Academic research has shown that special days like birthdays or New Year's are the best time for people to review their plans or make new goals. For people who have strayed from America's founding principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise, what more special day will we ever have in our lifetimes than the nation's 250th birthday to rebuild & refresh the vitality of our patriotism & appreciation for our country?
As we mark the nation's semiquincentennial anniversary this Independence Day, the first point to celebrate is that our Founding Fathers in the Second Continental Congress by unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America had in mind creating a limited government of enumerated powers, such a government deriving its just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
In so doing our Founders most definitely did not create a democracy - they created a constitutional representative republic. Every time you hear a Democrat talk about "saving our democracy" or some similar statement they are trying to brainwash people into thinking the United States is a democracy where citizens vote on every issue & therefore the mob-majority always rules. Democrats know they will always be in the majority just by the sheer numbers of poor & downtrodden people they play for, who they never want to help lift up, but rather want to keep poor & down trodden to use as pawns to reach their goal of political power thereby stifling the rest of us.
So when you hear a Democrat, like Schumer or Jeffries, talk about "saving our democracy" substitute to yourself the words "saving our republic" & then disregard whatever else he says because you know he has already tried to mislead you.
In fact, the word democracy does not appear anywhere in the Declaration Of Independence or the Constitution. The Founders were against a pure democracy because they feared the tyranny of the majority, where the rights of minority groups & property owners could easily be trampled. A democracy will not exist beyond the point that the voters realize they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury via the candidates who promise the most benefits. This process has always resulted in collapse due to loose fiscal policy ending in the tyranny of a dictator.
On April 15, 1814 in his letter to Virginia politician & writer John Taylor of Careline (county), John Adams confirmed the Founders' skepticism of a pure democracy when he wrote "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, & murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, & nowhere appears in history."
An important safeguard the Founders provided against democracies' mob-rule-tyranny was the Guarantee Clause, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, that guarantees to every State of the Union a Republican form of Government. The Founders knew this clause was necessary to protect the nation from internal tyranny that could result from direct democracies in a state.
At one point I was going to call this blog "Death of Democracy" but Carol thought it was too depressing so I settled on the subheading "A Libertarian Web Log Dedicated To Stopping The Death Of Democracy Of The American Republic." She thought that summed it up nicely.
The Declaration holds that all Men are created equal & that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights - specifically Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness. At this point the document acknowledges that Governments are instituted among Men to secure these rights - not to confer them. Rights are secured through the rule of law after Men leave the state of nature.
Progressive Democrat Socialists Bernie Sanders & AOC intentionally mislead by conflating securing God given rights described in the Declaration of Independence to mean conferring rights by government, like claiming healthcare is a right that can be signed into law by politicians.
Healthcare is not a right, it is a good like food, shelter, & clothing. Click here to hear Judge Napolitano explain that a right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity, natural rights that we were born with - the government does not give them to us, the government does not pay for them, & the government cannot take them away unless a jury finds we have violated someone else's rights. The judge goes on to explain that a good is something we want or need starting with our parents buying us goods & then in adulthood we buy for ourselves for existence. In summary, a right stems from our humanity; a good is something you buy or someone else buys for you.
Thomas Sowell asks "why would you expect someone else to provide for you what you do not provide for yourself?"
There are many strong indications that Gen Z & Millennials have increasingly favorable views of socialism including the elections of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of NYC & Katie Wilson as mayor of Seattle, both taking office on January 1, 2026.
In an interview with Jacobin, Wilson said "I was a socialist when I moved to Seattle back in 2004. ... as a socialist, I believe that the profound changes that need to happen in our society & our economy can only be accomplished through the organized power of working people."
Now that is about as socialist as you get comrade - right in line with AOC's similar thoughts: "There's a certain level of wealth & accumulation that is unearned. Right? You can't earn a billion dollars. You just can't earn that. You can get market power. You can break rules. You can do all sorts of things. You can abuse labor laws. You can pay people less than what they are worth, but you can't earn that. Right? And so you have to create a myth that since you didn't earn that - you have to create a myth of earning it."
There is a term for what Wilson & AOC are talking about. And that term is the central concept of Karl Marx's critique of capitalism written in 1867 in Das Kapital, the foundation work of communist theory - it is called surplus value.
Surplus value is the cornerstone of Marxist economics. Marx asserts that workers are the true source of all wealth. However, under capitalism, they are paid a subsistence wage while factory owners (capitalists) extract "surplus value" - the extra worth generated by workers' labor that is kept as profit. Accordingly, surplus value is the difference between the wealth workers generate through their labor & the actual wages they are paid. Everything in the national income that doesn't go to the worker constitutes surplus value. This uncompensated value is taken by business owners as profit, forming the engine of capitalist accumulation.
