I frequently receive notes from LRC’s readers such as the one Mic sent in response to my blog about the Declaration of Independence:
Some beautiful things were said in that document, but reading LRC for the past 10 years everyday, has made me more discriminating. Especially when analyzing words written by a politician. I present the end of the second to last sentence:
“as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
Translation: Make WAR, Stop making WAR, form alliances to make WAR, steal money for profit and to make WAR, and ANYTHING ELSE we want.
I told Mic I fear I fear he is “unduly harsh on poor Tom. Remember, the philosophy of liberty has advanced since his day: we have far more insights into it than the founding generation enjoyed. Adam Smith had only just published his Wealth of Nations in ’76; Bastiat and all the Austrians were still a century in the future. If you had only the classics (Cicero, etc) and Smith, what errors against freedom might you commit?”
Ergo, I hope you’ll join me in reading the Declaration today. And hustle over to Amazon to buy my novel Halestorm — set during the American Revolution and still half-price.
5:59 am on July 4, 2013
