If government goes beyond securing liberty and instead violates it through regulation, redistribution, and planning, then citizens are victims of legal plunder.

Each of us, Leonard Read said, must become candles of liberty in the darkness of collectivist ideas. The brighter we each shine through our understanding and ability to articulate the meaning of freedom, the more we will be beacons that can attract others.

Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny.

Capitalism in the 19th century did not doom the worker to a life of perpetual poverty. Instead, they kept creating new and better-paying employments as the decades went by. They produced the wealth and rising income that resulted in the emergence of a phenomenon completely new to human history: a self-supporting and educated middle class that grew more and more as they lower classes bettered their economic well-being.

Through private investment capitalism kept raising the productivity of labor to new heights. Parents were able to earn enough so their offspring did not have to join the work force at an early age. This produced something unique in history: Childhood, a time when the young could experience the innocence of play and opportunity of schooling before entering the world of work.

If government goes beyond securing liberty and instead violates it through regulation, redistribution, and planning, then citizens are victims of legal plunder.

Governments everywhere, including here in the Unites States, have created ever-expanding bureaucracies that regulate nearly every aspect of our lives.