This year marks the 229th anniversary of the “Shot heard around the world,” the battle at Lexington and Concord that started the American Revolution.
A small group of American colonists, disturbed that their rights were being slowly but surely eroded, heroically assembled to oppose oppression. They had gathered personal arms and whatever else they had, to stand against what was then the mightiest military force on the planet. They faced odds far greater than those endured by Ukraine today.
That war was successfully concluded, but the fight goes on.
King George has been replaced by home-grown opponents of the freedoms our forefathers won. Many of the issues facing this year’s voters would be familiar to those in 1775.
The colonists were furious at the attempt by the English to impose unfair taxes. As Americans file and pay their excessive taxes this month, they have to wonder whether King George is smiling at the irony.
The distant government in London ignored the needs of its American subjects, placing its philosophy of central power over individual rights and the ability of local communities to address their own needs.
Sound familiar?
The specifics are fascinating. The King wanted to disarm Americans, just as the left, the Biden Administration in particular, seeks to abolish Second Amendment rights.
Expressions of disagreement with London were considered treasonous and punishable. Today, with disturbing regularity, those opposing progressive policies find themselves censored on social media, ostracized in Hollywood, and silenced in academia, and even, in some cases, visited by the FBI.
Bit by bit, the foundational American concept of free speech has been eroded.
Universities silence moderate and conservative voices.
Senator Schumer (D-NY) actually introduced legislation to limit the First Amendment’s application to some political speech. (The measure was, fortunately, defeated.) Numerous campaign regulations limit the ability of the citizenry to openly support candidates without first jumping through bureaucratic hoops.
Some elected officials are not shy about their goals. Rep.
Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) boldly announced that he would “love to be able to regulate the content of speech” He particularly spoke about restricting Fox News. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex (D-NY) threatened Donald Trump Jr. with a subpoena merely for questioning her economic views.
The underlying principle behind the American Revolution that began on that April day so long ago was that individuals had inherent rights that came not from government but from God (or, if one prefers a different term, nature.)
Even a Supreme Court Justice has expressed a lack of respect for the central principle behind the entire structure of American government and law. During the confirmation hearings of Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, Sen. Tom Coburn had a stern exchange in which he pushed her to state her belief in inherent rights. She evaded answering.
The concept of “inherent rights” is what elevates the American concept of rights above all others. The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were designed to enshrine the concept that the citizenry, not the government, were sovereign. It limits the powers of government, not the freedoms of the people.
Almost the entire Bill of Rights has been under attack. Attacks on the First and Second Amendments are well known. But consider the overriding of the 4th Amendment right to privacy. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which provides that those rights not specifically given to the federal government belong to the people or the states, is a measure that the left almost universally ignores.
The American revolution was won in 1781, but it can be lost in 2024. The fight this century is at the ballot box, not on a battlefield. Today’s Progressives would prefer the rule of George III, not George Washington.