I love hearing that we are "Making America Great Again!" (MAGA)
As good as it sounds, it begs the question, what made America great in the first place?
What did we get less and less of to make America less great, and what do we need more of to make it great again?
Even among supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump supporters, the answers may differ. And the answers differ wildly — even fundamentally — between Democrats and Republicans.
No longer do Democrats and Republicans want the same things, just with different ways of getting there.
The "different ways" are now polarized opposites.
America became a great nation due to its commitment to individual rights.
Slavery was a glaring contradiction from the start.
But it was the principle of individual rights that ultimately caused the Republicans to make slavery a thing of the past — even at the cost of a bloody Civil War.
Were it not for the concept of individual rights, slavery would still be with us.
Individual rights will always be the answer to what makes America great.
In practical terms, this means private property.
It also means freedom of association.
It also means secure borders, not to keep out good people but to keep out people who mean to do us harm, such as terrorists and criminals.
Individual rights do not mean indiscriminately letting people in so votes can be gained for a failing political party.
Yet, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Most importantly, individual rights mean upholding the First and Second Amendments.
The First Amendment protects the right to freedom of thought and speech.
The Second Amendment protects the right to life.
Without the right to speak and think freely on your property, your mind is enslaved.
Without the right to use weapons to protect your ability to go on living, your body is enslaved.
The First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, combined with private property and free markets, united with mind and body in a way no other civilization in human history ever achieved.
That’s what made us — and hopefully will keep us — great.
Democrats have shown again and again, particularly throughout the Obama and Biden regimes, that they don’t care about individual rights.
Biden and his handlers used the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the court system, while exploiting a complicit media, to suppress as much dissent as he could get away with — short of installing an outright dictatorship.
If we have a Democratic regime like Obama/Biden’s again, the next logical steps, based on clearly observable actions over the last four years, will be to openly suppress speech.
They have already paved the way with their notion of "hate speech."
The very idea that any idea can be against the law blatantly defies our First Amendment.
Democrats, and others on the left, have made it very clear they have no tolerance or patience for any ideas that are not their own.
For one to say they're against "hate speech," they’re saying, "If you say something I don’t like, then it’s hateful. And hate is against the law."
You claim the moral high ground by exclaiming, "Surely, you’re not in favor of hate, are you?" Intimidation of this kind chills free speech and eventually outlaws it.
Once freedom of speech is gone, everything is over.
Under Obama/Biden, free speech was hampered as never before in American history.
We became a virtual dictatorship, with the government openly telling giant social media companies what they may or may not post about government policies.
Now, mercifully, Donald Trump prepares to take office again, as our nation's 47th commander in chief.
But the war is far from over. And yes, make no mistake, it's a war.
Democrats are still totalitarians, and they will remain totalitarians no matter what Donald Trump does. Democrats will still be totalitarians four years from now, when Donald Trump leaves office.
They will learn nothing.
Without individual rights, no society will be great.
Whatever you think of President-elect Trump and the Republican Party, they’re arguably the only option left for buying us time before the Democratic left imposes a complete dictatorship, as I believe they will if given the chance.
Donald Trump will perpetually remain their rationalization for doing what they’ve started under the Obama/Biden regimes, and plan to finish as soon as they can.
America will be great again only the extent to which it becomes free again.
Freedom includes the right to private property, the right to keep all of what one earns, and the right to participate in an uncontrolled free market for trading goods and services. And, most of all, it depends on the First and Second Amendments.
Our greatness resides in our freedom.
If Republicans ever forget that, then we're lost forever.
Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He is the author of "Grow Up America" and "Bad Therapy, Good Therapy," available exclusively at www.DrHurd.com. He has been quoted in and/or appeared on over 30 radio shows/podcasts (including Rush Limbaugh and Larry Elder), on Newsmax TV, and writes two self-help columns weekly. Dr. Hurd resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read more of Dr. Hurd's reports — Here.
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