Freedom

Colson: The Desire for Freedom, It’s Written on Our Hearts

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson

by Chuck Colson –

What’s happening in the Middle East is one of the most volatile international situations since 9/11. Will the government win? Will radical Islamists highjack what might be a nascent democratic movement? Nobody knows.

But one thing should be very clear to anybody who is paying close attention—especially to Christians: People everywhere, we see it in the streets, are yearning to be free. And they yearn to be free precisely because every man, woman, and child, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or otherwise, is made in the image of God.

We know, as Augustine taught, that God, who has a free will, bestowed upon us the gift of free will. The desire for freedom—the freedom to choose right from wrong, the freedom to order our lives—is imprinted in our very DNA.

This is what the biblical worldview teaches us. And that is why tyrannical governments can put a lid on freedom for only so long. Inevitably that human desire for freedom will boil over—just like it is doing in the streets of Cairo today. [Read more…]

Why the Constitution is Better Than Marx

Constitution Better Than Marx by James Lewis –

George Orwell said that the first duty of decent people was to say the obvious. So here it is for today.

The United States Constitution enshrines a far greater political philosophy than anything Karl Marx ever dreamed of in his totalitarian ideology.

In 1787, the Constitution proclaimed a political philosophy that has led to greater well-being and happiness for more people over more centuries than anything Europe’s totalitarians ever did. But precisely because the Constitution limits the greed of the power-hungry, it is always under assault. Every generation needs to understand that because human nature has not changed since 1800. Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler are alive somewhere today, because greed for absolute power is part of human nature. Look at the absolute dictators around the world; they are no different. If we are not the brainwashed followers of a Napoleon or Hitler, it is only because our minds have not been dominated by some totalitarian ideology. That is what at stake today, just as it is in every generation. [Read more…]

Capitalism’s Gift of Peace

Capitalism Gift of Peace Dove12/15/2010 – J.T. Young –

The Korean peninsula demonstrates the fundamental differences between free and fettered markets. As always, there are the free market’s obvious attributes of prosperity and democracy. However as recent events have shown, peace should not be overlooked. And just as importantly, neither should its proper attribution to a free market.

In one relatively small section of the world, the stark differences between the world’s most important dichotomy is clearly visible. In South Korea, a capitalist market, open society, and democracy exist. In North Korea, a closed market, closed society, and totalitarian regime exist. You also have a stark distinction between peace and war.

Perhaps capitalism’s most overlooked attribute is peace. Virtually all conflicts of the last century have been initiated by fettered market, authoritarian states. Often the world’s armed conflicts have been between two such regimes. Contrastingly, military conflicts have almost never pitted two capitalist, democratic nations against one another. [Read more…]

Why Do the Poor Stay Poor?

12/9/2010 – John Stossel –
Prosperity is impossible without property rights.

Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don’t build businesses, or if they do, they don’t expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe, and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don’t lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? What’s the difference between them and us? Hernando de Soto taught me that the biggest difference may be property rights.

I first met de Soto maybe 15 years ago. It was at one of those lunches where people sit around wondering how to end poverty. I go to these things because it bugs me that much of the world hasn’t yet figured out what gave us Americans the power to prosper. [Read more…]

American Freedom and Religious Morality

American Freedom and Religious Morality12/5/2010 – Andie Brownlow –

Liberals and conservatives both believe that as Americans, we should be moral people. The major difference is where their morality intersects with their politics. Most conservatives believe that our morality should come from religion, separate from government. Most progressives incorporate moral guidance as a function of government.

The humanistic tendencies of the political left assume that morality can be governed by state laws and dismiss religion as an origin and arbiter of moral law. Therefore, government must become a humanist’s ultimate authority to address and regulate human nature. [Read more…]

Liberals and the Coming Redistribution of Fault

Leftism Failure12/2/2010 – J. Robert Smith –
It’s coming. Expect it. Liberals blaming everyone and everything but themselves for the nation’s continuing economic crisis. And the mounting crisis of government. It’s already begun, in fact, over at U.S. News and World Report, where Mortimer B. Zuckerman dusts off Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West to mull over the notion that the West — including the United States — may be reaching the end of the line.

Let’s congratulate Zuckerman for pointing the way in the coming attempt to foist blame on Western civilization for what is, essentially, a failure of leftism. [Read more…]

The Immorality of Class Warfare

11/27/2010 – Henry Oliner –
Listening to the declarations of class warfare by congressmen who demonize wealth and the wealthy, I am reminded of these stories of the moral hypocrisy displayed by those who demand without respect. They require more and more, yet they blame these subjects for any setbacks caused by said subjects’ imperfections or unwillingness to bend to the will of those who scorn them. [Read more…]

The Power of Negative Thinking

11/12/2010 – John Kelly –
Simply put, progressives feel that life isn’t fair. True enough, but there are endless other things that life isn’t as well. Life isn’t carefree, simple, eternal, digitally organized, or purple-green plaid. Yet we live. Most people can accept life’s troubles and have come to love life, as it is, including its frightful beauty. Yet for others, life’s summary judgment comes up negative, so they seek to force a remedy.

Life’s seeming unfairness is felt by young children who are only just sensing its deep, oceanic nature: If only mommy and daddy could always be here to hold me up. If only things weren’t so hard… [Read more…]

Why Has Communism Failed?

Anti-Communism_01_150x150 10/29/2010 – Ileana Johnson –
The last three years have been quite scary for me as I relived many things that I thought I left behind in communist Romania when I decided to immigrate to the United States in 1978.

I have deja vus every day. I wake up wondering what freedoms have I lost today completely, have been curtailed, or are in the process of being curtailed through laws that none of the Congressmen who voted for them have read. How much closer am I today to living in a totalitarian society?

I wondered to myself, “What happened to the separation of powers” and to the famous American “checks and balances?” What happened to the rule of law and equal under the law that Americans were so famous for? People shrug their shoulders, give me puzzled looks and cannot answer my questions. Everybody is putting their hopes on November’s mid-term election and its outcome. What if the election does not turn the way we hope it will? What then? Are we going to be content to live under communism? International law? One world government? [Read more…]

Socialism and Reality

10/25/2010 – Steve McCann –
The images on the television screen emanating from Europe are a sobering reminder that socialism has failed wherever it has been tried and will always do so despite the best efforts of the die-hard true believers. The riots in the streets of France and Greece, the announced layoffs of nearly 500,000 government employees in the United Kingdom, and the potential national bankruptcy of Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Portugal are the current face of this failure.

Yet within the halls of power in Washington, D.C. there is a socialist/progressive cabal, and its titular leader Barack Obama, oblivious to this reality. These ideologues continue to cling to the belief that they have a unique ability to succeed where so many others have failed. The egocentric American Left know no bounds, and their determination to impose their will upon the United States has not and will not abate despite the results of any election. [Read more…]