Food for Thought

While I have been lax in my postings here the world has moved quickly onward. It has moved onward, but not necessarily upward (fans of the Narnia books, you know the reference.) I have not had the time to find the subject for a complete post... so I have a question instead. Food for thought, as some would say.

Can true advocates for personal freedom and personal responsibility be found in the rank and file of formalized and institutional government? Can anyone who has the desire to work as a lawmaker and a leader of a country actually believe that the people are better off doing things on their own, without interference from the powers that be?

In partial answer to my own questions, I present the statement of the statesman Daniel Webster, "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." Webster, himself a leader, recognized the subverting influence power has over man. It goes along with the old adage "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." When people can sit back and abdicate personal responsibility to the promise of a being given a better life, they may in the end be given the "better life," but is it actually theirs? Does a man possess that which is not earned or does the man become the servant of those who can provide for him?

Finally, the last little bit to think over is another quotation from one of the great men who shaped the United States, Samuel Adams. All I ask is that people read this and think about what the ideals this country was founded upon mean for us today: "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."