Freedom Must be Defended or it Will Die

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We did not pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." Ronald Reagan

"Reasserting Federalism in Defense of Liberty by Ken Cuccinelli (Imprimis a publication of Hillsdale College)

SOME FAVORITE VIRGINIANS OF MINE who inspired and crafted our federal Constitution—Mason, Madison, Jefferson, and Henry—also drafted the Constitution of Virginia. And in the latter, they included a critical statement that said, “No free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved . . . but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

Our founders well understood that our liberty could not be preserved without frequently referring back to first principles. But while they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to defend those principles, we have often taken them for granted, as we have become complacent in thinking that government will take care of every problem.

We have asked government to do more for us, and all the government asks for in return is a little bit more of our liberty. Over the decades, we kept asking. And because the courts and the politicians were all too happy to oblige, regardless of what the Constitution said, we no longer have a federal government of limited powers. We have an overreaching central government—a government that seeks to plan and control virtually every aspect of our lives and our economy, from health care, to energy, to automobile manufacturing, to banking and insurance.

Thankfully, though, in the last several years, people have woken up and are pushing back. With this pushback, we are seeing the idea of federalism reemerge. People want to return to a government of limited, enumerated powers, and an arrangement in which states serve as a check when the federal government oversteps its constitutional bounds...READ THE REST HERE.