Modern American’s seem to have lost sight of essential truths clear to the country’s founders more than 200 years ago.

Today, everybody from mega agribusinesses executives to consumer advocates are lauding the Senate for passing a massive overhaul of the “food-safety” system. The legislation would grant broader inspection power to the F.D.A., allow the government to mandate product recalls, oversee farming and regulate the food production industry to an even greater degree.

“Everyone who eats will benefit,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “F.D.A. will have new tools to help ensure that we have a safer food supply that causes fewer outbreaks and illnesses.”

Benjamin Franklin would have likely taken a different view.

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

In fact, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act represents yet another massive expansion of federal power, much of it unconstitutional. (And before you send me emails justifying this monstrosity based on the commerce clause, please do us both a favor and do a little research on the meaning of commerce as understood by the framers. Click here.)

Sadly, if history provides any insight at all, and it usually does, this act will do nothing to actually protect the American people. It will instead serve as a tool for big corporations to gain a competitive advantage over small, local farms and food producers. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this – why else would big companies support legislation that on its face will exact huge costs in time, money and resources?

And it will also give politicians and bureaucrats yet another lever to maneuver and manipulate for their own purposes.

True to form, power hungry politicians and progressive thinkers have churned up the American public with scare tactics to gin up support for another expansion of government power –  as always, at the expense of liberty.

Proponents say the act will protect Americans from foodborne illnesses. But does the problem justify such a massive, expensive, intrusive cure?

Not really.

According the the Centers For Disease Control, only about 1,500 people per year die from salmonella and other known foodborne pathogens. Another 3,500 people die  from illnesses stemming from unknown foodborne pathogens. Many of those deaths result from improper food handling and cooking after purchase.

Certainly, 5,000 deaths is 5,000 deaths too many. Nobody wants to see fellow Americans die. Nobody wants tainted food on grocery shelves. But protecting citizens from every danger, risk and threat is not the role of the federal government – or any government for that matter.

But nanny state politicians continue taking us for a spin on a never ending carousel. Several thousand deaths under a heavily regulated system creates the panic necessary to enact even more expansive, overreaching regulation.

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To live life invites the risk of death. No law, act or government edict can mitigate that reality. Franklin was right. When we begin looking to others for protection from every eventuality, we necessarily give up our freedom, and in the end enjoy no greater safety.

Alexander Hamilton wrote of the threat to liberty posed by war. His reasoning applies equally to government’s other attempts to “protect” its citizens.

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”

Note: the legislation passed 73-25. Click here to see how your Senators voted.

I was always something of a careless child, and as a result, I struggled with math because of the importance of precision in mathematical problem solving. When I was learning algebra, I remember often experiencing frustration after flawlessly following the correct problem solving steps, only to come up with the wrong answer because I miscopied a number in the original equation. Despite a passionate defense of my proper technique, my teacher always insisted the answer was wrong, because – well – it was wrong.

Many Americans make the same kind of error in their application of logic.

You see, if you start with a flawed premise, you will always come up with the wrong answer.

This fact struck me as I was reading comments today on a news story posted on a Facebook page chronicling yet another botched, overly intrusive airport security screening.

Interestingly, despite the hue and cry over the last few weeks, and anecdotal evidence to the contrary, most Americans have no problem with full body scans and groping pat-down procedures recently adopted by the Transportation Security Administration. In fact, a recent CBS News poll revealed 4-of-5 Americans actually approve of the TSA security protocol.

Most people insist that the TSA, “is just trying to protect us.”

Others say, “If you have nothing to hide, why should it bother you?”

I’ve heard similar arguments voiced in defense of overzealous police searches, warrantless wire tapping and random traffic stops.

On the surface, this line of thinking appears reasonable. We all want to live our lives safe and secure. And most of us would be willing to put up with a little inconvenience to stop hardened criminals from preying on innocent victims. So why not allow government to exercise a little more power in order to keep society safe and sound?

But the logic rests on a faulty premise – that those in power will always use it with our best interests at heart.

Americans tend to give others the benefit of the doubt. We assume the best in people. We believe that those who “serve” us do so out of a benevolent heart. But history and any objective examination of human nature prove this a dangerous and naive assumption.

Modern psychology and pop culture promote the idea that most people are basically good. This is a relatively new notion in the history of humankind. Our predecessors took a much dimmer view of human nature.

