An Open Letter to the Government
My dad and I recently wrote an open letter to the Government. This is it.
Yay America!
Dear Sir or Ma’am,
My name is Greg Hamilton. I am first and most importantly a regular person, a citizen of the United States, which I love being part of and have raised my family in. I am a 56-year-old man, father of four wonderful and successful children, and I own and have operated a residential remodeling and construction business for approximately 30 years. I am very much what is described as a Constitutional Conservative and have a strong belief in my God and family. As I have grown in age, and hopefully wisdom, I see many trends in people and especially in our Government that cause me concern. This open letter contains some of these thoughts and concerns with the hope that I, as a party of one, can strike a cord that resonates in you. I wish to encourage you, as a leader, as a politician, and as legislators in your state and our country to become the best you can be—not as a partisan for your particular party but to become truly a representative of the People.
More and more frequently I see party divisions and bickering on what feels like a daily basis. Most of it seems to be based on liberal verses conservative, Democrat verses Republican. The Democrat party stalling and not being part of something better in Congress because they dislike our elected President, his wishes, and his way of leading; the Republicans not wanting to be intellectually honest or consistent and refusing to label bad behavior as such. This bickering and petty conflict does not seem to be productive, helpful, functional, or even close to the healthy behavior that our leaders should have. For being in their position in a Government “of the People, by the People, and for the People,” the People they represent seem to be ill considered.
I’m a firm supporter of the Second Amendment, and I do believe that it is under unnecessary and unconstitutional attack. I could cite firearm statistics all day long supporting the need for citizens to legally own firearms, why we need them, why gun laws should be less restrictive, and all of the good things firearms aid in facilitating, especially when those laws are less restrictive. But I won’t spend this entire letter citing statistics, because while that is a significant part of the motivation behind my writing this letter, I also recognize that it is only a symptom of a larger problem.
In addition, I strongly believe that the Second Amendment protects the First Amendment and that if the Second Amendment or firearms are dissolved, restricted, banned, or seized, then the First Amendment—and eventually, the other Amendments too—will be quick to follow in its footsteps. There are also copious amounts of statistics and non-partisan world history that support this; just read anything by Thomas Sowell, biographies by Eric Metaxas, or even the works by and biographies of our Founding Fathers and the culture they came from.
With the current trends that our culture and politicians are displaying, it doesn’t take much reflecting to see just how far off the path of self-government and freedom we have gotten. It also doesn’t take much extrapolating to see how bad things can become if we continue down this path. If the Founding Fathers came back to life right now, they would probably have a panic attack followed by a severe stroke. Not because of the “scary” AR-15 rifles that the majority of Americans legally own, but because of things like the regulatory state and the sheer power and all-too-frequent corruption that the Federal Government and local governments currently have.
We need to hold you—our politicians, leaders, and legislators—accountable for your behavior when it’s bad, praise you when it’s good, and encourage you to enact constitutional, moral laws and regulations that nurture freedom and self-government. We also need to have our current laws and regulations enforced; new laws and regulations won’t help anything if the current ones aren’t being used properly to begin with.
“The Golden Triangle of Freedom” is a term coined by Os Guinness in his book, A Free People’s Suicide. It’s essentially the little engine that has given us the means to be the freest people in the history of the world. The triangle goes something like this: Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith, and faith requires freedom, then the cycle continues to repeat itself. If any one of the three legs are removed, then the entire system collapses. As a people, we need to get back to these basics and conduct our lives virtuously, faithfully, and freely. As our politicians, leaders, and legislators, we need you to perform your duties, conduct yourselves, and enact laws, regulations, or policies in a way that fosters and cultivates virtue, faith, and freedom.
Below is an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address. It mainly references the evils of slavery, but I think it can also be applied to our current culture and state of government.
“We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
In his book, If You Can Keep It, Eric Metaxas contemplates Lincoln’s Lyceum Address:
“So if we turn away from our calling—whether intentionally or merely by forgetting what that calling is—we commit suicide. And if we turn away from the moral law, we forfeit the blessings of God. Lincoln knew when he faced the crisis of the Civil War that what America was doing had everything to do with that moral law. Could we keep it and continue to be favored by God? That was the question he was trying to help Americans understand and answer. The republic depended on it. Either we would turn from the great sin of slavery forever, or we would perish. We were a country on a mission to the whole world, but first we must get our own house in order. If we could not survive the agony of so doing, we would surely fail in our God-given mission to the world beyond our shores. But how were we to do that then—and how can we do it now? What have we forgotten that we must remember again?”
So, will we continue down our current path that leads to the degradation and slow suicide of the greatest country in the history of the world? Or will we turn around, go in the right direction, and let this just be a temporary and unfortunate detour that we will ultimately recover and learn from? In the words of John Adams, “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
I hope and pray that we, as a people, will open our eyes and start behaving like the virtuous, faithful, and free People we were meant to be. We live in the greatest country in the history of the world and by any rational standard, we are remarkably blessed.
Thank you for your time,
Greg Hamilton
Buy the If You Can Keep It book! It’ll change your life forever. And the Os Guiness one. Do it. Do it now!
excellent writing! i’m a fan. Lets digress.