What the Actual Fuck

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until somebody proves me wrong: our Founding Fathers would be absolutely fucking appalled at what we've done with this country.

Seriously, imagine it for a minute. Imagine Thomas Jefferson and James Madison suddenly transported through time into modern-day America. They spend a few hours wandering around, trying to make sense of this nation they helped create.

They overhear a conversation where someone says something offensive, only to watch another person jump in and proclaim, "You're not allowed to say that." They walk into a newspaper office to submit an opinion piece and are told it can't be published because somebody might find it offensive. Then they stop into a gun store, marvel at two centuries of technological progress, and decide they want to buy one. Only now they're told they need the government's permission before they can exercise a right they explicitly wrote into the Constitution.

At this point, they'd probably think we'd all lost our goddamned minds.

Then they'd buy a bottle of water. The sign says ninety-nine cents. Thomas starts counting out ninety-nine cents. The clerk says, "That'll be a dollar eight."

"What?"

"Tax, sir."

Then they decide to build something on their own land and learn they need permission. They want to drive a car and learn they need permission. They want to open a business and learn they need permission. They want to carry a firearm and learn they need permission. They want to improve their property and learn they need permission.

Permission.

Permission.

Permission.

Eventually one of them would have to look at the other and ask the only question that makes any fucking sense: "What the actual fuck happened?"

See, the Founders had just fought a revolution over the idea that government existed to secure liberty, not dispense it. They believed rights existed before government ever entered the picture. Jefferson didn't write that government generously gives us rights. He wrote that our rights are inalienable, endowed by our Creator. Government's job wasn't to manufacture freedom. Government's job was to stay the hell out of the way while protecting it.

Somewhere along the road, we forgot that.

We've become so accustomed to asking permission that we no longer notice we're doing it. Permission to build. Permission to carry. Permission to hunt. Permission to fish. Permission to start a business. Permission to modify your own property. Permission to do this. Permission to do that. Every year another regulation. Another fee. Another tax. Another agency. Another form. Another reason why the government should be involved in a decision that used to belong solely to the individual.

And every single time, we're told it's for our own good.

It's for safety.

It's for fairness.

It's for equality.

It's for security.

The justification changes, but the result never does. Government grows. Liberty shrinks.

That's the trade we've been making for decades.

The tragedy isn't that government keeps asking for more power. Governments have always done that. The tragedy is that so many Americans willingly hand it over. We've somehow convinced ourselves that freedom is dangerous while control is comforting. That liberty should constantly justify itself while bureaucracy never has to.

That's fucking backwards.

Freedom doesn't disappear in one dramatic moment. It dies a thousand bureaucratic deaths. One regulation. One "temporary" emergency measure. One “reasonable” restriction. One compromise after another until you wake up one morning and realize you're spending more time asking permission than exercising the liberty you supposedly still possess.

Meanwhile, the people making those decisions become wealthier, more powerful, and less accountable. Career politicians become millionaires. Lobbyists write legislation. Bureaucracies expand because bureaucracies never voluntarily shrink. Everybody's reaching into your pocket while simultaneously telling you it's all for your benefit.

What the actual fuck.

This Independence Day weekend, don't just wave a flag because that's what you're supposed to do. Think about the men and women who crossed oceans, stormed beaches, flew combat missions, and never came home. Think about the families who folded those flags into triangles and placed them on mantels. Think about the price that has been paid in blood for the idea of American liberty.

Then ask yourself a brutally honest question: Is this the country they believed they were defending?

Because I don't think Jefferson or Madison would recognize it. And I don't think they'd quietly accept it.

Neither should we.

Freedom is not a gift from politicians. It isn't a permit issued by some government office. It isn't something that can be handed to you by a bureaucrat or taken away by a committee vote. Freedom is yours by birthright. That's the entire point of the American experiment.

So stop asking permission to believe in liberty.

Start demanding that the people who work for us remember exactly who the fuck they work for.

It's long past time.