“Man is nothing but a subject so naturally full of error that it can only be eradicated through grace.  There is nothing to show him the truth, for everything deceives him. The two so-called principles of truth–reason and the senses–are not only not genuine but are engaged in mutual deception. Through false appearances the senses deceive reason.  And just as they trick the soul, they are in turn tricked by it.  It takes it revenge. The senses are influenced by the passions which produce false impressions.” Blaise Pascal

History testifies to the truth of Pascal’s observation. Tyranny, oppression and injustice litter its pages.

Part of our problem as Americans in understanding the danger of concentrated power lies in the fact that we have rarely experience the terror of its application. And we assume that will always be the case. But we should know better. Just look at some of the laws on the books during the Jim Crow era and tell me that our government always has all of its citizens’ best interests at heart.

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Our founders understood. They understood human nature. They understood the corrupting influence of power – as Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

The men and women who founded our republic lived under a tyrannical, overreaching government. And they spilled blood to free themselves from its yoke. Then they set about creating a Constitutional government with limited, enumerated powers to protect its citizens from its overzealous reach. George Washington summed up the founders’ view of government.

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Those who would trade their liberty for a sense of security will ultimately end up with neither.

Remember, always check your premise.

Because a wrong answer remains wrong, regardless of the beauty of the process by which you reached it.

What a week we have all just endured! While the Democrats were re-writing the federal takeover of healthcare behind closed doors, the public face of the federal government was fixated on denying and then explaining all the gaps in its intelligence gathering. The Obama administration has been finger-pointing over who in the government let a murderous thug on a plane in Amsterdam that he tried to explode over Detroit.

First, the government said that the system worked. Then the President said it didn’t. Then he announced that the intelligence communities and security people would start to talk to each other so the bad guys could be kept out. Weren’t they supposed to be doing this all along?

At Newark Liberty Airport last Sunday, a TSA agent left his post, and a young man walked past it to kiss his girlfriend good-bye. Then the young man turned and left the secured area and left the airport. So far no harm, no foul. But because the government’s surveillance cameras in the airport didn’t work, the feds panicked and ordered over 10,000 passengers to leave the terminal, go out into the 15-degree Newark, NJ cold at night, and then re-enter the airport.

Flights were delayed and missed, kids did not get to school on Monday morning, and soldiers were listed as AWOL. All because the government overreacted to a kiss. This humiliated the feds: New Jersey’s 86-year-old senior Senator Frank Lautenberg demanded that the guy who kissed his gal be hunted down and prosecuted because of the chaos he caused. He caused? Let’s see; the government has cameras that watch us every time we scratch our noses, and when those cameras don’t work, the government blames the person whose picture it was supposed to be taking? Come on.

All this, of course, brings out the false argument of liberty versus security. And we hear it from the Progressives that the government must take our freedoms in order to keep us safe. That’s hogwash. Freedom is our birthright. It doesn’t come from the government; it is part of our humanity. America is the only country in the history of the world dedicated to the truism that we are endowed by our Creator, as Jefferson wrote, with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The government has forgotten basic civics: “Endowed by our Creator” means that our rights come from God and not from the feds. “Inalienable” means that we and our freedoms cannot be separated, unless and until we are convicted by a jury of violating someone else’s rights. What is the value of being safe if we are not free? Did our forefathers flee the kings and despots of Europe and come here to be safe? Did Patrick Henry say “Give me safety or give me death?” Here is the mistake that the Big Government crowd wants to thrust upon us: They want to balance liberty and safety. There is no such thing as balance when it comes to freedom. We will not trade freedom for anything, or balance it against anything, and we certainly won’t give it up to the TSA.

Can the government keep us safe? I don’t think so. Airline travel is safer today because pilots have guns, cockpit doors are like bank vaults, and the passengers have become courageous. All this was done by individuals in the private sector, not by the government.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if the feds had not stripped us of our natural rights to keep ourselves safe – by keeping and bearing arms – 9/11 would never have happened.

How about letting the airlines decide who gets on the planes, rather than a TSA worker who leaves his post? When industry competes for your business, you fly where you want to go, you get there in comfort and safety, and you do all this at a competitive cost. When the government runs the show, you stand in the cold night air for six hours because of a kiss. The government can’t deliver the mail, it can’t operate surveillance cameras at an airport; it can’t pay back its debts; it can’t tell the truth. That would be the same government that wants to manage your healthcare.

