The Fourth of July Is a Celebration of Freedom—From Government

The belief that limited government best protects individual rights turned out to be America’s secret sauce.

Friday is the Fourth of July.

What will you celebrate?

Freedom from the English monarchy?

To me, the Fourth is about freedom, period.

When the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they put forth a radical idea: Rights don't come from kings or presidents. They come from being human.

Government's job is to protect those rights.

This idea, a limited government that protects individual rights, turned out to be America's secret sauce.

It made us a freer and richer country than any other in history.

Although the Founders didn't get it all right.

We had slavery, Alien and Sedition Acts, the Indian Removal Act, Prohibition, the Patriot Act.

But the framework the Founders set contained tools to fix our wrongs. Americans can speak freely, protest, and change bad laws.

Today "democratic socialism" is popular with young people. They appear ready to make one of their own the next mayor of New York City.

Why? How can they be so ignorant?

Look around the world. Where would they prefer to live?

The Cato Institute's Human Freedom Index ranks countries by how well they respect individual freedom. Switzerland, New Zealand, and Denmark are ranked at the top. The U.S. ranks 17th. All the high-ranking countries are pretty good places to live. In those countries, people prosper.

That means we know what works! Our founders found the formula. Predictable rule of law, plus individual freedom.

When government is limited, people are free to try better things.

The Wright brothers didn't invent a plane because Congress issued a grant. Elon Musk doesn't build reusable rockets because bureaucrats tell him to (in fact, they get in the way).

Most good things happen when government leaves people alone.

New York City's likely new mayor wants "city-owned grocery stores" that he claims "will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers."

College-educated voters believe this stuff! Even though every time that's been tried, it failed. Government stores gave you long lines, low quality products, and shortages.

By contrast, supermarkets run by greedy capitalists are often open 24/7. They are well lit, have wide aisles, and offer amazingly cheap prices. The quality of what they sell is mostly good.

That's the free market.

Democratic socialists also say government should give you free college, health care, debt forgiveness. Sounds great.

But "free" just means someone else must pay for it.

In addition, "free" means less freedom because politicians decide who gets what. The more government decides, the less you decide.

Whenever government grows, freedom shrinks.

It's one reason I'm upset that Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" is said to increase the federal deficit by about $3.3 trillion.

That will allow government to get even bigger.

It's up to us to remind our kids and neighbors why this country works when others failed.

It's not the flag, the fireworks, or the politicians. It's not handouts from government.

It's the freedom to be left alone. To try things, and try again. It's the courage to say "no" when someone with a badge or a fancy hat tells you how to live.

What really sets America apart is what the Declaration of Independence says plainly: "All men are created equal…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

"We the People" as is written in the Constitution set limits on government that no bureaucrat should be able to take away.

Preserving liberty takes constant vigilance because there's always a smooth-talking politician promising us something for nothing—if we just hand over a little more of our freedom.

This weekend, as you watch the rockets glare and bombs bursting in air, consider the fireworks a reminder that freedom isn't granted by government. It's something that must be protected from government.

That's what the Fourth of July means to me: the idea that we are free to shape our own lives.

When people have that freedom, amazing things happen.

Happy Independence Day.

COPYRIGHT 2025 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Comments

[sarcasmic]

Do you say “Happy Twenty Fifth of December” on Christmas?

Do you say “Happy Third Thursday in November” on Thanksgiving?

No?

Then why the fuck do you say “Happy Fourth of July” on Independence Day?

[SQRLSY]

"Independence" is a perversive, divisive, and subversive idea, THAT is why! Government Almighty NEEDS you to NEED Government Almighty, and SNOT be "Independent"!

Fair-minded people just KNOW that Government Almighty MUST use tax-tariffs to PROTECT us from affordable, good-quality products built by evil ferriners, and walls and armies of armed goons to PROTECT us from illegal invasive illegal sub-humans! And don't forget, they ARE illegal!

All Hail the Sacred Laws, "citizens"!

[TJJ2000]

Apparently not since Tax-Cuts is what happened.

[SQRLSY]

Trump announces 200% tariff-taxes one day, tanks the stock markets, and dials shit back to a "mere" 50% a few days later... Is THAT twat ye call "tax cuts"?

And just WHERE in the USA cunts-tits-tuition is taxing power given to the POTUS-DickTator, anyway?

[sarcasmic]

TJ doesn't understand that tariffs are taxes on him when he buys imports or things made from imports. He thinks that foreigners pay the taxes, not consumers. He thinks that trade deficits drive budget deficits. He thinks that economics is stupid and leftist. He's a hopeless moron.

