Column: Jerrold Dettle, My Point of View

Thomas Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” For the first 200 years of our history most Americans, and hope-inspired immigrants, believed that America offered them the most available opportunity for freedom on the planet, if an individual is honest and works hard. Beginning with the Puritans this formula built the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Many members of the “new” generation of Minnesotans have a different view of equalitarianism than the Founding Fathers. The “pursuit of happiness” is being altered by philosophies of self-pity, envy and victimization. The phrase has been morphed into the “pursuit of the top 1 percent”!

Meanwhile the top 1 percent and their goods are leaving from our state to other more freedom-loving states. They are also leaving Minnesota to more rapidly advancing foreign countries. The unbridled drive in St. Paul is to spend more and tax more to pay the bills.

The new “equality” is a modern religion that seems to promote the taking of freedom and prosperity from some by imploring a God-like legal force to provide assistance for those advocates of a new nation.

An ideology that diverts from the original concept of freedom of the individual to pursue his or her happiness based on their virtue and abilities, to the current secular idol that is a central government dominated by power mongrels, who completely invade our privacy and control every personal decision.

They wish to answer one’s prayer by forcing some to give to others of their choosing. In the past most have felt there is no earned redemption in this manner for these guilt-ridden, forgiveness-seeking demigods, many of whom are placed through cronyism on a small state board by a state government official, who in turn seems to live eternally at a higher average pay than one in the private sector and with virtually no fear of termination.

With this socialistic religion, state senators and state representatives seem to act as rubber-stamping fallen angels, rather than a constitutional balance of power. Individual freedom is eventually lost as businesses are being drained of their ability to create jobs and opportunities.

It is according to the Founding Fathers that “God” created men equal. A creation that demanded the freedom to choose between right and wrong. This unrestricted will allows the individual to decide between paths and directions. It was definitely not the Founding Fathers’ desire to require the American people to relinquish all responsibility, self-guilt and individual responsibility to the supreme power of the state.

When we act this way, we become lazy and uninformed concerning our civic responsibilities. We become drones manipulated by selfish power-loving politicians. We become, as George Orwell predicted so accurately, robots doomed to a life of slavery. With this transfer of our ability to choose, we and our children are losing our freedoms. To rely on the government to provide all things for us, such as, health care and totally funded retirement is called statism.

Supported by our current blind and uniformed politicians, our state and national governments are close to completing a statism society. We are forgetting our Constitution and creating a central government that is buried in bureaucracy. This path is destined to allow the future enslavement of ordinary Americans. Central government control and enslavement directed by the few at the top of every level of government is unknown to Americans. But this occurrence in the world is many times more common than the existence of republics like America.

During the history of our country the French failed in their quest for individual rights when they allowed their emotions to drive them into slaughter of nearly every wealthy family in the nation. This quest for equality led to a central government led by Napoleon that slaughtered millions and terrorized all of Europe for many years. The atheist religion of full socialism, with cradle-to-grave benefits, became dominant in many countries during the last century, but the most brutal and murderous were the well-known socialist regimes that ruled Russia, Germany and China.

Abraham Lincoln in his response in 1857 to the horrible Dred Scott decision written by the Supreme Court, said these famous words:

“I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, the respects they did consider all men created equal. Equal in ‘certain inalienable rights;’ among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, this they said, and this they meant.”

During the last 200 years, the American way with all its faults has delivered more happiness, freedom and prosperity to mankind than any previous form of government. No other constitutional government has even been close to the success of our republic.

It is hoped that those well-meaning citizens who assist the current state of Minnesota and national political leaders will reject this direction and support the U.S. Constitution. This next election may be last chance for “real hope”!

 

Albert Lea resident Jerrold Dettle is a member of the Freeborn County Republican Party.