Freedom is not easy.

Still, that does not explain why so many Americans are so willing to give it away so easily. How can one honestly argue against freedom?

The problem is most people simply don’t understand liberty.

But it is a simple concept once you are willing to accept a couple of precepts. Let’s look at those and then examine how they apply to a few current issues.

First, you must realize that freedom is a gift from Providence, not a political grant from government. In other words, you are born free, or as the Founders so eloquently put it, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

What they are saying here is that you are born a free moral agent. They go on to explain that the only legitimate purpose of government is to secure or protect those same rights.

Which leads to the second precept.

A free human being should be permitted to do whatever he or she wants so long as he or she does not use force or fraud against someone else. In other words, your rights end where mine begin. A better way of looking at this is the golden rule: One should behave toward others as one would want others to behave toward oneself.

And to tie it all together, the third precept is that we cannot get around the first two precepts by the simple act of forming a government. Government is nothing more than the people banding together to exercise their natural, God-given rights in a collective nature.

This makes sense from an efficiency standpoint because if we, as a people, band together to form a government and choose people to perform certain tasks on behalf of the rest, it frees us for other pursuits. Thomas Paine best explains this in his opening chapter of “Common Sense.” All Americans should read this book.

This precept also means that government cannot do anything the people themselves cannot do individually.

How this plays out in today’s political arena is that the left and right often argue over the best way to violate the above three precepts.

For example, in the same-sex marriage debate, the real issue is why must we ask the government’s permission for the right to marry at all. As a free human being, one has the right to marry whomever one wishes. That includes same-sex marriages, plural marriages, group marriages or any other arrangement. From a government perspective, marriages are simply civil contracts and should be treated as such.

Another example is prostitution. Why should two adults not be permitted to enter into a business arrangement in which one pays the other for sex? How is that different from paying someone to mow your lawn, rake your leaves, or pave your driveway?

Why should the government use force to prevent me from smoking marijuana but allow me to drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or eat fast-food, all of which are worse than marijuana? It is no concern of the government what I put into my body.

Still another example is taxation, which is nothing more than government-sanctioned theft, or “legalized plunder,” as that 19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat characterized it in “The Law,” another must-read book for Americans.

When government steals money from one person and gives it to another it violates its only legitimate function, i.e., protecting the rights of citizens to life, liberty and property. Socialistic policies such as wealth redistribution are diametrically opposed to the government’s role as protector of rights.

Nor do the ends justify the means. Providing health care at no cost to every citizen might seem like a laudable goal. But that goal can only be achieved through the legalized plunder of the citizenry. That is akin to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

In a free society, people should be free to burn the flag, video record police officers, carry a concealed handgun without the government’s permission, cross borders without restraint, eat and drink what they want, marry whomever they wish, board an airplane without being groped by a government thug, gamble, drive without a seat belt, ride without a helmet, live free of fear of their government.

As 20th century essayist H.L. Mencken put it: “It is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air — that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.”

Our rights as a free people are under constant attack and the majority do not seem to care. Indeed, many of these things are applauded with the conservatives cheering the social regulations and the liberals giving approbation to the move toward socialism.

There is one right, however, of which government should be wary if it continues along this path. It is a right, nay a duty, that dates back to the first government.

That is the right of revolution.

Even the Founders mentioned it in the Declaration of Independence to justify their actions: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

That may be the sad but inevitable end to our great experiment in self-government.

Founding wing nuts?

“Dear Mr. Lucente: You are a total wing nut.”

Do I really need to read the rest of the letter?

Actually, dear letter writer, I am a libertarian. Or, as I prefer, a classical liberal.

I consider myself a person of at least average intelligence. Still, I will simply never understand those who find the idea of liberty as “crazy” or “outside the mainstream,” and libertarians as “wing nuts.”

Usually such charges come from liberals, especially the radical leftists who have hijacked the Democratic Party in recent years.

And by radical leftists, I am talking about the communists, fascists and socialists, led by the communist-in-chief currently occupying the White House, at least until Jan. 20, who believe that government should take care of our every want, need and desire from the cradle to the grave.

