UNCLE BEN KNEW IT THEN

Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

 Later he said:

 “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

 Those two quotes about sum it up.

 Happy 237th birthday America. Ben would never recognize you, but he would have a certain perverse satisfaction in knowing just how right he was.

 Those on the left condemn corporations because of “corporate greed,” and yet that very greed of the populace, encouraged by all politicians and uber-encouraged by the left, that is altering our country forever.

 President Obama said he was going to “fundamentally transform this country.” He is not alone in transforming the country, he is just the first one to say it out loud and the one who, from what little he has let us know of his past, had profound transformation (Capitalism to… well… not capitalism) as a plan from the beginning. I believe the previous administrations took us blindly down the path of transformation to enhance their personal power with minimal concern over the desires and counsel of the founding fathers.

 The US is a very extraordinary Nation. It evolved out of the mistakes made in other societies. It evolved from those societies who suppressed individual freedoms and encouraged the power of the state. Human nature dictated the state suppressing an individual’s quest for freedom would not work in the long run. Our founding fathers knew that basic truth and wrote a document designed to insure a country where individual freedom had priority over the state, but they, at least Benjamin Franklin, also understood the dark, greedy side of human nature would eventually have its day, and that day is now, when we would slither back to that from which we came.

 The country our grandchildren will be celebrating on future July 4ths will be different. If you’re a conservative it will be bad different; if you’re a liberal it will be good different, but it will be different.