Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
Every school child knows--or should know--those stirring words of America's beloved Founding Father, Patrick Henry. It was with that cry on March 23, 1775, in St. John's Church, Richmond, Va., that Henry roused Americans to fight the injustices of the huge and powerful British government. Unfortunately, today's Tea Party Patriots defile his words by twisting them into a specious campaign motto: "Give Us Liberty."
According to self-styled Tea Party leader and former Republican Congressman Dick Armey, "We just want to be free. Free to lead our lives as we please, so long as we do not infringe on the same freedom of others." Armey's statement, however, is self-contradictory. Anyone who does as he or she pleases in today's crowded, conflict-prone, urbanized society, automatically infringes on the freedoms of others. Simply walking a line on a crowded street deprives someone else of the freedom to walk the same line at the same time.
What Tea Party campaigners don't seem to realize is that Henry was a self-sufficient farmer in the hill country of central Virginia. Like most farmers then, he believed the fruits of the earth were gifts from God--his to keep as a reward for sweat and toil, without sharing his earnings with government tax collectors. But living, as he did, on hundreds of acres in the wilderness, he needed and wanted nothing from government and contributed little or nothing to support it. User fees sustained what little government existed.
Like any good neighbor, however, Henry was always ready to pick up his musket and join his countrymen to fight for the common good, and he supported creation of a small federal authority to organize national defense and regulate international and interstate commerce. But he fought big government all his life and refused to attend the Constitutional Convention that created our huge federal establishment.
"As this government stands, I despise and abhor it," Henry roared as he tried but failed to prevent ratification of the Constitution.
Although today's Tea Party Patriots claim to emulate Henry, they do so selectively--and only to further their ambitions. Tea Party candidates from the farm belt oppose government subsidies--except for farmers. Florida's Tea Party candidates oppose subsidized health care--except Medicare for the state's retirees. Tea Party candidates in Alaska and other mining states oppose deficit-busting government bailouts and giveaways for every industry but oil, coal, gas, copper, silver, gold, iron, and other mining enterprises. The Tea Party wants to shrink government and cut deficits, but wants American troops to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, stand guard across Europe and the Far East, conduct covert operations in countries that harbor potential American enemies, and patrol the Mexican border to halt illegal immigration. They want an end to government pork in every state but their own!
It is impossible to fill the needs, let alone fulfill the dreams, of the American people in today's complex urban society by shrinking government and cutting taxes, and Tea Party candidates defile the words of Patrick Henry and, indeed, lie when they promise to ensure liberty by doing so. It can't happen and won't happen--and they know it.
Harlow Giles Unger is the author of seven biographies of America's Founding Fathers. His latest, Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation, has just been released by Da Capo Press.