JUNE 25, 2004 --

What better time than a presidential election year to reflect on the question: "Are we inspired by this legacy of liberty bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers?"

It is not clear to LPR that the legacy called for enactment of ordinances, regulations, laws and statutes to prescribe a citizen's daily conduct, and to proscribe actions that arguably are the right of free people.

LPR has this notion that the Founding Fathers regarded government as a means to keep bullies in check, and not as a force to live people's lives. The way things seem to be going in the City of New York, we shall in the not-distant-future, perhaps, have laws demanding that pedestrians and occupants of private vehicles wear hardhats, specification approved by City Hall, of course.

Maybe, also, body armor to protect against violence. How soon until smoking is banned in the home? And extending the old rule against talking in school halls to a ban on talking in the street -- with violators to be gagged, as well as fined.

It is not clear to LPR that it was the intention of the Founding Fathers to obtain for the people of the United States as much life-restricting regulation as the mind of officialdom can invent. LPR has little confidence the GOP convention in New York City will be occasion for calls to renew the American legacy of liberty.