This shows it, in a neat graphic way:

(The shirt, by the way, comes from Libertas Institute, and sells for $9.99. No endorsement implied, and TPOL won’t make a dime on it if you buy one. But we do ask you tell them you learned about it from the Bartons at ThePriceofLiberty.org!)

But simply put: THE PRICE OF GOVERNMENT IS LIBERTY.

Our liberty. Your liberty, my liberty. Our children’s liberty, our grandchildren’s liberty. Our neighbors and our loved ones’ liberty.

When we create a government, or rather, when our ancestors created governments, they didn’t just pay with money. Their money, our money, future generations money. No, they paid for government with liberty. With freedom. And so do we, 247 years (or 134, for South Dakota) later.

We pay a LOT for government: money, freedom, and all too often blood and life. And do not forget “honor.” (But these are all tied to liberty.)

Which is why, to echo Connor, we can’t have nice things. Either we can’t afford to have them, or we are prohibited from having them.

We have to pay for the government goons, the powers-that-be, to have their nice things. By stealing money from us, but especially by stealing opportunity: liberty; from us. Daily.

We have to risk the persecution (prosecution and more) and punishment for doing something, making something, using something, or even just owning something that some government thug, at some government level, for some “good reason” (Ha!) says we should not.

I increasingly believe that Jefferson and the Founding Fathers didn’t have it quite right. back in 1776.

They wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Now, JUST governments, GODLY governments, tolerable governments are “instituted” even by fallible men to secure rights. But MOST governments – indeed, all MANDATORY governments – are nothing but rebellion against God, against good morals and goodness and intended not to “secure these rights” but to TAKE THE RIGHTS AWAY. At best, to dole them out to those the powers-that-be deem worthy of them.

The Founding Fathers bought into the idea perpetrated by the Enlightenment that men are capable of governing themselves and that legitimate government could be and was established voluntarily and by mutual agreement and consent, and could be a good servant. Although even then, they were crafty enough to put that caveat: “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it [government] …” into the Declaration.

For decades, we were able to lie to ourselves: to pretend that government’s normal behavior was an abuse of power. To believe that “We the People” were able to benefit more that we suffered. To think that we really could control government. And to dare hold the idea that we could alter or institute new government that would restore our liberty. That would not make us de facto (if “partial”) slaves by stealing our dollars (and therefore our hours of life) from us.

We were wrong.

It isn’t just the last four years that demonstrates this. It isn’t just having Uncle Joe hiding out at 1600 PA. It isn’t just the idiots and criminals in Congress, the State legislatures, the county commission rooms, the city council chambers right now that shows us the truth.

The truth? If we want nice things: family, friends, opportunities, food, clothing, homes, professions, knowledge, liberty? We need to get rid of government – mandatory human government is the enemy of nice. Of liberty. Of freedom. Of all any sane and moral individual holds dear.