[TJJ2000]

Building that imaginary straw-man you can attack again I see.
Not a single "he thinks" in that list of made-up BS is true.

Course your TDS requires that doesn't it. You can't admit Trump did Tax-Cuts so you have to LIE and make-up BS to ?justify? your WHO, not WHAT hatred.

[SQRLSY]

A simple question for you:

Are tariff-taxes higher or lower, right now, in the USA, since TrumptatorShit Regime Number 2 took orifice?

[TJJ2000]

Cute trick playing the "tariff-taxes" game.
Being that Tariffs are more than before while taxes are less.
Although I'd predict Tax costs are STILL more than Tariffs.

Let's do a non-deceitful question.
Does it cost more or less to ship 1/2 way around the world than it does next door?
What kind of BS can you drum-up to explain that phenomenon.

[minus the clever name]

Because that is all it celebrates, the date of the Independence, an ongoing result. Else every morning we would have to say "happy independence day"

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Probably the last repeat this year. I really like it.

A poem by Howard Nemerov

Because I am drunk, this Independence Night,
I watch the fireworks from far away,
from a high hill, across the moony green
Of lakes and other hills to the town harbor,
Where stately illuminations are flung aloft,
One light shattering in a hundred lights
Minute by minute. The reason I am crying,
Aside from only being country drunk,
That is, may be that I have just remembered
The sparklers, rockets, roman candles and
so on, we used to be allowed to buy
When I was a boy, and set off by ourselves
At some peril to life and property.
Our freedom to abuse our freedom thus
Has since, I understand, been remedied
By legislation. Now the authorities
Arrange a perfectly safe public display
To be watched at a distance; and now also
The contribution of all the taxpayers
Together makes a more spectacular
Result than any could achieve alone
(A few pale pinwheels, or a firecracker
Fused at the dog's tail). It is, indeed, splendid:
Showers of roses in the sky, fountains
Of emeralds, and those profusely scattered zircons
Falling and falling, flowering as they fall
And followed distantly by a noise of thunder.
My eyes are half-afloat in happy tears.
God bless our Nation on a night like this,
And bless the careful and secure officials
Who celebrate our independence now.

[MWAocdoc]

I was not going to comment on this the first time I saw it, it's a great poem (and I'm not a great fan of poetry by and large) and I agree with the sentiment expressed. But I feel compelled to point out that a major theme is the right to blow your hand off, get too drunk to remain responsible, and torture puppies. It does not give you the right to demand that I save what's left of your hand and support your miserable one-handed life thereafter.

[AT]

Rights don't come from kings or presidents. They come from being human.

And where do humans come from? To Whom do we truly owe thanks not just for our rights, but our entire existence? Stossel gets it (despite being a protestant and/or agnostic). Why don't the rest of you?

What really sets America apart is what the Declaration of Independence says plainly: "All men are created equal…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

Are we but random cosmic motes that randomly happened upon sentience and then arbitrarily declared that our rights derive from our species because it conveniently suited us to do so?

We are NOT. We are intelligently designed creatures of complexity beyond comprehension, made in the image of God, born to inherit an Earth also beyond comprehension, but still master of all its creatures and bounties.

As you enjoy your Independence Day, make sure you show proper respect and gratitude to He that made it possible for you - and to those He sent with His message across millennia, including every single Founding Father, to help you understand it.

The more you spit in its face - yea, I'm talking to you Reason - the more it becomes so brazenly obvious that you don't care about freedom, independence, autonomy, or anything else. Libertarianism is not anarchy, nor can it suffer an iota of Marxism. If you can't temper liberty with morality -specifically Christian morality - THEN YOU ARE NOT A LIBERTARIAN. Plain and simple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAU2TgfZAcc

[SQRLSY]

"...but still master of all its creatures and bounties."

In the PervFected Eyes of AT the AuthorShitarian TotalShitarian, AT (and POSSIBLY other, lesser MAGA-maggots), and Trump, are the God-Appointed-and-Anointed Masters of the lesser creatures, which MUST be kept in their places! These moist certainly include the illegal sub-humans, and the ferriners, who need to be PUNISHED-PUNISHED-PUNISHED, SEVERELY, by, um, yeah! By tariff-taxing the Good Americans and MAGA-maggots!

Sad to say, us lesser beings, the NON-MAGA-maggots, ALSO get tariff-taxed, whether we like shit, or snot! No freedom or independence to be had there!

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Please keep your superstitions to yourself; I don't share them.

[AT]

You should.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

You should learn that you are still shackeled to a superstition and not brag about it.