That includes, of course, only those humans who actually are permitted to make it to the cradle. After all, this cradle-to-grave care does not include protecting humans who have not yet, through no fault of their own, left the womb.

Nor should we forget the death panels that will decide when we go to the grave.

If you don’t think government is capable of using abortion or geronticide as a means of controlling the population or balancing the budget, you are extremely naïve. We have plenty of historical examples of just such behavior. And we all know about China’s one-child, forced-abortion policy.

That is the glorious leap forward, dear readers. The liberal promise of a more enlightened future where inconvenient babies and the elderly are killed.

As a classical liberal, I subscribe to one very simple philosophy: People should be left alone to do whatever they want to do only so long as they don’t violate another person’s right to life, liberty or property through force or fraud. Or, in other words, the golden rule that one should behave toward others as one would want others to behave toward oneself.

That’s it. A very simple philosophy.

This is the same philosophy that drove the Founders to take the drastic measure of becoming traitors and taking up arms against their government.

It is the same philosophy behind those great words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is to those words and the cause of liberty that 56 of this country’s greatest citizens signed their names and pledged their lives, fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Yet, to today’s modern liberal, they were simply 56 “wing nuts.”

I will never understand how any thinking person can be opposed to this philosophy. How can any sane person not advocate for the cause of liberty?

That, of course, is a rhetorical question because like those truths that were so self-evident to our forefathers, the answer is somewhat obvious. The majority of Americans are educated by the government. Do you really believe a government that strives to control our lives from cradle to grave is going to educate children to believe that is a bad thing?

Of course not.

The cause of liberty goes against the modern liberal worldview of cradle-to-grave governmental control and the conservative view of controlling our social lives and fighting endless wars.

Besides that, too many Americans lack either the ability or the will to think critically. That can’t seem to understand that for each liberty that is stolen in the name of some other “greater good,” we come closer to losing all our liberties.

Oh, the liberals and the conservatives will prattle about the idea of liberty, but in the end that is nothing but pure puffery for they see the cause of liberty as nothing but poppycock, balderdash and foolery.

Unfortunately, as we continue to travel down the road of European-style socialism, thanks to a mix of communal lethargy and communal ignorance, we should keep in mind a 1787 quotation from Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

Of course, he was just a libertarian wing nut.

Microphone © by liftarn

I will be on the “Talk With Ron Williams” show at 4 p.m. today on WCIT-AM as I am every Thursday.

You can listen on AM 940 in the Lima, Ohio, area or online at http://tho.lu/listen940.

Call in at: +1 419-228-9494 or +1 888-894-3776. You can email questions and comments to talkwithron@wcoil.com.

If you miss it, the show will be archived at Talk With Ron Archives.

It’s been said that capitalism is not really an “ism” at all. It is merely what people do if you leave them alone.

That sounds like the perfect economic system for people who cherish liberty.

However, Americans no longer embrace the idea of liberty as they once did. To offset that, those who do are more vocal about it today than in the past, thanks to the Internet and social media websites, which are hotbeds of liberty-based activism. Old media, however, is still filled with mostly liberals who see the world through bipartisan glasses, i.e., if you are a liberal, you are intellectually superior, if you are a conservative, you are a hate-filled Neanderthal, and if you espouse an ideology of liberty, you are simply a fringe nutcase.

For proof, just look at how the media have covered the 2012 presidential campaign, especially as it relates to Ron Paul and the more conservative Republican candidates.

The media love Mitt Romney because he is a tolerable Republican, one who has moderate views.

The media hate Ron Paul because his insistence on a free America runs counter to the left’s belief that government is the answer to every problem, even those that have yet to be identified.

President Barack Obama’s latest campaign video, a seven-minute barrage of half-truths, outright lies and socialist propaganda, brings home more than anything else the fact that too many Americans, especially on the left, have given up on freedom in exchange for “free” money from the public fisc. The greatest mystery known to man has to be how the left has come to believe that government money is free money. How freedom means dependence on government. War is peace, etc.

