Dear Editor,
My history professor posed a question the first day of class; “Does history repeat itself?”
In review of the syllabus it appears that we began by fighting for liberty and that we are continuing to fight for liberty. Therefore, as it stands today, I would have to answer his questions with a resounding, NO.
We began by fighting for independence, we fought a Civil War for slaves to have rights and liberty, and we fought two World Wars to protect Americans’ civil liberties. From the Vietnam War to the Gulf War, and most recently the war in Iraq, we have continued to fight for liberty, which either directly or indirectly involves our country.
It frightened me to know that people of this nation are that slow in implementing and understanding human rights and liberties.
Are we that controlling of other people? Obviously we have not learned anything by any of the wars. I then began to think, part of the problem of the ignorance in which people possess when it comes to liberty, is the lack of complete education or lack of all the facts.
Teachers are unable to provide all the facts to students. Often teachers provide questions to make a student “think” and come to a conclusion of their own.
However the unfortunate circumstance is that the student is not provided with all information to make an informed decision. A teacher will also provide his/her own opinion in order to direct the student to a preferred conclusion.
I compare most teachers with the majority of news media, of which I have lost all faith in providing me with complete and accurate information.
I participated in the East Tennessean student poll wherein it was asked, “On the whole do you feel that the press is liberal or conservative?”
The results at the time of viewing states that 54 percent of those that participated believed the press leans more to the left, 37 percent believed that the press leaned more to the right and 9 percent believed the press was in the middle.
I understand that the press and any news media operation have a limited amount of time and space to get the “facts” to the viewer and/or reader.
However, I am completely disappointed in the press and the news media for “leaning” to begin with. By “leaning” the news in which the public is provided biases and are denied all the facts. It is disheartening to think that the people still do not have the ability to make an informed decision.
We are slowly progressing to the Libertarianism, which will provide each person with liberty.
I encourage each person to take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz at www. self-gov.org/quiz.html and see how far they have to go before they stand in the midst of liberty.
Barbara Anders of The Sun wrote on April 7, 2002, “Principled, focused and idealistic. Libertarians have a simple agenda: small government, freedom, personal responsibility.
Many of us accept these basic concepts, but have become accustomed to government handouts.
The Libertarians keep us aware that liberty, not high-tax serfdom, was once the American dream.
Susan Lee of The Wall Street Journal wrote, ” Libertarianism is simplicity itself. It proceeds from a single, quite beautiful, concept of the primacy of individual liberty that, in turn, infuses notions of free markets, limited government, and the importance of property rights.”
Our founding fathers wrote a constitution advocating liberty. Many U.S. presidents had the Jeffersonian idea that “government is best which governs least.”
So long as we have a left, supporting personal choices but supporting government control over all else and a right, supporting economic freedom but government control over personal matter, we will always have wars and never have liberty.
We will have teachers, news media, and government attempting to control and direct our rights and liberties. In order for history to repeat itself, we the people would have had liberty at some point in time.
It is evident that we have never had liberty. Our history is continuance of a war for liberty.
Michelle Caggiano

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