They also did not have to face minimum wage laws which criminalize work, licensing laws which squeeze small companies out of business, compulsory education laws, rent controls, social workers, income taxes or a war on poverty. They did have freedom. Freedom to start a business without government interference. Freedom to sell a product or service without government interference. Freedom to hire willing workers at prevailing wages.
Was there poverty? People in need? Hardships? Of course there was. But as Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America, "Americans make really great sacrifices for the common good, and I have noticed a hundred cases in which, when help was needed, they hardly ever failed to give each other support." de Tocqueville's observation is the underlying strength of America. However, we have made it harder for individual Americans to reach out and make a contribution for the common good because through confiscatory taxation politicians and bureaucrats think government programs can do a better job of helping people in need. In fact, just the opposite has happened. Government programs have made people more dependent and destroyed the continuity of the family.Dr. Mary J. Ruwart, Libertarian Candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, has asked in her book, Healing Our World, "How can we take care of those truly in need without destroying the incentives and and development of those who are truly able? Many individuals are capable of creating wealth but are excluded from the job market by minimum wage and licensing laws. Much poverty can be alleviated by allowing people to create wealth at whatever level they can and work their way up." We need to eliminate legal roadblocks to the poor being able to help themselves to persuing their right to life, liberty and property. The Institute For Justice is constantly fighting for people's rights in the court room to free them from oppressing laws that keep people in poverty. As the case of Hector Ricketts shows the "right" to a welfare check receives greater legal protection than the right to earn an honest living.One thing our immigrant forefathers did not have to do was sue the government. But today we must sue the government when it stands in the way of people trying to earn an honest living, when it takes away individuals' property, when bureaucrats instead of parents dictate the education of children, and when government stifles.
We need to make the credo of the Institute For Justice the credo for the country -- "Rule of law under which individuals can control their destinies as free and responsible members of society." The freedom which allowed penniless immigrants to make America the land of opportunity is the freedom which will once again take people out of the poverty trap.If elected to the U.S. Senate I will work to see that Congress end all federal funding of welfare and that it tear down barriers to economic growth and entrepreneurship.