On New Year's Day of 1863, the first Republican Party President, Abraham Lincoln, with the stroke of his pen signed the historic Emancipation Proclamation. Only someone totally devoid of an education does not know how that document changed the course of history for an entire race of people, an entire nation and an entire culture. In essence, it ended the horrors of slavery. It ended the owning of members of one race by members of another race.

Unfortunately,too many citizens do not recognize the revival of slavery, albeit more refined and less obvious enslavement. And, sadly, today more and more Americans are willing to give up certain freedoms in return for the promise of government largesse. And most of these citizens don't even realize what they're doing, because the news media are failing to perform their role as purveyors of truth and accuracy.

Enslavement will not come with a bang, but with a slow, relentless whimper. Each day, each week, each month, each year brings us closer to a state of de facto slavery as a result of greed disguised as "civil rights."

Ask most Americans and they will tell you that food, clothing, shelter and other necessities are "rights." Surely, they are necessities, but they are not rights that need to be provided by an omnipotent government.

And even when warranted, government charity has a way of morphing into government nightmares.

For example, part of President Lyndon Baines Johnson's "Great Society" poured billions of taxpayer dollars into a program that did more damage to the American family than any other handout. While the government paid women who bore children a monthly allowance based on the number of children in the household, it did not understand that the way the program's requirements were structured, millions of men left the home and in fact decided that the need for marriage was trumped by the need -- or desire -- for "free" money. Continued...