[AT]

Why wouldn't I brag about it? I love God. That's the ultimate Declaration of Independence. And meaning. And even purpose if you get right down to it.

The fact that you don't understand how truly liberating that is? How libertarianism is embracing the whole of existence - both knowable and unknowable, controllable and uncontrollable; rather than arrogantly holding on to this childish (and anti-libertarian) notion that you're the master and architect of your own reality?

You may have loved, but never fully appreciated this amazing scene in cinema. (And if you really want your mind popped, understand that Henry, who had devoted his life to finding it, only made that statement after coming into literal contact with God.)

I guess you're content with just being some random animal with a short and pointless existence, comforted by the walls and darkness of your own ignorance instead of opening yourself up to the sheer majesty of reality itself.

Bigger universe out there than your freshman year solipsism, Sevo. Bigger than you can possibly imagine.

[sarcasmic]

Interesting shpeel from a guy who will defend any murder as long as it’s done in the name of government. Looks to me like you don’t worship God. You worship violence.

[AT]

https://i.imgflip.com/9exnzz.jpg

[5.56]

That your most recent selfie? Reading your schizo, talk to god nonsense, that wouldn't surprise me.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

"We are NOT. We are intelligently designed creatures of complexity beyond comprehension, made in the image of God, born to inherit an Earth also beyond comprehension, but still master of all its creatures and bounties."

Is that why we share more than 90% of our DNA with worms? Are worms 90% of the image of god? Are worms 90% intelligently designed?

BTW, just because the universe is beyond YOUR comprehension just not mean that the rest of us can't figure it out.

[AT]

Are worms 90% intelligently designed?

Yes.

BTW, just because the universe is beyond YOUR comprehension just not mean that the rest of us can't figure it out.

And yet you don't have even the slightest grasp on ANY of it. You've got a handle on the immediate, perhaps - but it's sheer hubris to think that what you do know is even comparable to what you don't.

Y'all libertarians are drug addicts that don't shower or do your laundry, right? Did you know that we don't understand the anesthetic quality of drugs at all? Don't get me wrong - we know that if we inject ourselves with this, or smoke that, it'll cause a certain kind of reaction - but did you know that even top anesthesiologists don't have the slightest clue why? We have a general idea, sure - and we can even make it sound intelligent by talking about neuroscience and neuron receptors and maybe even path out how an anesthetic makes its way through the circulatory system to the brain and then suppresses/diminishes various parts - but at best we understand it as anesthetic clouding.

What we can't do, due to our lack of understanding, interestingly, is specifically target neurons in any controllable/repeatable way. Our use of anesthetics is, in layman's term, a shotgun blast. But we can't do precision sniping with it at all. Doesn't mean we never will (DREADDs, for example, is a fascinating subject worth reading up on). And you might argue that's proof that just because it's beyond our comprehension now doesn't mean we won't figure it out eventually.

You know what CAN target neurons in any controllable/repeatable way though? Viruses. And we more or less understand how that works - how that naturally works, I might add - and applying its methodology to anesthetics is something we're indeed curious about, but to date it's still a big 'ol question mark.

Another cool subject in which we've made inroads but is still a blank map - memory. Google "Dunbar's number" sometime. It's a theory, but it's empirically observable to some degree - AND it provides a basis for why society is so much preferable to a state of nature - but what we don't understand is WHY. The leading theory is that the neocortex trades an upper limit on memory for evolutionary advantage. Your brain can only hold so much - and more importantly, reliably process so much - knowledge while still fitting in your skull, in pedestrian terms. (And, something I find fascinating - you ever had the experience of trying to remember something that's "on the tip of your tongue," colloquially? Did you know that it's better for your brain to try and remap that neural pathway organically, rather than have someone fill in the blank for you? The latter can actually harm the pathway and make it harder to remember in the future; whereas remapping it yourself actually strengthens the memory. Neat, right?)

So, despite my long-winded trip down my (admittedly) personal interest in neuroscience used for illustrative examples, and getting back to my point - what you do know vs what you don't - I do believe that anything and everything is arguably knowable. What I don't believe is that you (or me or anyone else) have the capacity TO know it.

Designed by God, but not gods.

And even if we did reach a state of omniscience, it's one we'd have no meaningful control over. We could understand every single physical property of the universe, but we can never make Earth start spinning westward instead of eastward - at least not without killing everyone from the sudden change in inertia (and even if you did it gradually, the impact on the centrifugal force until reaching zero-point would be equally catastrophic).

Point is, we're very intelligent creatures. But our intelligence is eclipsed - and always will be - by the sheer magnitude of God's Creation. Because we are not God, not even when we arrogantly presume a godlike level of knowledge.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

If worshipping magical beings helps you cope with life, go for it.