In September, 2011 Elizabeth Warren gave BO a similar socialist lesson in her "you didn't build that" speech - "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces & fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come & seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory & it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that & pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
And BO learned his lesson well before reversing himself because he didn't think the country was ready.
But boy do we seem more than ready now.
Not only do we have the two avowed socialist mayors mentioned above elected by the votes of thousands of people, we have a Democrat Senate candidate in Texas, James Talirico, saying "There are many more than two biological sexes, in fact there are six." Also consider former congresswoman & current incumbent mayor of LA Karen Bass's support for Fidel Castro - after receiving heavy criticism for her statements in sympathy for Fidel Castro, following his death in 2016, that caused her to be dropped from consideration for Biden's VP selection in 2020, Bass has since walked back her praise for Castro for obvious reasons. Bass's November opponent, Democrat Socialist of America candidate Nithya Raman, is even further to the left than Bass. And Mamdani, in a blatant display of not representing all his constituents, did not attend the Israel Day parade in NYC on May 31 preferring to concentrate on the Nakba, an Arabic word for “catastrophe” that is used to describe the displacement of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment. Mamdani has also endorsed three socialist candidates for congressional seats (seventh, tenth, & thirteenth districts of NY) - two of the three won in landslides in NY's June 23rd Democrat primary & the third was a closer victory over a five term incumbent who was the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. And in a ranked choice voting system DSA candidate Janeese Lewis George won the Washington DC primary on June 16.
Now the above words & actions of AOC, Katie Wilson, Elizabeth Warren, BO, James Talarico, Karen Bass, & Zohran Mamdani when coupled with critical race theory, the 1619 Project, preferred personal pronouns, the woke ideology & Democrats' intolerance for dissent for anything unwoke, free healthcare for illegal immigrants, abolishing ICE, defunding the police, free government childcare, free college, packing the Supreme Court, a national wealth tax, & Democrats having a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism not only adds up to an unhappy & disunited country celebrating its 250th birthday but it shows clear examples of the nonsense that Democrat socialists speak - but it is a dangerous nonsense that makes imbeciles out of their followers.
Republicans do no better in their practice of idolatry of Trump. We will pay a tremendous price for Trump's selfish, narcissistic, vindictive, delusional presidency for a long time to come.
Whether it's 1) the bad feelings of allies over tariffs arbitrarily imposed plus the added cost Americans are paying for the imported goods & services subject to the tariffs, 2) the loss of stature & cost of the war with Iran that Trump unilaterally started or the humiliation that the theocratic terrorist regime not only withstood the American military might but has actually increased its influence in the Middle East as a result of the war, 3) the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund Trump plans to use to compensate people who assaulted police officers & marched to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to harm Mike Pence & many of the Members of Congress who are still in office but are also still too spineless to vote to stop this self-dealing outrage of Trump suing the government that he runs & then dropping the case when his DOJ agreed to the creation of the fund, or 4) Trump's preoccupation with the construction of a ballroom & a 250 feet tall "triumphal arch" located between the Lincoln Memorial & Arlington National Cemetery all demonstrate how tone-deaf Trump is to Americans' troubles.
Trump has abandoned America on the affordability issue satisfied that the stock market's record highs - the NASDAQ, S&P 500, & DJIA simultaneously hit record highs on the last trading day of May - equate to outstanding 401(k) performances that he claims credit for without presenting one thing he specifically did to propel these indices that were really the result of the AI mania that also propelled these indices to new highs during the woeful Biden years as well.
There are approximately 70 million people who have 401(k), 403(b), or IRAs with median balances of $30,000 to $87,000 depending on the specific age demographic considered - i.e., a small amount in the overall swing of things for millions of Americans meaning Trump's bragging about 401(k) increases is not being experienced in a meaningful way by the great majority of people.
People are interested in affordability - not ballrooms & arches. For over 75% of owners of 401(k)s there is no immediate impact for the stock market's positive performance. The immediate impact of wages not keeping up with inflation is the problem. For both April & May inflation outpaced wage growth, inflation was higher in March, April, & May than when Trump took office, & labor's share of gross domestic income in the first quarter sank to 51%, the lowest level since records began in 1947. Source Greg Ip, WSJ, May 29, 2026.
