Rewriting our history would be a mistake

I’ve often asked myself this question: Why is it that the average person desiring more rights, social justice and equality through socialism can’t figure out that they inevitably create a state that ends up controlling their lives?

Gerald Ford aptly noted, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything you have.”

History is our teacher. Those who strive for a world utopia actually create an elite ruling class that centralizes and concentrates power and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the average citizen. The end result is always socialism — a totalitarian, despotic leadership.

The greatest political documents ever written, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, embody almost 250 years of the American foundation: our spirit of liberty, our values, and our civility. History is calling out with a prophet’s voice to warn about politicians and jurists who want to redefine our heritage by eroding the freedoms guaranteed in these documents.

It is illusion to believe that socialism creates liberties and equality. History tells us it leads to tragic results. The Russian Revolution and its modern communist regime devolved into a brutal dictatorship, the now defunct KGB revealing in 1991 that 47 million Soviet citizens were killed through collectivization and political purges. Why our Founders Fathers caught this truth in 1776 and so many Americans can’t in 2012 is a question all of us need to answer, not only for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.

RICH LOWERY

Sagle