FIRST PRINCIPLES
Dreams From our Founding Fathers is a masterful dissertation on James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Early American History, and the creation of the U.S. Constitution, which should come as no surprise considering the credentials of its author. Before swearing a solemn oath of allegiance to that Constitution when commissioned to serve in the Navy’s Judge Advocate Generals Corps, where he earned the Bronze Star, DeSantis had graduated with honors from Yale with a degree in U.S. History, and then with honors from Harvard Law School as a Juris Doctor.
The subtitle of his book, First Principles in the Age of Obama, is a fitting description of its two-fold purpose – to document the determination of Barack Obama to destroy individual liberty and economic opportunity by supplanting the courageous pursuit of happiness with complacent dependency on big government-directed wealth distribution; and, to argue for America’s return to First Principles:
“The Framers considered the protection of individual liberty to be the primary object of government. Understanding that individuals possessed different ‘faculties’ for acquiring property, they presupposed that an equality of property could never exist in a free society. Since the lawful acquisition of property is a function of an individual’s liberty, a government that leveraged the power of the state to redistribute, or ‘level,’ wealth throughout society necessarily undermined the very liberty that it was constructed to safeguard.” Dreams at p. 99 …
“Hamilton took comfort in the ‘adventurous spirit’ that distinguished ‘the commercial character of America’ . . . Obama considers private commerce as inherently exploitive and sees the wealth-creating ‘adventurous spirit’ to lie not in the fabric of the American people but in the government, its spending, and its bureaucracy. This is a wholesale reformulation of the basic philosophy relied on by the Founders when they created the Constitution. From leveraging government power to redistribute the wealth of the nation’s citizens to conceiving a taxation as a punishment rather than as a mechanism to raise revenue, Obama’s economic worldview represents an outright rejection of the basic, time-honored principles that the Framers espoused. The transformation he seeks is largely what they sought to prevent.” Dreams at p. 106-107 . . .
“All told, the Obama approach to the economy and property rights rests heavily on political considerations: what group to punish, what behaviors to require, and what outcomes to engineer. Rather than emphasize policies that create an environment where people can create wealth or otherwise enhance their own circumstances, Obama champions ‘redistributive change,’ shorthand for government activism that transfers resources among different classes of citizens through the force of law.” Dreams at p. 86.
Five years after Ron wrote those words in Dreams, Charlie would echo him in Time for a Turning Point:
“The Founding Fathers . . . put in place a framework that intentionally creates checks and balances to limit the power of the state and maximize individual liberty . . .
The American constitutional framework gave rise to more than a country. It trailblazed a culture in the west that embraces merit, the limited rule of law, individual liberty, and capitalism. The framers did more than start the greatest country in the history of the world; they liberated billions of people from oppression under the ruling class of the state. They gave the world a glimpse as to what a free society looks like and what a free people can do.
In a very real sense, the work that I do each day, the reason for the formation of Turning Point, is directly because of the First Principles embedded in our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Each day I and Turning Point promote, without exception, [what] came from the Founding Fathers and those documents . . . Our fight is designed to preserve their work.” Turning Point at p. 65-67 . . .
“Right now in America, the federal and state governments have created such a culture of dependency and entitlement that [people] can too easily end up settling for subsistence and leisure time instead of pushing themselves to the extreme levels to which their skills and talents could otherwise carry them . . .
Under President Barack Obama, . . . we have witnessed the near perfection of the welfare state.” Turning Point at p. 50 . . .
“Big government doesn’t just suck; it makes dependent slaves out of all of us. Our Founding Fathers knew these dangers, took great steps to prevent this from happening, and yet we have found a way to chip away at everything they built for us.” Turning Point at p. 80.
Consistent with these sentiments, here is a reprint of the DeSantis announcement to run for Congress, courtesy of Historic City News, St. Augustine Florida, February 9, 2012:
“On February 9, 2012, Republican Ron DeSantis announced to Historic City News in St. Augustine Florida that he would be running for the United States House of Representatives, seeking to represent his fellow residents of the newly-proposed 6th Congressional District along Florida’s First Coast.
‘I’m running for Congress to reverse Obama’s big government policies, to be faithful to the principles on which our nation was founded, and to make members of Congress play by the same rules as the rest of us,’ DeSantis, an Iraq war veteran, former prosecutor and principled conservative, said in a statement.
‘Our Founding Fathers would be appalled at how Washington has grown out of control and how the federal government has broken loose from the limits our Constitution places on it. Washington politicians have created so many of our problems, and it is foolish to rely on them to save our country. Recapturing and preserving American exceptionalism requires new citizen leaders – not career politicians – who will do what it takes to reassert constitutional limitations on government, restore the rule of law, and pull us back from the brink of economic catastrophe. I refuse to stand by and see our great country destroy itself.’
DeSantis, 33, having neither sought nor held public office, is not a politician. He worked his way through Yale University and Harvard Law School and then elected to serve his country as a JAG officer in the United States Navy.
An accomplished military and federal prosecutor, DeSantis deployed to Iraq during the 2007 troop surge as an adviser to a Navy SEAL commander in support of the SEAL counterinsurgency mission, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service.
A lifelong Floridian born in Jacksonville, DeSantis has served at Naval Station Mayport and Naval Air Station Jacksonville, and continues to serve as an officer in the U.S. Navy reserve.
In 2011, DeSantis authored the book “Dreams from our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama”, which shows how Barack Obama and his allies have departed from our nation’s founding principles, and urges Americans to keep faith with the enduring truths that serve as the basis for our society.
As a candidate for Congress, DeSantis will campaign on limited government principles, free market economics, and a strong national defense. He will call for the full and complete repeal of ObamaCare, a federal Balanced Budget Amendment, a complete overhaul of the tax code, the abolition of crony capitalism, term limits for members of Congress, and an end to the system of perks and giveaways that Congress grants to its members.
DeSantis knows that we can start growing our economy if we stop growing government. Freedom will work for us if we will let it.”
Historic City News, February 9, 2012