I see the debate is framed here as it is in my own country; as a struggle between liberalism and conservatism.

Yet no matter how the struggle turns out, both the liberals and the conservatives feel frustration, no matter who “wins”, neither seem to enjoy the victory as “their” party fails to live up to its promises once in power.

You see there is another, less obvious, struggle at work in the body politic, and that is tyranny verses liberty. Tyranny is the natural course of professional politicians, whilst liberty is the heart’s cry of the populace.

Tyranny lives in the professional politician’s desire to remain in power, to increase his own personal power, and therefore the power of the central government over the people. He sells this through offering to lift the heavy burden of personal responsibility from off the shoulders of the populace.

The amount of this tyranny you allow is entirely based on the amount of personal responsibility you refuse to bear; for personal responsibility is the cornerstone of personal liberty. Surrender your personal responsibility to anyone or anything else, and that other controls your actions.

The true struggle of politics is therefore, how best to balance government control with personal responsibility. And the level of tyranny a people will abide is inversely proportional to their moral ability to shoulder personal responsibility.

Archbishop Cranmer

This is the essential issue at root in terms of our fight for maintaining liberty.  Every year, every election, every political cycle removes us more from our founding principles and ultimately will mutate this society from one of self-reliance, faith, and prudence, but to one of dependence, apathy, and lustful pursuits.

Someone once asked me why I think that the Second Amendment is the most important right codified in the Constitution. Why are guns so important?

Guns, weapons of war held in private citizens’ hands, are the ultimate manifestation in the modern age of personal responsibility and sovereignty, and once the people abdicate or curtail their personal responsibility and sovereignty, then they will have fallen further into tyranny and exposed themselves to more of it in the coming age.

The simple truth is that, while I remain armed and able to exercise lethal force not just in defense of myself, but of others, and of liberty as an whole, tyranny will be stopped.

In righteousness you will be established:
Tyranny will be far from you;
you will have nothing to fear.
Terror will be far removed;
it will not come near you.

Isaiah 54:14