I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts. --Ronald Reagan
The Government of the United States controls a great deal more of our lives than the founders would have ever imagined. And while the Republicans make a show of limiting the power and control of government, they are as guilty as the Democrats they rail against on a daily basis. One need look no further than this decade to realize this is the truth.
One of the greatest hypocrisies of the Republican party is its focus on the "protection" of "traditional marriage." If I were to describe for you a tyrannical state such as the former Soviet Union, or Red China, would you shake your head in disbelief when I say that the state even controls whom its populace may marry? If I were to describe for you the arranged marriages of history and even today in less civilized countries, would you not become enraged over the intervention of the state in this manner?
The Founders laid out for us the groundwork for a Federalist nation, where the States were given the power to regulate anything not enumerated in the Constitution. Yet, the Federal Defense of Marriage Act removes from the states their power to make this crucial decision. And those "stalwart defenders of Federalism" continue to push their tyranny down the throats of a populace that no longer desires it, if polls are to be believed.
There is certainly a conservative argument to be made for preserving those traditions that have served us well. Yet, I cannot believe that subservience to tradition should trump our desire for the government to leave us alone to pursue our own happiness. While we may be prepared to agree that a generation of youth addicted to video games and general sloth is quite detrimental to society, we would quite rightly revolt at the government mandating how we raise our children. Yet we surrender our freedom to choose who we marry without a second thought, and worse still, we fight to impose this government control on our fellow Americans.
In this sense, we conservatives should be fighting for less government intervention, less government control, more freedom for the individual, more liberty for all. We should not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the religious or the zealots; we should maintain our first principles. We should be fighting for liberty.
We should stand up to Madame Pelosi, and tell her to get out of our business. We should stand up to President Obama, and tell him to allow us to choose how our families shall be arranged. We should not allow career politicians to determine the courses of our myriad lives.
Free Marriage for all, on the terms of the individual, not prescribed by the State. This is my plea. I leave you with this quote from Barry Goldwater.
The Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order. The Conservative is the first to understand that the practice of freedom requires the establishment of order: it is impossible for one man to be free if another is able to deny him the exercise of his freedom. But the Conservative also recognizes that the polical power on which order is based is a self-aggrandizing force; that its appetite grows with eating. -- Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
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