America, do you see what happens when we rely on the government too much? It gets authoritarian and we get weak. Our children grow to expect from the government what we once did for ourselves. Government is a fearful master. It is not faithful to us; it is not truthful to us; it can’t produce for us. It doesn’t obey its own laws; it doesn’t keep us safe; and it won’t leave us alone. It is mortgaging our futures, raising our taxes, and treating us all like children.

What to do? Challenge it at every turn. Expose it to friend and foe. Educate all you know about what you see and hear every day on this show. And return no one to the government who has stolen your freedom.

And one other thing: The God who gave us life also gave us liberty. He loves us. Praise Him from the roof tops, and ask Him to save us from a government that is out of control.

Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at the Fox News Channel. His next book is Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History, (Nelson, 2010).

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Throughout U.S. history, the American people have balanced liberty and security. Finding the right mix isn’t always easy. But policy-makers must never forget that they are duty-bound to protect a free society.

Government had ample powers before 9/11 to deal with terrorism in a manner consistent with the Bill of Rights. If we needlessly sacrifice the liberties that make America great, we, in the manner of Esau, will have sold our national soul for a mess of pottage.

September 11 wasn’t the first time in U.S. history that the American people sacrificed their freedoms and allowed the government to seize extraordinary powers. Shortly after the American Revolution, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, allowing the federal government to jail its critics.

Habeas corpus was suspended during the Civil War, and the federal government prosecuted political opponents. Civil liberties were widely violated during World War I; then came the “Red Scare” and so-called Palmer Raids.

World War II spawned the internment of Japanese-Americans. Surveillance of domestic political opponents occurred during the Cold War.

In all of these cases, Americans eventually realized that they had sacrificed liberty without gaining security in return. Decisions were overturned, powers were rescinded, and accountability was re-established.

As former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned in Olmstead vs. United States in 1928, “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” Although we usually are vigilant against “evil-minded rulers,” Brandeis added, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

So it was in the aftermath of 9/11. Americans feared another attack and therefore acquiesced to an unprecedented power grab by the federal government. This unprecedented expansion of government authority threatens to allow the false promise of security to permanently trump America’s historic commitment to liberty.

The “War on Terrorism” is the first conflict since the Civil War in which the American homeland is a battleground. Thus, the president claims the right to decide when the rules of war will govern domestic civilian society.

Moreover, for the first time in our history we are fighting a conflict that has no apparent end. We knew when we had defeated Germany and Japan in World War II, but history suggests there will always be terrorists. It is a never-ending war in an undefined and unlimited battlefield.

We cannot allow America’s dearly bought freedoms to be so easily lost.

Liberty is far more than just a bank account, e-mail or Social Security number. Liberty defines a free people. It is our birthright to keep personal affairs private from others, and especially from the government. It is our constitutional right not to have our privacy invaded and evidence gathered against us without the government having a good reason for doing so and securing a warrant. It also is our constitutional birthright not to be arrested except through the due process of law. And it is our duty to hold those who exercise power accountable for their actions.

This is not a liberal issue or a conservative issue. It is an American issue.

After 9/11, Americans heard a familiar refrain: “You must give up a little privacy, a few liberties, in order to have security.” After all, it was said, “if you have nothing to hide, there is no reason to be concerned.”

Anyway, we were told, we faced a new kind of enemy, one never contemplated by America’s Founders. Only with new powers could the government combat these new threats.

But the dichotomy of liberty versus security is false. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 did not succeed because government was too weak. Rather, public officials did not use their existing powers and did not competently perform their duties. Giving these same officials new, unfettered and unreviewable powers has not made America more secure. Indeed, the U.S. has lost moral standing around the globe, making us more vulnerable to foreign threats.

The Founding Fathers well anticipated the world in which we live. They recognized that power corrupts and could spur even the most well-meaning public officials to invade the liberties of the people.

At the same time, those who created the new nation understood the need to preserve liberty in a dangerous world. America was birthed out of revolution against Great Britain, the most powerful empire on earth. In its early years, the United States also was threatened by France and Spain. Despite such clear and present dangers, the Framers deliberately limited the authority of government and ensured the accountability of public officials.

