On July 4th in the Clark Fork Chronicle, Montana state Senator Greg Hinkle (R-Spear Hunter) got his patriotism on. The message is so inspiring that you can practically hear the fife and drum corps in the background when you read it, as you must surely do here.

Quoting not the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence but the more scholarly and appropriate work “Little House on the Prairie” Hinkle explains his belief that the “true meaning” of the Declaration of Independence is that

“God is America’s King.”

Representative Hinkle invokes Laura Ingalls Wilder (whom he calls, fittingly “Laura Ingalls” – only one last name per Republican thank you) but the next thoughtful paragraph is all his own:

“You see, freedom has its roots deep within the spiritual heritage upon which Independence Day came into being. Liberty is really freedom with responsiblilty[sic] and self-government. Personal responsibility requires us to “boss” ourselves. Abdicating that responsibility to government can do nothing except bring us back into the kind of society the early colonists sought to get away from.”

Setting aside the clear and elegant writing, this paragraph merits a further look for another reason:  if liberty is about “freedom with responsibility and self government”, why is Hinkle continuing to curb the freedom of terminally-ill, mentally competent adults to access legal aid in dying?