Independence Day

The words of the Declaration of Independence continue to inspire after more than two centuries. It's words and principles inspire the tea party movement and I believe is a source of discomfort to those on the left, even if they won't admit it.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

I continue to be optimistic for our country.  The institutions being built by the left cannot endure in competition with the institutions built by free markets and civil society.  I will blog more about their successive failures; but consider the disaster the left is making of our health-care system and the implosion of so-called liberal arts as the worth of those degrees continues to be revealed.  In the early 1980s, I came to believe that it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union collapsed due to economic and ethnic forces; and that belief was rewarded.  I believe the same thing about the left and its attempts to control every aspect of American life.  People resent it, and eventually fight back and win.

• The militarization of the nation's police forces is harmful to liberty, see a great compendium at AlterNet.  (H/T CarpeDiem).  The founders would be appalled, no doubt.
• Minimum wage response?  McDonald's experimenting with mobile platform tech for ordering ahead.
• I always thought that it was in our long term best interests to divide into three countries; our failure to do so has enabled further Sunni radicalization under ISIS.  See commentary from Israel in Haaretz on this subject.  Washington's warning against foreign adventures accrued precisely to our inability to understand the roots of these foreign conflicts.  The situation remains fluid, but I expect ISIS to consolidate gains and unite portions of Syria and Iraq, see HotAir.
• KTCat asks how compassionate is it to allow kids to trek across Mexico to the U.S. border?  He argues for border enforcement, but I think the deeper issue is that the world has come to believe that the Obama administration will not deport anyone.  How compassionate is that policy turning out to be?
• The Volokh Conspiracy for nuanced understanding of Constitutional law from a conservative/libertarian perspective.  Randy Barnett has a great explanation of the Declaration of Independence today.  He makes the great point that even then, the founders considered ourselves "a people" who had inalienable rights.