Happy Birthday Mr. Jefferson

"The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration and Protest of Virginia, 1825.

Today is Thomas Jefferson's birthday. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the major voices for republicanism in the United States. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he was not content to merely remove the yolk of British oppression; he also wanted to ensure that the new government never grew to the tyranny of the old one. The main crux of his Democrat-Republican party was that the strength of the government should be largely limited and held by the states. He felt that organizing too much power in the hands of the Federal Government would remove any checks against it and unleash an ever hungry beast that knew no restraints. He believed in the ability of the individual to live their own lives, and that individual should be free from the oppression of a boundless government.

We are now, not 200 years after his death, living with the very reality that he so feared. The Federal government has become the ever growing leviathan. So much so that it has even lost any pretense of being bound by the Constitution. What used to be the shining light of our country and the chains that held the government at bay has become nothing more then an old piece of paper. We are at constant war with various spooks and even parts of the human condition. The Federal Government interferes with people's individual lives on a daily basis. The states are almost powerless and have lost all control over the likes of education and their own commerce. The Federal Reserve inflates and deflates the dollar on a whim. The executive has consolidated powers from the other branches and even invented new ones. The idea of a limited, bound government seems like little more then a fleeting dream.

The American people are not without fault in this mess either. We have become complacent in allowing our employees to run rampant. Jefferson himself said that all tyranny needs is for good people to say and do nothing. We the people have become so afraid and so timid that the question of whether the government should do something is no longer asked. Instead we now wonder how much they should do. We no longer look to ourselves or our communities to fix problems because we have become convinced that the only solutions can come from Washington troughs. We are content to give as much liberty as needed to ensure we are safe from failure, or terrorists, or any other boogeyman that the government may create.

It is time for the American people to stand up to the government and take back our liberty. Until that happens, Happy Birthday Mr. Jefferson - and sorry.