His remarks intimate that government is some tyrannical bogey man out to debilitate righteous free enterprise, binding it with red tape and stealing our liberties and our hard-earned money through taxes. He seems to think that big government equals a reduction of our human rights. This is a distortion of the idea of America.
If we look to the Declaration of Independence as the founding document that articulates the idea of America, an often neglected passage says, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” According to the Declaration, while government is not the origin of human rights, it exists to secure human rights. So to posit an opposition between rights and government is incorrect.
What does the idea of America mean when the rich, for the most part, do not fight in our nation’s wars, pay as little taxes as they can, and then dishonorably distort the truth in our national political conversation in order to gain and to maintain power?
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