While most of the video is simply laughable, two items from the recording were over-the-top disgusting and should have the entire nation outraged.

The first has to be his adoption of the slogan “Forward.” Obama is now openly campaigning as a Marxist. “Forward” has been used for more than 150 years as the slogan of communists. Many communist newspapers, posters, handbills and other propaganda vehicles have carried the name “Forward.”

As Victor Morgan of The Washington Times explained it, “The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.”

Obama and the American left wrongly believe that the way forward to this glorious future is through the government. In reality, the way forward, with Obama at the helm, is to the unemployment line and crushing debt.

But why should Obama not openly campaign as a Marxist?

According to a Pew Research Center poll released in December, 31 percent of Americans view socialism in positive terms. A Rasmussen poll from last summer showed 47 percent prefer socialism to capitalism.

We have a generation of Americans who, thanks to the poor state of our education system, do not know about the millions of people killed in the last century thanks to an embrace of such collectivist economic systems as communism and Marxism.

You simply cannot have a free society when government takes from one segment of the society and gives to another. It does not work. We have example after example in history to prove that.

The second item is his “spiking the football” on the illegal assassination — if he is really dead — of Osama bin Laden as though Obama somehow suited up and pulled the trigger himself.

First, just about any president would have authorized the attack, even Bill Clinton, who chose not to kill bin Laden when he had the chance. Also, according to memos obtained by Time magazine, Obama authorized the raid in such a fashion so he could blame the military commander if it failed or if there were political backlash.

Second, he did it illegally. Only in America can the president violate international law and then try to campaign on it. He should be brought before the International Criminal Court, not returned to the White House.

That so many Americans have been so hoodwinked by this lifelong communist has me fearing for the future. Obama is certainly moving us forward, to the Stone Age.

President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Mich., April 18, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

There he goes again.

We’ve all grown accustomed to President Barack Obama spending our money like water but most of the time it is for his communist … I mean liberal … political agenda of creating a single class — poor. Because that is what happens when government try to make everyone have the same amount of stuff. Look at China, Cuba or the former Soviet Union if you want real-world examples.

Now, though, he has taken his spending to a new level. He is spending our money to enrich himself.

On a recent trip to three battleground states, Obama, spending more than $179,000 an hour to make the trip, attended campaign-like rallies trying to drum up support for a faux battle over student loan interest rates. There was no dispute, mind you. Republicans and Democrats alike were not going to allow the rates to spike and were working on a solution in the Congress, without controversy, to prevent that from happening.

In fact, his chief rival for the White House, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also supported a plan to keep the rates from spiking, as did GOP and Democratic leadership in the Congress.

That, however, did not stop Obama from visiting these three battleground states and pretend there was some issue at stake.

However, Obama looking like a fool is not what concerns me. He does that all the time.

The problem is his complete disregard for the laws of this nation in doing so. The taxpayers footed the bill for this campaign trip, when it really should have been paid for by his re-election campaign.

His trip to college campuses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado was clearly not government business. It was obviously a campaign-related trip.

Apparently this is nothing new for Obama.

As a candidate, Obama pledged to strengthen the Federal Election Commission. Nearly four years later, he has not done so and, in fact, five of the six commissioners are serving on expired terms.

That’s because a strong elections law regimen would stand in the way of his blatantly skirting those laws.

Only in one case has he complained about campaign laws and that is the Supreme Court’s rightly decided decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which found that the First Amendment still matters.

He complains about the decision because it is going to make it harder for him to win re-election because corporations will be able to donate money to political action committees that will report on his activities. This would not be necessary if the media today did their jobs, but they don’t so it is incumbent on others to showcase the record, or lack thereof, of this clown in the White House.

As for Obama’s trips, he is claiming they are official travel.

But that doesn’t pass the smell test.

Or, as Speaker John Boehner said, “The president traveled across the country on taxpayers’ dime at a cost of $179,000 an hour insisting the Congress fix a problem that we were already working on. Frankly, I think this is beneath the dignity of the White House.”

