
violate the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone
the free
exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” What, then,
would he
have thought of the recent referendum passed in Oregon—typifying the practice of many states,
as well
as the federal government—in which a majority levied substantial
additional
taxes on businesses and the wealthy? Wouldn’t that seem like a few sheep
and a
pack of wolves deciding what to have for lunch?
Jefferson valued productive work
as a
noble part of the American character. When his Monticello farm fell on
hard
times, he began producing nails, and did so proudly because “every
honest
employment is deemed honorable [in America] … My new trade of nail-making
is to
me in this country what an additional title of nobility … [is] in
Europe.” He
scorned the “idleness” of the European aristocracy, calling their courts
“the
weakest and worst part of mankind.” He expected people to use their
minds to
judge conflicting ideas, overcome obstacles, and achieve goals,
extolling
reason as the autonomous person’s tool for successful living: “Fix
reason
firmly to her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.”
When his 15-year-old daughter had
difficulty
reading an ancient text, he admonished: “If you always lean on your
master, you
will never be able to proceed without him. It is part of the American
character
to consider nothing as desperate—to surmount every difficulty …”
Americans, he
continued, “are obliged to invent and to execute; to find the means
within
ourselves, and not to lean on others.” What, then, would he have thought
of
today’s government “entitlements,” which encourage idleness while
discouraging
people from making their own decisions?
Jefferson swore “eternal hostility
against every
form of tyranny over the mind of man,” ardently defending the spiritual
and
intellectual freedom of the individual. He held that a person’s
beliefs
and values were an entirely private matter and that “the legislative
powers of
government reach actions only, and not opinions.” What, then, would this
champion of freedom of religion, speech, the press, and conscience have
thought
of recent threats and insinuations by public officials to influence the
content
of radio
programs? What would Jefferson have thought of a president, able to
wield the
full coercive powers of the state, discouraging people from listening to
the opposing
viewpoints of private individuals?
As individuals possessing the
right—and glory—of
self-sovereignty, what, then, is the proper role of government
in our
lives? The Declaration explains “that to secure these rights,
governments are
instituted among men.” Wise government, Jefferson elaborated, “shall
restrain
men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to
regulate
their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from
the
mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Government’s exclusive purpose
is to
protect us from acts of force or fraud, which violate our rights—e.g.,
to
apprehend and punish aggressors who would pick our pockets or break our
legs—but otherwise, to refrain from regulating or controlling our lives.
Jefferson’s vision provides “for a
government
rigorously frugal and simple … and not for a multiplication of officers
and
salaries merely to make partisans …” What, then, would he have thought
of
today’s ever-growing swarms of agencies, commissions, and departments
that,
following King George III, “harass our people, and eat out their
substance”?
What would he have thought of the 2,700-page health-care reform bill
passed in
the dead of night, with backroom bribes used to obtain the votes of
congressmen
unclear about its massive contents and implications? Do we have any
doubt that
Jefferson would be horrified by such corruption and by the dangerous,
unprecedented powers this legislation has granted to the state?
Thomas Jefferson fought for a country
in which the
government had no power to encroach on the mind, the life, the liberty,
or the
property of the individual. He fought for a country in which the
individual, for
the first time in history, could live for the pursuit of his own
happiness
instead of being a pawn in the hands of the state.
Within a mere page of the calendar of
history, the
world-shaking recognition that freedom is every person’s
natural state
and sacred right led to the abolition of slavery, the suffrage
of
women, and the spread of human freedoms in nations around the globe. The
dawn
of liberty upon the modern world began with the founding principles of
America,
which the author of the Declaration of Independence so ably articulated.
On Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, we
must grasp
again and hold dear the fragile gem of freedom that he so carefully
carved. We
must protest the hammering away at our individual rights by the
ignorant, the
deceived, and the unscrupulous. And we must polish the ideals for which
Jefferson pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor. A Sad Birthday for Jefferson by Marsha Enright and Gen LaGreca Marsha Familaro Enright is president
of the Reason,
Individualism, Freedom
Institute, the Foundation for the College of the United States.
Genevieve (Gen) LaGreca is the author of Noble Vision, a ForeWord magazine
Book-of-the-Year award-winning novel about the
struggle
for liberty in health care today. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/09/a-sad-birthday-for-jefferson/print/       
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