[AT]

Why do you do that? Why do you denigrate it that way? Why do you simplistically and ignorantly dismiss it out of hand without the slightest thought? What does that bring to your life?

Are you so desperate to prove yourself your own god? Or to prove your own irrelevance?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

And why do YOU do that? Can you consider anything that anyone says without using your biased super-being religious context?

[AT]

I literally just did so with neuroscience. On two different subjects, no less. Guess you didn't read it before slamming that Reply box.

Also, your reply was a deflection. Answer the question. Questions.

(ps. never ceases to amuse me how arrogant humans convinced of their own comprehension, knowledge, and supremacy love to skirt questions that they should have no problem answering if they believed even half of what they're saying.)

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Wow, mystical-magical superstition combined with superiority complex. Good job, buddy.

ps. It never ceases to amaze me how arrogant people can be with their true belief blindness, and ability never to question their core assumptions.

[AT]

Still avoiding the questions.

Ignorance is bliss, right EB? As you pretend to know it all.

[5.56]

Christianity, and religion in general, is slowly dying with the carriers of that disease, and that's really nothing but amazing and wholesome and good. I can't wait to see you schizos gone for good.

[AT]

Christianity, and religion in general, is slowly dying with the carriers of that disease

Actually, it's being replaced with the "spirit of the age" or whatever postmodern garbage people believe in - environmentalism, LGBT pedo, critical theory, etc; again, just arrogant men appointing themselves their own gods that play to their own hedonism and lusts for power over others.

But those silly little pagan cults never last long. The Truth always asserts itself in the end.

[minus the clever name]

Wow, a real huge LOGIC error.

The fact that humans and apes are so different actually means that DNA CANNOT BE the source of the uniqueness.

You assume what you are trying to approve, makes a college teacher chortle. Might show this to my students. [chortle, chortle]

[MWAocdoc]

I'm starting to suspect that you had to surrender yourself to a higher power in order to stay sober. It's the only thing I can think of that would excuse you from accepting your own responsibility to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies. That is the source of our rights, not god and not the king or the president. We only have rights because we insist, as human beings, on having them. Only if we defend those rights at the possible risk of our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor can we keep them! The wisest among us also know that each of us can only keep our rights for ourselves if we defend those rights for everyone else at the same time - regardless of whether we like them, agree with them, or even know them - or not. The fabric of society depends on the assumption that almost all of us believe in that same principle. And it's a very fragile belief indeed. The comments here frequently call my belief in the common defense into question.

[AT]

I'm starting to suspect that you had to surrender yourself to a higher power in order to stay sober.

Nobody "surrenders" themselves to God. They simply reciprocate what He gave them, offering it in kind and in gratitude. The reason it's so popular for drunks is because after they hit rock bottom, and everyone else has given up on them, He's the last one they realize they can turn to who won't turn them away.

I, for one, had an entirely different reason. One that's none of your business. Suffice to say, I was a wayward Catholic for a long time. It's funny though. The minute I stopped rebelling against Him, the easier everything suddenly became. Peace, grace, calm, happiness - I kid you not, it's like it washes over you all at once. Like a figurative baptism (even though I'd already been baptized). I wish I could explain it - the best I can do is to try and dispel the illusion of control, the one thing you think and wish you had but ultimately do not over anyone and anything but yourself - but it's one of those things where you have to be willing to hear the answers first before ever being able to understand and appreciate them.

But feel free to keep trying to poison the well. It reveals how shaky the ground you're standing on.

That is the source of our rights, not god and not the king or the president. We only have rights because we insist, as human beings, on having them.

That's just the whole "I am my own god" thing all over again.

"Why do I have rights? Because I declare I do!" Well, what do you have the right to, and how, and why? And how do you guarantee it? Impose it? Enforce it? Protect it? Defend it? Your answer seems to be mob rule. Collective agreement. A kind of "moral socialism" - despite its oxymoronic nature.

This, incidentally, is also what allows Marxist thought to flourish - when they start deciding they have rights to stuff. Like health care. Or education. Or affordable housing. Or universal basic income. Or diapers. Or broadband internet. Or public transportation. Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or Or literally anything that has to be provided by someone other than themselves.

Do you know how gossamer an insistence that is? How quickly and immediately it's undone by the simple words, "No, you don't" by someone who wields nothing but naked power - force or coercion - over you?

You know the only one in existence who doesn't do that to you?

God.

