Christmas Eve, 2008

Christmas Eve, 2008. It would seem that on every front the issues that face us as Americans today are insurmountable. The nation is reeling from an economic crisis that is getting deeper and that has gripped most of the world. Americans seem to have lost their collective will and resolve in a fight that may well determine our very survival. Socialists who are intent on revisionism when it comes to our Constitutional rights have assumed control of the Congress and the Presidency.

It would seem there is not much to celebrate this Christmas.

Yet my mind turns to signs of hope. On the eve of the designated day on which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I am reminded anew of the eternal hope that springs from the One who placed the desire and the fight for liberty in the souls of human beings.

Jesus said, 'If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed!'

The birth of that Baby in the manger so long ago represented all the hopes and aspirations of generations of persons. Even today, those who claim His name are reminded incessantly that hope does, indeed, spring eternal. As the Star of Bethlehem guided the Magi to the place where lay the Prince of Peace, so today we are reminded that among the ashes of failure, strife, violence, and despots, there is the hope of freedom.

Liberty begins in the human heart through faith. From there the desire for liberty spreads to every aspect of life.

The men who penned the Declaration of Independence, devised the Constitution, and ratified 10 initial amendments that guaranteed certain individual, unalienable rights, believed that liberty as a concept was infused into the human psyche by the Creator. Such a notion has radical, broad-sweeping ramifications. No government, no tyrant, no despot, no group of persons who have set themselves up as the rulers over humanity, have any inherent right to squelch liberty. As soon as they do so, they go against the very nature of what it means to be human, and their actions are immediately illegitimate.

This was Thomas Jefferson's stunning philosophy.

Any government that attempts to remove the inherent liberties endowed to us by the Creator is to be viewed as illegitimate, tyrannical, and possessing of no authority. The very act of stripping citizens of their rights automatically negates the viability and legitimacy of that government.

And that goes for governments that are elected by the people.

Jefferson referred to tyrants who are voted into office by the people as 'elective despotism.' His view of the sweep of history was that the tendency is for government to increase power and gradually remove the rights of the people. This, according to Jefferson, would lead to war, and rightfully so. As Jefferson states, 'Liberty must occasionally be salvaged by the blood of tyrants and patriots.'

The desire to be free is an overwhelming human drive. The students in Tienanmen Square in Red China are a perfect case in point. Defying an overwhelmingly powerful Red Army, these courageous young men and woman stood in front of tanks and artillery, placing their lives in mortal danger for facing down a tyrannical government.

Freedom fighters all over the world have done the same thing.

Thus, on this Christmas Eve, my friends, I am far from despair. I am filled with hope. As the Son has made us free, so we push for, work for, long for, fight for, liberty, not only for us but for the entire world.