Taking Ownership

First the Obama Administration told us that if we own a business we did not build it--somebody else did that for us.  SeeThe Government Giveth and the Government Taketh Away  for more info. Now this week, the DNC wants us to know that we belong to the government.  In a highly circulated video aired at the convention this week, a narrator tells us that "government is the only thing that we all belong to."  He goes on to explain that we have various religions and clubs, but all of us belong to the government and that is what unites us as Americans.

See the video here:

After the video began receiving a lot of negative feedback, the Obama Campaign began immediate damage control insisting that they had nothing to do with the video.  Regardless of their protestations of innocence, however, the fact remains that the video aired as part of the DNC convention in Charlotte.

This "Property of Uncle Sam" mentality is a huge part of what is wrong with our country today. The current administration apparently believes that they have a right to take over property, water rights, healthcare, and all other aspects of American life.  And now we know why--we belong to the government, first and foremost so whatever we have they by rights own since they own us.  To identify ourselves as belonging to the government is to deny individual freedom and individual rights.  It is a dangerous theory of the relationship between the state and the people that can only end in totalitarianism.

In the Gettysburg address, Lincoln spoke eloquently of government by the people, for the people, of the people--not people by, of and for the government.  In the next 60 days, our country gets to make a decision about what kind of a country we want to be--a country in which the government owns the people, controls all of our property and micromanages our lives, or a country in which we own the government and are willing to take responsibility for firing unresponsive politicians and replacing them with elected officials who understand that at the end of the day they answer to us.  It is a decision that will affect the future of our nation for generations.  May we all choose wisely.

Alexandra Swann is the author of No Regrets: How Homeschooling Earned me a Master's Degree at Age Sixteen and several other books. Her newest novel, The Planner, about an out-of-control, environmentally-driven federal government, was released June 28, 2012. For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net