Self-government or tyranny?

This comes a little bit late for the 4th of July but we don't have to celebrate the great ideas of this country founding on just one day a year!

I've been reading the Declaration of Independence and find it to be a wise historical explanation on the state of human nature. Take this quote for instance:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

What are "light and transient causes" concerning Governments? They are quickly passing things that have little effect on the personal welfare of recipients. What does this welfare include?

In this document, welfare is simply "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" protected by Governments "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" for the ultimate purpose that "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Reading farther on in the document will evince the "long train of abuses" that the crown of England had placed upon the people of the Americas.

In truth, the document was written to espouse the virtues of self-government over that of tyranny. Why else would the government get its power only from the consent of the governed? The Declaration was written to declare that man had a right to be free from government that did not warrant continued existence because it no longer protected one's opportunity to advance through one's own hard work.

We live in a day though where people vote themselves benefits by burdening the backs of others. The taxpayer is forced to work harder to subsidize the livelihoods of those who don't work. We have allowed some to take power over us that, in order to administer their own pursuit of "happiness," they whittle away at that same right for us. We should be goal-oriented creatures that strive to work for what we need and desire. That is our right. It is not the Government mandated "right" to education, health care, retirement, and such. There is much to be said for earning that which is of value.

Tocqueville said of such a Government that it is a "tutelary power" that is "absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle." It would duplicate the "paternal power" that would "prepare men for manhood" but instead will "keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood" in that it bestows "their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs…"

Ultimately, a good government is given to protect the legitimate accumulation of wealth and private property through hard work; not the taking away of such to provide for those who vote themselves benefits without any of the necessary responsibility. Thus, our choices are clear: Will we suffer ourselves to greater increments of dispossession or will we fade slowly into the imposed slavery of a state that promises security at the expense of liberty?

Professor Paul Anthony Rahe defines our worth by saying that, "Human dignity is bound up with taking responsibility for conducting one’s own affairs." He states, "We can be what once we were, or we can settle for a gradual, gentle descent into servitude." Let us choose responsibility and strive to change institutions whose causes are not so "light and transitory" in our lives.