Life, Liberty and Property

No other economic system has brought more people out of poverty, provided for the health and well-being of millions and raised the standard of living more societies than capitalism. When people cooperate to fulfill their own self interest, they all benefit.

Capitalism and freedom are inextricably linked. When the Declaration of Independence was first drafted it read "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and Property."

This was changed later to read "pursuit of happiness" because the Founders did not want the document to be perceived to support slavery. But the first draft read 'property'. Why?

The concept of property, and private property rights are indispensable to freedom and liberty. They are also indispensable to capitalism. Realize first that the term property includes much more than the material items we buy, store or make. Property also includes our thoughts, actions, education and experience and labor. Our voices, spirituality and even our lives are also our property. What we do with our property, how we employ it to better our lives and take care of our families ought to be completely up to us. Government was created, and its only function should be to protect our property and our right to employ, or not to employ them as we see fit.

The Declaration of Independence listed those three specific rights, and then the very next line explained the function of government: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men”. Then, in the US Constitution, the government created specifically to secure our rights is strictly limited in its power, lest the government created by the governed become too powerful. Also, to further restrict the power of government and to secure our rights and property, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution before the states would ratify it.

So, our God-given rights are also our property and government exists to secure these rights and the Constitution exists to protect us from government. The freedom assured to the people in such an arrangement naturally leads to capitalism. It is this system, a Federal government with strictly limited powers and a populace with the freedom to employ their property as they wish, allowed the United States to rise from a small, backward agrarian society to become a world power in less than a century.

It is this legal respect for personal property that allowed great innovation, invention and industry to flourish. It is the mobility that was granted to our people by our freedoms that allowed the country to grow and our people to prosper. The extension of the concept of property to include our ideas that allowed the Wright Brothers to invent the first powered aircraft. It allowed the Thomas Edisons, Henry Fords and the Steve Jobs of our country to patent and protect their ideas, grow companies and provide incomes and livelihoods to an untold millions of people. I’ve seen the other side. In my time in the Army, I’ve served both in Germany and in South Korea. I’ve seen what communism looks like staring back from across Europe's Iron Curtain and the DMZ. I’ve seen the misery and poverty that comes from a centrally planned economy where personal property rights don’t exist and liberty is unknown. The walls that I guarded wearing the uniform of freedom were not constructed by us to keep the forces of communism out. Those walls were built by the forces of communism to hold their own people in.

For once you strip the people of their liberty, their freedom and their property, in all its forms, you’ve stripped them of their individuality. They no longer exist for themselves, they no longer have any worth except to fill some role that betters the State. They are more like workers in an ant hill with no individual rights, no personal property, no way to improve their lives for all property and all means of production belong to the queen.

But, now, our Constitution and the concept of property are under attack. We have a president that is alienating those that create. He, and his allies on the Left, are making enemies of those that innovate, build and dream. He is espousing a philosophy that states that in order for anyone to get ahead, we have to pull the successful among us down. Somehow he is trying to convince us that by taking money from some of our citizens and giving that money to the government, that the poor among us will be better off. The truth is that all that will happen is that all of us become poorer.

This rhetoric is designed to simultaneously group us into the “masses” and divide us into groups. It has been called “class warfare” but it goes much deeper. The term “fairness” is used over and over to espouse a false argument that there should be an equality in outcome, that we should all be the same, that some having more is somehow unfair to those that have less. In capitalism, wealth can be created exponentially through innovation, invention and starting a small business, hiring people and becoming a large business. Having wealth and creating wealth is not dependent upon seizing the wealth from others. Now we are being told that we can achieve equality, and “fairness” only by seizing the wealth of others and to give it to those that do not contribute.

We must recognize that if we stand idly by and by our inaction, allow the government to seize the property of some of our citizens under the false premise that it benefits us all, we all lose. For once a freedom is lost, once we surrender a liberty, it will not come back. We must recognize that the government is not only trying to convince us they are only seeking to achieve "fairness" and only they can best determine what that means and they will take, by force, the property from some of our citizens for those ends. How is it, in the words of Mark Levine, that we are wise enough to choose our leaders, but not our lightbulbs? This entire concept turns our founding on its head and the government has become supreme. The people have surrendered their Liberty.

