Our Founding Fathers also understood the inseparable relationship between personal finances and personal freedom. They created a framework for government that reflected their belief that the ability of individuals to determine how to use their own earnings is directly linked to the ability to pursue happiness. They designed a system in which the purpose of taxation was to fund the smallest government possible to meet the charge of protecting the citizenry and their God-given freedom. The idea of taking what belongs to one and giving it to another – of "redistributing income," in modern parlance – they considered immoral. For them, the purpose of taxation was, and still is, to protect freedom.
They understood the importance of free-market competition, too. They even threw a pretty lively tea party in Boston to make their point that government-mandated suppliers of anything would not be tolerated.
And they knew how crucial it was to properly define the role of property in the new nation they were creating. For the ability to own private property, to benefit from the sweat and toil of one's own hands, to pursue the needs and dreams of one's own families, and to determine how to provide charity to others, are essential elements of a free nation.
The Founders knew that if government denied any of these first principles, both individuals and the nation as a whole would suffer – and they were willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to establish them for generations to come.
We need only take a quick survey of our nation's homes to see how modern American government has trampled the divine vision given the first Americans – and crippled our families as a result: Couples are penalized by taxes when they choose to marry; mothers who want to raise their own children feel forced to leave the home to make ends meet, only to see more and more of every dollar they earn going to feed the insatiable appetite of the tax beast; everything we own or buy is taxed numerous times; regulations determine what we can and cannot do with our own property; and even much of the inheritance we work so hard to leave our children upon our deaths is swallowed up by the government pet pig.
Men who would bravely fight a thief who entered their home in the dark of night complacently allow politicians to steal their earnings. Citizens who insist on choices in cars, clothes and salad dressing tune out huge new government programs that mandate – at taxpayer expense – specific services with the government as supplier. Fathers and mothers who toil and sacrifice and save for their children's future yawn and choose to watch fabricated "reality TV," ignoring the true reality that government is out of control, and the first one forced off the island in this "Survivor" series is liberty.
It's time to demand less from government, not more.
A great way to start is to pick up the phone and call your congressmen and senators while they are home over the holidays and suggest they have roast pork for Christmas. Tell them you've had enough of the spending, enough of the regulations, enough of the waste. Your Founding Fathers would be proud of you.