Congratulations! The president is a boy; hand out the cigars (whoops, sorry Bill). But then, they've all been boys. However, the story is not very funny. We have people wounded and dying in a country so far removed from the U.S. that when it's day here it's night there. Ours is a story of an evolution from limited government without entangling alliances, to big government with a plethora of treaties and foreign interventions.
George Washington stated in 1789 that, "the duty of the President [is] to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." When offered a royal throne he declined. Unfortunately, Americans nowadays seem to think that the president is the King anyway; whose every move will determine the fate of economic and social life.
Regarding free enterprise and limited government, Jefferson stated, "Let us then with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe … Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned … [we] should not wander from [our principles] in moments of error or of alarm."
These words ring true now as much as they did in 1801. Sound principles of government do not expire like dates on milk cartons; they live eternally through the ages.
Jefferson further admonished, "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, [but] entangling alliances with none." Yet nation-building elected officials have entangled this country in innumerable treaties.
President John Adams stated, "[W]e should [never] lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections … preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry (double-talk), the spirit of party (partisanship), the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments."
President Madison, the Father of our Constitution, stated in regards to our foreign policy, trade, national debt, the people's natural right to protect themselves, and the danger of a permanent military, "To cherish peace and friendly discourse with all nations having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of independence too just to invade the rights of others … to liberate the public resources by an honorable discharge of public debts; to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics - that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe."
The Founders abhorred the politician who promises the most benefits from the public treasury in order to secure his election. However, many modern day politicians are elected as a result of promising things like Social Security and Medicare reform and reduction of taxes.
Upon taking office in 2001, President George W. Bush summed up our nation's direction as follows: "We have a place, all of us, in a long story - a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old … the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer."
Well, let's all hope for the best in the next four years and remember that freedom is not free; we must hold our government officials accountable for their acts and omissions, and as Jefferson stated, "bind them by the chains of the Constitution."
