Not very well I would imagine. This child would not understand the concept of work, it would never have experienced hunger, experienced pain, sadness, or anger. These sentiments would be new and completely foreign. It might very well be too much for this child to contend with, leaving it totally unable to cope with life.

I provide this analogy to show that, just as this imaginary child would not understand these feelings because it had never experienced them, people cannot understand what liberty means unless they have experienced it.

I don’t think there are many alive today, with the exception of those close to one hundred, who can say that they have lived during a period in our nations history when the people could say they were truly free.

As far as that goes, I don’t think there are many people who really understand what liberty means. They think because they can get in their car and drive wherever they want, or turn on the television and choose from 200 channels, that they are free.

Not so. Thomas Jefferson described liberty as, “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

Hugo Adam Bedau, PhD, stated the following about liberty, “Government should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one — at least no one other than the participants — is harmed by it.”

Those may sound like radical ideas today when we have become so accustomed to governmental regulations, fees, and restrictions upon almost everything we do, but that is what our founders fought for, and that is what they attempted to preserve in the system of government as outlined in the Constitution.

Almost a year prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the founders wrote the Declaration on Causes and Necessity of Taking Arms. From that document I quote, “We are reduced to the alternative of chusing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force.¾The latter is our choice.¾We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.¾Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably await them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.”

You see, our founders understood a concept that not many today seem to be able to grasp, that being that there can be only freedom, or servitude, (i.e. slavery). Under our current system of government, believe it or not, we are in fact slaves, no matter how much freedom we think we have.

Any time our government passes a law to appease the majority, which infringes upon the rights of a minority, whether that minority be a group, or an individual, they are taking away someone’s rights, and their liberty.

Author Ayn Rand once said, “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”

Listening to people talk, I get the impression that they think that government has the power, and authority to do whatever it desires, to include the restricting of our rights. After all, wasn’t President Bill Clinton quoted by USA Today as saying, “We Can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.” After all, he was the President, so if he said so, it must be true, right?

Well, Thomas Jefferson was President prior to Clinton, and when Jefferson wrote the Summary View of the Rights of British America, he said, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?”

How, therefore, can government take away, or infringe upon, something given to us by God? Doesn’t our Declaration of Independence state, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Prior to the Constitution being written, but after the Declaration of Independence, several states drafted constitutions of their own to establish guidelines for governance within their states.

In September of 1776, Pennsylvania drafted their first state Constitution. From it we read, “That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, amongst which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Notice it says that people have the right to enjoy and defend life. Continuing on with the Declaration of Rights, Article 13, we read, “That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state…”

James Madison, our fourth President, and also considered as the author of the Constitution, is quoted as saying, “The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Thomas Jefferson, our third President, said, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

Jefferson also said, “The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”

What does the Second Amendment say? It says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Much ado has been made over the wording of the Second Amendment. Some say it ties the right to keep and bear arms to the formation of a militia. But if you read the previous quotes, you will clearly see that it is an individual right to protect our homes, our families, and our rights from government infringement.

Infringement is one of those words that people just don’t seem to comprehend. Encarta World English Dictionary defines infringe as, “2. encroach on somebody’s rights or property: to take over land, rights, privileges, or activities that belong to somebody else, especially in a minor or gradual way”

Notice it says in a minor or gradual way. Infringement does not mean that suddenly they are just going to up and take away everyone’s guns.

In an interview in the New Yorker Magazine, July 1976, Nelson Shields III, the founder of Handgun Control Inc, is quoted as saying, “We’re going to have to take this one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily - given the political realities - going to be very modest. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal - total control of all guns- is going to take time … The final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition - except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs and licensed gun collectors - totally illegal.”

That is infringement. Picture this, you’re lying in bed and your spouse keeps moving closer to your side of the bed, while you slowly lose room to sprawl out. Eventually you have just a sliver of bed left, and then when your spouse makes that last move, you end up on the floor. That is how infringement works, they slowly chip away at your right until one day it is gone, and you never knew what, or how, it happened.

I chose the second amendment and guns, because it is an area I feel very strongly about. But the truth is that all of our rights and liberties are being infringed upon by our government.

Try to build a house, or make an addition to one without a permit. Try to go fishing, hunting, or even drive your vehicle without a license. See if you can buy anything, whether it be goods, or services, without paying some kind of tax.

Whenever a crisis arises I am always hear people say that our government needs to do something. William Pitt once stated, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

Most people are at least familiar with the term, freedom of speech. I wonder if they realize that the First Amendment, from whence that phrase is taken, also states that they have the right to “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

That means if people don’t like the things their government is doing, they can petition them to answer for their actions. I wonder how many people realize that the Supreme Court has ruled that the people do not, in fact, retain the right to petition their government?

In the ruling handed down by Federal Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, in the case of We The People v US, Sullivan wrote, “The Supreme Court, however, has held that “the First Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize the association and bargain with it.” See Smith v. Ark. State Highway Employees, Local 1315,441 U.S. 463, 465 (1979)”

So, in other words, you can petition till you turn blue in the face, but the government does not have to answer to you. You are just a peon, a nobody who the government is not accountable to. How does that make you feel? It certainly makes me mad.

Still, it seems that far too many people are content to let the government regulate their lives, and infringe upon their rights and freedom. This might be so because along with liberty comes a price. As Friedrich von Hayek, author of The Constitution of Liberty once said, “Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions… Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.”

Could it be that people are reluctant to accept responsibility for their own failures? Could it be that people are too timid to accept responsibility for defending their homes, their families, and their rights?

Is responsibility now something similar to the definition given us by Ambrose Bierce in the Devil’s Dictionary, “Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor.”

Although, as I previously said, I don’t believe anyone alive today has truly experienced pure liberty, I think I have come close. After I graduated from high school, a friend and I took the summer off and went up into the hills to live. We took two tents, our sleeping bags, fishing poles, rifles and pistols, and a sluice box, and a few kitchen utensils.

For that entire summer we lived off the land. If we didn’t catch any fish, or shoot any squirrels or rabbits, we didn’t eat. We mined gold, swam, slept, and plunked away with our rifles all summer long. Not once did we see another human being, and I have to tell you, it was the best 3 months of my life. I regretted going back to society after being able to do as I please, whenever I pleased. I knew that if I made a mistake, and got hurt, that I might die, but I accepted that responsibility and was cautious.

I didn’t go into the woods with a hunting license, a fishing license, or a permit to camp. We just drove as far back into the woods as we could, then we hiked back until we found a place we thought was isolated enough to provide us the privacy we desired.

That taste of freedom from governmental interference has stuck with me, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand how anyone would give away that kind of freedom for all the rules, fees, and infringements upon their liberties.