Are we still as a people still independent?

As Benjamin Franklin said and our Founders knew, those who trade liberty for safety get neither.
 by John Heckel.

Our Founders did not fight a revolution against tyranny simply to institute a similar government on their own soil. It’s been 237 years since they declared not only their independence but their rejection of a long train of abuses and tyrannies. Reading the Declaration of Independence today I find that their concerns still resonate as government insists that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, and pat down any individual at any time.

As Benjamin Franklin said and our Founders knew, those who trade liberty for safety get neither. This is not simply a Republican versus Democrat issue. It is about people who believe in the Constitution and individual rights versus politicians in both parties who don’t. This isn't about party, but about people who believe in limited government against those who think it is unlimited.

We should heed the Founders’ warning: “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.” Today’s government is one that our Founders warned us about.

[I had this published in the Pensacola News Journal on Independence Day 2013]