I suspect less than 20% of the American people today understand the concept of natural law. Those who receive liberal arts educations today do not read Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Aquinus, Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Burke, Smith, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Luther, Calvin, Rousseau, Paine or even the founders - Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Madison, Hamilton.
With respect to Congress, probably less than 5% consider the founding principles in performing their jobs. Our elected representatives do not fear tyrants, do not have reverence for the Constitution, and most display contempt for the people who elected them.
Today’s tyranny is for the most part soft tyranny and many citizens, particularly in urban areas, seem content to trade some freedom for the tangible and intangible benefits they perceive as derived from government. It may be a majority of citizens in the 21st century are content to live in cities where they are have no moral, religious, or legal constraints on “private” enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh (sex, pornography, alcohol, and drugs) as long as their basic requirements for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and modern communications technology are realized. We do exist in a nation where the poorest citizens, who are slaves to the government’s entitlement plantation, enjoy a better lifestyle than 95% of the people on the planet.
A question I frequently ponder - What does individual liberty mean to the average citizen in today’s America? If the average citizen perceives he or she is “free” does the soft tyranny of today’s government matter? In the pursuit of “happiness” perhaps most are happy. If so, the frogs will continue to sit quietly as the temperature slowly rises in the pot.
Our immigration policies are actually calculated to dumb down the population and provide more cyphers to keep the music playing for yet another chorus. But after the music stops, and it must, the deluge.
It is at that time that the tyranny is likely to turn abruptly from soft to hard and the frogs will perhaps be compelled to contemplate the pursuit of happiness in a very immediate and practical way.