What Boehner didn’t say, but probably knows, is that much of Obama’s official travel these days is taking place in swing states. CBS’s Mark Knoller reported that Obama has visited Ohio 20 times, Florida 16 times, Pennsylvania 15 times, Michigan 11 times, and North Carolina 10 times since filing for re-election.

Obama’s “official” travel has become so obviously campaigning that the Republican National Committee has filed a formal complaint, accusing his administration of potentially committing fraud by combining campaign and official business.

For presidents, there has always been mixing of official business with campaigning. It is probably unavoidable.

As former Republican National Committee Chairman Rich Bond told The Associated Press in 2004 when George W. Bush was under fire for the very same thing: “Using federal government assets is unavoidable in terms of having contact with everyday people and it’s a topic that White House lawyers from Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush to Clinton and now to Bush have all struggled with to make sure that you don’t break the law.”

However, it appears Obama is taking it to a new level.

The latest salvo in the class war President Barack Obama is waging fell far short of its target. However, the economic division he has spent the last three years trying to sow is taking root.

The latest attack on the rich came with the Buffet Rule, named after billionaire Warren Buffett. The Buffett Rule, officially known as the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012, would have mandated a minimum 30 percent effective tax on those earning more than $1 million.

The rule was so named because Buffett made the ludicrous claim that his secretary pays a higher effective tax rate than he does. Of course, that was either ignorance, which I doubt, or a flat-out lie. It ignores the fact that capital gains taxes are a form of double taxation, it ignores the 35 percent corporate tax rate, the highest in the world, and it ignores the confiscatory estate tax that will take 45 percent of the Buffett estate when he dies.

The Buffett Rule would have raised, get this, $47 billion from 2012 through 2022, less than $5 billion a year, according to a March memo from the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan body that estimates tax changes for lawmakers. Meanwhile, the projected federal deficit for this year alone will be $1.2 trillion.

Now, how can any sane person think the Buffett Rule makes economic sense?

It is even worse. Obama wanted the Buffett Rule to replace the Alternative Minimum Tax. The Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that the Buffett Rule with the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax would increase the deficit by $793.3 billion in the next 10 years.

Obama’s support of the Buffett Rule was based on political, not economic, reasons. The president should try to help the economy, not score class warfare political points.

During the 2008 Democratic primary, Charlie Gibson asked Obama about his support for raising the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 28 percent.

“Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent,” Gibson said. “And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. … In each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”

To which Obama replied, “What I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”

Fairness? What about economics?

Accepting a decrease in revenue for “fairness” is the height of irresponsibility.

On April 16, the Buffett Rule passed 51 to 45, but a Republican Party filibuster fortunately killed the bill.

Of course, Obama and Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., knew the Buffett Rule was a nonstarter based on the political makeup of the Senate. Even if, by some chance, it had passed the Senate, the Republican-controlled House would have never let it come up for a vote.

But this was the idea.

The Senate, under Reid’s leadership, has introduced one tax-the-rich scheme after another, knowing they will fail. On April 17, Reid said the Senate would not even propose a budget for 2013. Obama’s 2012 budget was killed by the Senate 97-0.

The last time the Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009. Since then, the federal government has spent about $10 trillion, adding more than $4.1 trillion in debt.

While Obama’s class warfare strategy is killing the U.S. economy, it might be paying off for his political agenda. According to a recent Gallop poll, in 2008, 27 percent of low-income Americans said their income taxes were not fair. Today, it has climbed to 38 percent. Ironic, considering those Americans probably pay no federal income taxes at all. An analysis released with the poll suggested this increase is because of Obama’s class warfare rhetoric.

The real answer to the tax problem is to go to a simple flat tax or a consumption tax. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that. After all, that would eliminate a major weapon in Obama’s class war.

This is about the only way Barack Obama is going to win re-election in November.

Very funny! And True.

Just another video to brighten your day and make a point at the same time. Spread this one around by sharing it.

Just a funny video to brighten your day, courtesy of the clown in the White House.

What this video shows is that President Barack Obama’s rhetoric is as stale as his public policies. And the world is noticing.

What an embarrassment he is.