Tony Wyman Archives - The Founding Project

Natural Law: Our Founders were Trouble Makers

July 16, 2024 Tony Wyman 0

Our Founders Really Were Trouble-Makers Natural Law: If causing trouble was the goal of the Founding Fathers in 1776, attacking the notion that rulers derived their authority to govern from the Divine Right of Kings was certainly the way to go. The ruling establishments of the most powerful nations on Earth pushed the idea that their kings were chosen directly by God and that their authority, therefore, could not be questioned, nor could the people hold their kings accountable for their actions. Kings, as alleged representatives of God, therefore, were not subject to any earthly authority, certainly not to the people or even the aristocracy of their kingdoms. They were, in a very real sense, […]

The Responsibility of Freedom

June 16, 2023 Tony Wyman 0

Responsibility: Freedoms carry with them the consequences of our choices “I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” – Bob Dylan (1941 – ), American Singer-Songwriter, Musician, and Poet Every 4th of July, Americans gather together to do what we do best: drink beer, eat too much and blow stuff up. We do this on this particular day to celebrate our nation’s birth, the day we declared our liberation from the rule of the distant King of England…and embraced responsibility. But, even though the 4th of July is the day we became a free nation, we don’t call that holiday “Freedom Day.” We, instead, call […]

Right to Property and Pursuit of Happiness: Work

May 22, 2023 Tony Wyman 0

The Happiness Factor of Work A Civilizing Force Maybe the greatest civilizing force in society today is that most of us have to get up five days a week, take a shower, put on something presentable, if not exactly fashionable, and go to a job where, for a minimum of eight hours, we are expected to be better people than we really are in exchange for a paycheck and a dose of self-respect…or we work. We all complain, of course, about having to go to work, about the cruelly inverse nature of the ratio of weekdays to weekends, about racing rats and climbing over bodies to get to the top of the corporate heap, […]

Ants Like Authoritarianism, Do We?

May 16, 2023 Tony Wyman 0

A Case for Freedom in Human Society Ants like authoritarianism, so who are we to argue? 10 quadrillion ants* will wake up today on nearly every continent on the planet and go about doing ant things without a single thought as to the state of being for an ant. No ant Marx will ask why the means of production seem to disproportionately benefit the Queen. No ant Jefferson will declare that all ants have certain unalienable rights that come, not from fellow ants, but from God Himself. No ant Rand* will declare that all ants are individuals beholden to no other ant or ant colony. No, every ant will get up and unquestioningly do what […]

Destroying Democracy: How Easy Is It?

March 16, 2023 Tony Wyman 0

Destroying Democracy is Easier Than You Think When Americans think of the collapse of a democracy, they typically picture scenes of armed men fighting in the streets. They envision death, ruin and destruction brought to their nation as opposing forces battle over their country’s future. But, in the modern age, that isn’t the only way free societies fail. In fact, it isn’t even the most common way. History demonstrates this and current day examples of how freedom is lost further illustrate this pattern. Look at what has happened to Turkey for a better example of how democracies are replaced by dictatorial regimes in the modern age… The Destruction of Democracy in the Modern Age Turkey […]

The Free Market: Trading Pudding for Pickles

January 12, 2023 Tony Wyman 3

Part of the TFP Founding Principle Series, Tony Wyman continues with an explanation of Free Markets. Trading Pudding for Pickles ~ How the Free Market Made School Lunches Great No matter how many times I told my mother that I absolutely despised Snak Pak Butterscotch Pudding, every day I opened my lunch box in middle school, there it was. That vile, brown-grey paste, sitting in its little plastic tub, took up space in my lunch that should have been occupied by the food I craved most: Vlasic dill pickles. But, my mother, who religiously packed my lunch every day, insisted that I didn’t actually like pickles and that every boy of a certain age absolutely […]

The Making of a Tyrant: How Hitler Rose to Power

October 24, 2022 Tony Wyman 0

Hitler’s Rise to Power: How the Worst People Hoodwink a Nation Hitler…On September 12, 1919, a nondescript German corporal walked into a sparsely attended meeting of the German Workers’ Party in Munich. Sent there to investigate the group by the German Army, at that time deeply involved in crushing Marxist groups trying to gain power, the corporal sat at the back of the beer hall in which the meeting took place. The corporal listened while economist Gottfried Feder gave a speech called, “How and by What Means is Capitalism to be Eliminated.” Unimpressed with what he heard, the young corporal got up to leave. But, as he walked to the door, another speaker took Feder’s […]

Founding Principle 2: A Universal Truth

August 4, 2022 Tony Wyman 0

Continuing The Founding Project Series on The 28 Founding Principles, TFP writer, Tony Wyman, covers Founding Principle #2, Universal Truth. The Founders’ Universal Truth: A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong. It might strike students of history as odd that Ben Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers best known for his carousing and imbibing, joined his fellow Founders in believing that a free society could exist only if its people were moral and virtuous, the universal truth. But, like many men since whose appetites sometimes conflict with their philosophies, he recognized that his personal behavior wasn’t always in line with what was best for the […]

Individual Rights and The Smallest Minority

June 5, 2022 Tony Wyman 0

It Should Be All About You, the Smallest Minority… Regardless of your race, your religion, your gender, you are a minority. In fact, you are the only minority that matters. All the others are simply social constructs, ways societies categorize and manage groups of people, ways in which governments are able to prioritize the distribution of resourcee of alt-right “racialism.” or measure the use of force. But, you? You’re different, special and unique. In fact, you belong to a minority so unlike all other minorities that there is an exclusive name for this minority to which you and only you belong: individual. I’m not trying to turn you into a convert of Ayn Rand, the controversial […]