Liberty is not an afterthought, but the very essence of our civilization. The philosopher Ayn Rand spoke of “the process of setting man free from men.” Our Founding Fathers understood that. The Bill of Rights protects it.

But the current administration and many others, including Sen. John McCain, appear to disdain it. Only the American people can truly re-establish our society’s foundation of freedom. That is the American Solution.

Bob Barr is the Libertarian Party candidate for President and a former member of Congress from Georgia.

There’s a lesson in the Aesopian tale of the man who wanted to cook a frog. When he tossed the amphibian into a pot of boiling water, it leapt out to safety. The thwarted cook then changed tactics. He placed the frog in cold water… and slowly brought up the heat.

In much the same way, American freedom is slowly being cooked away. When I was growing up, “Papers, please!” was once the bark of Communist soldiers patrolling state lines. It’s set now to become an American staple. Slipped insidiously into an $81 billion bill for “supporting troops” and “tsunami relief” was a tiny law – The Real ID Act of 2005 – which creates a de facto National ID card for Americans and requires it to be in place by 2008 (the Feds are now “allowing” an extension through 2009 for States that request it). Every driver’s license will be required to include “physical security features” and “a common machine readable technology.” The cultists who support this National ID card say that it’s all voluntary.

And it is. You can refuse to comply, in which case you won’t be able to open a bank account, enter a federal building, ride a plane or train, etc. Yes, quite voluntary. A nice card, containing all sorts of sensitive information about you, which can be scanned everywhere you go.

“This is almost a frontal assault on the freedoms of America when they require us to carry a national ID to monitor where we are,” railed Missouri state Representative James Guest, a Republican. “This does nothing to stop terrorism.”

One of only eight Republicans to oppose the measure, Representative Ron Paul of Texas added, “Supporters claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary. However, any state that opts out will automatically make nonpersons out of its citizens.”

Today we face a thriving identity-theft market. National ID will be like adding chum to a sea of sharks; a veritable African diamond war for the digital age. Everyone’s value will be melted down to cold equations which will be stolen, which will be seen by people who have no business seeing it, and which will make it very hard to get your life back when this happens to you.

Let’s forget the cost to the states, which has been estimated at more than $14 billion. The ID card will, making use of RFID technology already discussed in another essay of mine, be able to show where you are at all times. Information ranging from mailing address to DNA can be encoded into this little spy.

Supporters of the card say it will help prevent terrorism. Not only do they fail at giving real examples of how this card can magically do this, they completely turn tail from the scores of problems – and yes, security problems – that this card will create.

For starters: The National ID card will eventually be forged. To whom do you protest when this happens? Roughly 20 percent of identity papers, cards, and documents are lost each year; what do you do when your digital self is misplaced? How do we hold the government, FBI, NSA, and president accountable for how they use this information? What magic firewall or force-field will be put into place to prevent hacking? And oh yeah… what happens when the database crashes?

Having all this information available on a database will result in a Golden Age for identity-theft, surveillance, and blackmail. It will make our lives less secure. And there’s something very suspicious in putting a system in place under the guise of “protecting us from terrorists” when all that system really does is staple a lab-tag onto American citizens.

Fortunately, a real civil war is heating up over this — though to what extent that protest will go remains to be seen. The current presidency is notoriously in support of gigantic government (yet another symptom of how the alleged “conservative party” has devolved like political Morlocks.)

Maine was the first state to rebel, passing a resolution to outright refuse implementation of the Real ID Act. Following this trailblazing defiance came Idaho, and a recent storm of protest from Arizona, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming. For anyone keeping score, this is a coalition of states not often seen on the same side of an issue.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Historically, Americans have rejected any effort at mandating a National ID card. Sneaking this into law was the coward’s way of circumventing public debate; slipping it under our skin might be next. Or perhaps we’ll have a nice tattoo on our right hands and foreheads? Citizen John Valjean, 24601!

The debate will heat up in the next few months. Exactly how hot it’ll get is up to us.

The Aesopian frog, meanwhile, is cooking.

Brian Trent [send him email] is a professional essayist, screenwriter, and novelist; he is the author of “Remembering Hypatia” and the forthcoming “Never Grow Old: the Novel of Gilgamesh.” Brian is a contributor to American Chronicle and The Humanist Magazine. Visit his website at www.rememberinghypatia.com.