Wednesday evening while I was watching the fireworks over Syracuse Lake I was thinking about what the July Fourth holiday represents.

Independence.

Independence is defined as "not being controlled by someone else" or "self-governing."

When we talk about independence, we invariably talk about freedom, too. They go hand in hand.

Americans enjoy the greatest level of freedom and independence of any people in history.

That's because our founding fathers wanted it that way.

They knew what it was like to live under an oppressive government and they wanted to be sure the fledgling nation they were creating wouldn't be that way.

They crafted a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that fostered and furthered the concepts of freedom and independence.

Wise as they were, they never could have imagined how that fledgling nation and government would evolve.

The Constitution was designed to be a living document. It could change and evolve as the nation changed and evolved.

But I think the founders would be surprised at how some of what they wrote has been interpreted over the years.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is a good example.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

It took us until 1963 to determine what the founders really meant was that we couldn't have prayer in school.

The Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is under fire (pun intended) from people who want to ban guns.

They say it is unclear what the founders meant by "the people" although there seems to be no ambiguity about who "people" are when it comes to the Fourth, Ninth or Tenth amendments.

And speaking of the Tenth Amendment, it seems we have drifted a long way from the founders' intent.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The United States government, in my view, has grabbed all kinds of powers over the years not delegated to it by the Constitution.

We have all manner of departments and tons of regulations.

There are government departments regulating just about everything these days.

From toasters to lawn mowers to refrigerators to automobiles, the government is involved.

I think, to a degree, all the government we have today tends to erode our freedom and independence. Don't get me wrong. Americans remain the most free and independent people on Earth.

Sometimes well-intentioned government officials, lawmakers, bureaucrats, etc., think we need them to take care of us.

That's why we get more regulations and more departments and more government.

In my view, each incremental increase in government is an incremental decrease in freedom and independence.

Wouldn't it be nice to own property free and clear of government intervention?

But we don't.

You can pay off your property and burn your mortgage but you still owe.

You will always owe property taxes. And you risk having the government confiscate your property if you don't pay those taxes.

Somehow that doesn't seem very free or independent, does it?

I suppose many would argue that living with the things I have mentioned is a small price to pay for the freedoms we enjoy.

I tend to agree with that notion.

I always considered myself a conservative. A smaller government, lower taxes kind of guy.

I never liked the idea of the government taking money from people and giving it back in the form of some government program designed to help one segment or another of society.

That whole redistribution of wealth thing somehow seemed wrong to me.

I liked to think I was a Barry Goldwater kind of conservative. He didn't like the government making people jump through hoops, even if he liked the hoop.

But anymore, there aren't too many of those kinds of conservatives around. Conservatives today seem to want to use government to achieve social goals, just like liberals do.

Only the social goals are different.

I guess maybe I'm starting to feel like a Libertarian.

On July 4, 1962, President John F. Kennedy chose Philadelphia's Independence Hall to muse on the spirit of liberty, the Associated Press noted in a story about the July 4 holiday earlier this week.

'The theory of independence is as old as man himself, and it was not invented in this hall,' Kennedy said.

'But it was in this hall that the theory became a practice; that the word went out to all, in Thomas Jefferson's phrase, that 'the God who gave us light gave us liberty at the same time.''

I hope government leaders keep that simple truth in mind. And I hope they realize that while God gave us liberty, man can take it away. [[In-content Ad]]