Phillip Smith

4 yrs

Americans on both sides of the aisle are getting more entrenched in the US vs. Them diatribe, buying into the divide and conquer that has always been the tactic of governments to keep people at each other's throats while they grab more and more power.
Meanwhile, most Christians are screaming "God is in control" and "Everything will be fine. Just trust in God". While I believe that God IS in control, I do not think most people are going to like what he has in store for us. Over and over again throughout history, God has allowed his people to be put under subjugation to humble them and bring them back to him.
I am the kind of person that looks for answers. The solution I see to the current problem is to stop and think for a bit about how we are all approaching the current situation. Then we need to humble ourselves and pray for God to forgive our foolish pride. We need to ask our friends and neighbors to forgive us as well. We need to look for what unites us instead of what divides us.
One of the things that I know we all can agree on is we love our country. I am not talking about those in government, most of them love power, money, and prestige. I am talking about the average American. So, what is it that we all love so much about this country? I believe it is the fact that it is founded on a principle of justice, and equality. I understand we have not always lived up to this ideal, but we strive to reach it.
So, how do we use this love of our country to unite us? Let's return to the ideal of liberty and justice. Let's start by studying the documents that are supposed to secure our rights. Let's look at the Declaration of Independence and the reasons we had to leave our union with England. I see the same issues today with our government being the one treading on our rights and neglecting its responsibilities. Let's look at the U.S. Constitution and what was done to ensure we fix the issues. Let's look at the writings of the founders to see their original intent.
So many of the problems we face are created by the fact that we no longer respect the rights of others. If we want to ensure our rights are protected we must ensure others' rights are protected. We must return to the principles of natural rights and natural law. We must also understand that with rights come responsibilities. The principles of natural law we see expressed by Thomas Paine were first expressed by great thinkers like John Locke, and later by Lysander Spooner, one of the last voices on natural rights.
Only when we return to common sense and common decency will we have any hope of returning this country to its' former greatness.

4 yrs

Any man, who is a man, would rather be a savage, and be free, creating or procuring only such little wealth as he could control and consume from day to day, than to be a civilized man, knowing how to create and accumulate wealth indefinitely, and yet not permitted to use or dispose of it, except under the supervision, direction, and dictation of a set of meddlesome, superserviceable fools and tyrants, who, with no more knowledge than himself, and perhaps with not half so much, should assume to control him, on the ground that he had not the right, or the capacity, to determine for himself as to what he would do with the proceeds of his own labor. Lysander Spooner
#reclaimfreedomandliberty
#showmefreedom
#showmeliberty
#realmen
#freedomoverfear

4 yrs

To all those men and women deployed this Christmas and their families, Merry Christmas, and thank you.

4 yrs

Libertarians often say taxation is theft. Have you ever wondered how they come to this conclusion? Consider the following statements.

"If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists"
"If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized."

In these statements, he shows that government takes what it has not earned and we have not consented to give freely. My Christian brethren will usually rebut this with the words of Christ.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

But does this really apply in this situation? There is no image of the U.S. government or any member of it on our currency. The images on our currency are not allowed to be of any living person, so therefore it can never be claimed to belong to any living person, whose image appears on it. Our currency belongs to the people, not our government.

4 yrs

A government that commits crimes, will not prevent crimes A government that destroys individual liberty, cannot secure individual liberty.
#reclaimfreedomandliberty