By G.G. Vandagriff

On this fourth of July, our country is once again in its history at a precarious crossroads.  One of the many themes in my recently published novel, The Last Waltz, is how democracy was lost in Austria.  The Austrians tried to make a democracy out of imperial remnants, while we Americans have made it out of whole cloth.

In Austria, they were used to having a “divinely appointed” emperor who controlled absolutely.  In America, our founders took care to specify God as our king, and made the people free to elect their own rulers, who would only rule under a complicated system of checks and balances.

As America has secularized, most people don’t go to God anymore to work out their problems.  They expect the government to do it, to make things right.  And so they have elected representatives that believe in big government.  When one party rules the senate, the house, the presidency, and the judiciary, we have what is almost a dictatorship, whether it be from the right or from the left.  Everything depends on the righteousness and wisdom of those in power.  But when these people have divorced themselves from the principles of the founding fathers, then they take the constitution hostage.  This is the same road the European nations have traveled.  They are all secular socialist countries.

We started out with so much wisdom on that Fourth of July long ago.  Let us return to the principles that made our nation great.  Let your voices be heard in favor of true democratic principles.