Capitalism, and the concept of private property, has proven that one can employ their property: their ideas, labor, capital, experience, education, hard work, spirituality, time and dreams and put them to work to advance their well-being, raise a family, and leave this a better country, a better world for your children than how you inherited it. We are close to losing this America. We are close to losing our freedoms. We have a government now that does not respect personal property and believes it can choose better how you should employ your property. For every new power the government gains, it must necessarily take a like amount of freedom from us.

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Comments

  • The Oblamma regime in dc is AGAINST everything that the above says and stands for.  Their illegal muslimbroleader believes in "Taking away ALL LIBERTIES, oppressing "life", crippling pursuit of happiness with the destruction of the economic system that enables people, with perservering and hard work, will in all probablility SUCCEED!  What happened?  The economy has been flatlined, more below poverty since the great depression. Thank you, insane/hussian.

  • Thank you everyone for your comments and support.

    When I get to Washington, I will fight everyday to restore this representative republic and the restoration of our basic rights.  Private property rights are essential for Liberty.  I believe government exists for one reason - to protect our rights through the Constitution.  The Federal government has 18 enumerated powers that it holds sway over.  Everything else is left to the states or to We the People. That is what my campaign is about.

  • Mr. Gilbert, Life and Liberty are dictated by BIG Government. As far as Property, it really isn't our own:

    that came about by the Central Bank and removal of the gold standard. It's all explained in the book:

    "They OWN IT ALL" ( R.MacDonald, R, Rowen, M.D. 2009 ). 

  •    For the time being we have still got life , a highly abridged sense of liberty and NO private property rights ,  If you think you have private property rights , try not paying taxes on it and you will find the true owners , and it won't be you . Or try using said property for something the zoning gods don't approve of and you will see who owns it , and it won't be you .   Pursuit of happiness ?  certainly not if what makes you happy doesn't make your neighbor happy as well , one complaint and YOU are the bad guy .

  • Did I miss something?  Is it now not 'property' or is it 'pursuit of happiness'?   If it is not property anymore, then the entire article here is just dust in the wind.  If 'property' is left out then I can see why the government has a free hand at our possessions, like eminent domain, EPA, gun confiscations, etc.

    Since owning slaves is no longer possible, then the word 'property' should be placed back into the Bill of Rights. --- Life, liberty, Property, and the pursuit of happiness.---

     

  • Dear chester combs,  I could not have said more plainly, more accurately, more succinctly, and more organized than you have.  Bravo, sir!  ( I am a classical musician.  Bravo is only extended to the very best!).  Another gentleman mentioned several maneuvers with which I did not fully agree.  But he did say one excellent suggestion: to form a committee within the TP Patriots that will select QUALIFIED Tea Party individuals who will run for federal offices presently filled by Dummycrats and RINOs, announce who they TP candidates are and seek our comments on them and then our support, including our financial support.  I enjoyed your writing, sir!

    chester combs's Page
    chester combs's Page on Tea Party Command Center
  • Great article. To Mr. Briggs - you are correct. Inactivity is detrimental to this country. The liberal,communist & academics have been working their plan for years while the conservatives took a lackadaisical attitude after the Reagan years. The RINO's are complacent& content on waiting for a miracle. Thank GOD for true conservatives & the tea party. 2014 is our next chance for change. We must defeat Baynor-Canfor-Maclain-Grayham-Borr & others like them. America can not exist if the RINO's are complacent & afraid to stand up to the communist-anarchist liberals in the democratic party. Make impeachment the buzzword of this coming year. Call your congressmen demand an impeachment for our communist-muslim prez. Demand congress hold valid worthwhile hearings on the IRS, NSA, FBI, EPA & other corrupt organizations in our government. Find & run candidates from among the tea party ranks & help them get elected. Target the districts & states where the RINO's are entrenched. Target Baynor & Canfor. We opposed Benedict Arnold & Eric Snowden. Add Baynor & Canfor to that list. They must be replaced. Stand up for America in 2014 - but start now

  • Christina, did you know that there are at least two synonyms for your name?  They are:

    AWESOME

    COMMUNICATIVE

    You could be in my army any day!

  • Stop the armchair opinionating & get into action, people!

  • I'll be there in D.C. for both the protest on the 10th, and to wave in our patriot Bikers on the 11th, and I CAN'T WAIT!  It's about damn time we show up in OUR city and OUR Capitol and be LOUD so that there is no mistaking what we are saying about claiming our Constitution, our Freedom, and making it our Government/of the PEOPLE.

    Let's Roll!

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