President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862. It was “short and beautiful” giving plots of 160 acre land in the west to anyone with the backbone to live and work on it. These plots were given regardless of who they were or who they would vote for in the next election. They were entrusted with freedom to govern themselves as they developed the property and assumed personal responsibility in being productive land owners. This impartial act of legislation built America and the character of the people who spread across it, leading to unprecedented growth.
How different from legislation today. The health care bill recently passed forces us to purchase government mandated insurance and anything different will be considered illegal. This is bullying the American people. We are being seen not as equals to the legislators, capable of caring for ourselves but as something to be shaped and perfected by the experts – by our government who see themselves as knowing better than ourselves. This attitude has been in the schools for about 100 years, based on Woodrow Wilson’s progressivism that the Declaration of Independence is obsolete and we need to be liberated from it. Today we are being governed by a President and Congress that considers the Constitution obsolete, a “living” document requiring constant change depending on our times. They do not believe there is an absolute truth and in the absence of absolute truth, ”good” is subject to the ideas of this President and his party.
(comments based on article in Imprimis, December 2009)
