by Jeannie DeAngelis, American Thinker:

America was once a nation of free-thinking individualists priding themselves on the constitutional idea that God ordained and endowed each person as an end unto himself with rights to think, act, believe, and behave according to personal thoughts, conscience, and individual interest. According to the Declaration of Independence, those “inalienable rights” include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, because government’s power is derived from the consent of the free, the job of those running the country is to “secure,” not undermine those rights and freedoms.