On January 1, 2012 the Republican leadership broke their promise about not raising taxes on the rich. "The deal passed by the Senate early this morning, with the endorsement of all but seven of the 47 Republicans, would raise $620 billion in new revenue, hiking tax rates on households earning more than $450,000 a year."

"'Keep in mind that just last month Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans,' President Obama said Monday. 'Obviously, the agreement that's currently being discussed would raise those rates and raise them permanently.'"

It reminds me of the speech that Yaron Brook gave at the Tea Party Patriots Summit in Arizona February 25, 2011 when he talked about the Republicans having a hard time with the budget. He said, "They don't have a principle."

The Founding Fathers had a principle. I find it interesting that for all the attention that the Founding Fathers are getting right now, people are still missing the one principle that they stood for, a principle without which there never would have been a United States of America. It is this single idea that all the rest of their ideas rested upon and it is how they came up with our unique system of government. Does any Republican leader even know what that one principle is, let alone stick to it? Yet the Founders were willing to risk their lives and everything they had for it -- the principle of individual rights.

Individual rights are spelled out very clearly in the Declaration of Independence: Our rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (our happiness, not anyone else's). They went on to say that the government was created among men to protect those rights. And that is all the government should be doing. 

It is very depressing to see these Republicans just bow down to the wicked, to our enslavers, and give them everything they want. The men of today have absolutely nothing in common with the men of 1776. Yaron Brook pointed this out about the Founding Fathers: "They didn't say, 'We just want a little bit less taxes, please, King George.' They didn't say, 'Give us some liberty, please, King George.' They changed the world because they asked a fundamental question. And the question they asked is, 'Who does your life -- does my life -- belong to?' That's a question that people had never asked, because it was always obvious: your life belongs to the state, to the king, to some emperor, to somebody else -- and it's your job to do his bidding. The Founders of this country said 'No: sovereignty belongs with the individual. My life is mine. Your life is yours. And nobody can take that away -- not a king; but not even a majority!"

Until politicians come forth that understand this principle and have the courage to act on this principle there will be no change. We can just count on more compromises as they bend over to satisfy those who want to control our lives. And our time is running out.

Charlotte Cushman is a Montessori educator at Minnesota Renaissance School, Anoka, Minnesota and has been involved in the study of Ayn Rand's philosophy since 1970.