The wisest among us also know that each of us can only keep our rights for ourselves if we defend those rights for everyone else at the same time

And the even wiser among them know that for all your self-righteous petulance, you can never be guaranteed anything any mortal has to provide. Imagine a sick person who declares their right to health care, and points to the doctor obligated to give it to him. And then imagine someone shoots the doctor. What of your rights then? How do you exercise your "right" with nobody to provide it? And what does that tell you about said, "right"? Imagine a speaker who declares, "I hereby declare my right to free speech," and then someone shoots them in the face.

At the end of the day, your rights are a moral thing. A Constitution is a social contract (and not a suicide pact) with consented-to forces to uphold its guarantees and impose consequences for those who deny you them. But it doesn't magically protect your rights. Were I to murder you right here and now and get away with it scot free, what of your rights?

Your rights don't prevent me from imposing a wrong upon you. A Constitution, at best, dissuades me. But it is only God - the sole arbiter of Right and Wrong - that guarantees your rights. And it's our humility before Him that allows us to understand that. Because it is only He who is truly able to hold us truly accountable in the end. Shoot the doctor, shoot the free speaker, break the social contract - at the end of the day, it's only God who is able to say with absolute authority, "You wronged him, and you were wrong for doing so." All we can impotently do is say, "You broke my rules!"

But they're not our rules. That's what you fail to understand.

"to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them."

The fabric of society depends on the assumption that almost all of us believe in that same principle.

You're absolutely right. Yet, oddly, here you are defying it.

Cue John Adams.

[5.56]

SCHIZOOOO

[5.56]

Repulsive bootlicker

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"The Strength of the Labor Market Suprises, but Weakness Lurks"
https://www.pressreader.com/usa/san-francisco-chronicle-late-edition/20250704/281526527057826

Damn it, Trump has to be killing the economy somehow!

[TJJ2000]

Stossel gets it. He'd sure make a good congressman.

[JohnZ]

Rights? Rights?
You have no rights, you have owners.
"Politicians are put there to give you the illusion that you have a choice. You don't. You have no choice, you have owners. They own you." George Carlin
They own everything now. They own all the best farmland, they own your town and the moron you voted for, they own the House, the Senate, they've got the judges in their back pocket and they own and control the media .
You own nothing that can't be taken away from you. Your home, your car even your children are up for grabs if you displease one of the owner's little apparatchiks.
You vote is a meaningless joke. This country got bought and sold a hundred years ago and the s*** they peddled every four years gives them even more power and ownership.
Soon you will be eating bugs and Bill Gates fake poisonous meat and you will take whatever shot they give you or else.
meanwhile the average America voter stuffs his fat face with garbage while watching some idiots play with a ball.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Victimhood drivel. Stuff it.

[JohnZ]

"There are none so enslaved than those who believe they are free."
Go ahead and dispute or try to dispute everything I wrote. Everything I wrote is true at some level.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"There are none so enslaved than those who believe they are free."

Bumper sticker philosophy; internally inconsistent besides. Get a sandwich board and stand on a corner. We can all use a laugh now and then.

[minus the clever name]

Well there are two fallacies in that dumb statement "Everything I wrote is true at some level."

first that must mean it is false at some level
second it must mean that it is not true at the most obvious level, so why would anyone even think to find a leval at which it is true.

You are a silly person. Bye

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

OLIGARCHZZZZ!!!!

[JohnZ]

You obviously aren't paying attention. You can go back to sleep now.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Sorry, I don't do woke, no matter what flavor. I also don't do tinfoil hats.

[MWAocdoc]

I keep trying to convince myself that the forty million armed and trained Americans comprising the Unorganized Militia (yes, including those over age forty-five) have simply not yet been pushed far enough to become organized, stand-offs in recent western states notwithstanding. I still believe that if push comes to shove, the standing military and active reserves mostly would not follow orders to attack their own families. Otherwise I would abandon hope.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'The belief that limited government best protects individual rights turned out to be America’s secret sauce.'

But that secret sauce is kryptonite to socialists (or should be). And therefore needs to be banned. By, of course, an expanding government.

[Uncle Jay]

"The Fourth of July Is a Celebration of Freedom—From Government."

The democrats and republicans in the District of Corruption vehemently disagree.

[SQRLSY]

District of Corruption, OK, that gets you a chuckle! And yes, shit ***IS*** bipartisan!!! Kudos!

PS, sad to say, if real libertarians took power, I'd give you 10, maybe 20 years at best, and they'd be doing similar shit, too! Power corrupts! Except for MEEEEE!!!! (So give MEEEE the Power!!!)

[Rick James]

Kind of. It's a celebration of Brexit 1.0