When the Founding Fathers in the Second Continental Congress mutually pledged to each other their Lives, their Fortunes, & their sacred Honor in forming the new republic they had no idea how long the republic would last. And neither do we.
Our situation is the opposite of the Founding Fathers' who were declaring the causes which impelled them to seek Separation from Great Britain, abolishing & throwing off a long Train of Abuses & Usurpations from an absolute Despotism form of government while we are facing the onslaught of deceptive, manipulative propaganda campaigns designed to bring about dissatisfaction & influence public opinion against America. Examples of these propaganda campaigns have been documented hereinbefore by Democrat Socialists, Marxists, progressives, &/or populists, in order of mention - Schumer, Jeffries, Bernie, AOC, Katie Wilson, Warren, BO, Talarico, Bass, Mamdani, & Trump. All of these people have great admiration for dictators & @ one point in their careers, including now for some, aspired to be tyrants, despots, caliphs, or otherwise people who rule the world themselves.
From the beginning of civilization up to July 3, 1776, over six thousand years of human history, slavery had been the norm - places like Babylon, Athens, & Rome all had massive enslaved populations. As did Native American tribes.
But all of this entrenched slavery had a chance to end – a beginning, a start to being able to change with the signing of the Declaration Of Independence & the founding of the United States Of America on July 4, 1776.
During the Jefferson administration Congress prohibited the importation of slaves effective 1808 – but there was smuggling thereafter. The process of obtaining freedom for all men continued with the Missouri Compromise of 1820 in which Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state but slavery was prohibited in all the western territories. And of course the fighting of the Civil War resulted in the ratification of the thirteenth Amendment which banned slavery in the entire country.
Although Lincoln certainly wanted to preserve the Union, the Civil War was fought for more than just the secession of eleven slave-holding states from the Union. Lincoln believed that free men should not be free to choose slavery for others. Lincoln knew that the United States Republic was the only noteworthy free country in the world in the early 1860s & he believed that a significant portion of the young country could not abandon its founding principles & survive for long.
JCo, a long time subscriber to this blog commented on July 4, 2020 to that year's Indepence Day post, "Human trafficking and sex trafficking are the concerns that should be focused on, not in the slavery that was abolished 155 years ago. Because Thomas Jefferson or other historical figures owned slaves simply states a fact that slave ownership was common in that era. But as one of my history professors said, '"Judge history on its own terms, not by today's standards."' JCo went on to write "It's curious why if we live in such a racist, sexist, and oppressive country, why people want to get in, not out."
The common sense of this statement goes a long way to undo the propaganda espoused by the socialist agitators cited above. If you are among the 39% of adults who have a favorable opinion of socialism (or 67% of college students who do) be sure to take into account the freedom you are throwing away. You won't have that freedom when the central government directs the economy by controlling the means of production that it owns.
When F. A. Hayek dedicated "The Road To Serfdom" to "The Socialists of All Parties" he was not talking about today's agitators presented hereinbefore because they all know better than the nonsense they speak. AOC, Bernie & the lot all broke their oaths of allegiance to the Constitution & want to change the country from one of personal responsibility to one of dependence on government with them being the government.
No better proof of this than to hear it in AOC's own words - "They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come & go. Senate, House seats, elected officials come & go. But single-payer healthcare is forever."
And just how qualified is AOC to change this country? When asked "Would or should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move" AOC haltingly responded - "Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a a you know, I think that this is a um, this is of course a very long standing, um policy of the United States, a, & I think that what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure we never get to that point. And we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic, research, & our global positions to avoid any such confrontation & for that question to even arise."
In writing this Independence Day post I call on the actual type of socialists that Hayek dedicated his book to in 1944 - well-intentioned individuals who were unwittingly building the infrastructure for the very tyrannies they despised by not realizing that the loss of economic freedom inevitably leads to the loss of political freedom. Hayek's dedication was not meant for socialists like AOC, Bernie & the rest who know communism, fascism, and state-socialism all stem from the exact same root: collectivism & state control over the individual, which is their ultimate plan.
Look over the propaganda documented above & be sure you understand where it breaks down so that when you pledge allegiance to the American republic this Independence Day it will be stronger than ever because other snake oil salesmen will surely follow to try to once again turn people against America.
"As a city, Babylon exists no more. When those energizing human forces that built & maintained the city for thousands of years were withdrawn, it soon became a deserted ruin." - George S. Clason, The Richest Man In Babylon, page 138 – first published in 1926. Mr. Clason's description of Babylon is one that every one of us has a vested interest in preventing happening to the United States.
How long do you think the republic will last if it is up to you alone, if it is up to only you?
