The absolute brilliance of our founders' handiwork was crafting a constitution and government that balanced, as well as is humanly possible, the ability of government to exercise necessary force while providing maximum freedom and protecting the God-given rights of the people. Almost every political debate today, from the banning of beer sales in a small town to a great debate over global warming in the halls of Congress, is really about the exercise of this power of force and coercion.

The founders greatly distrusted the capacity of mortal leaders to withstand the temptations of power. Therefore, they wrote a constitution and framed a government that divided the power of government into three branches, each checking the other, and further divided it between state and federal levels.

More laws generally mean more coercion. Thus, the framers made it difficult to pass laws, requiring each law to win approval in separate houses of Congress and then be signed by the chief executive.

And, finally, because men are created equal, because basic rights are God-given, not government-given, and because government derives its power from the people, and not the reverse, we, the people, have the ability to boot out of office those who wield the awesome power of force and coercion if we dislike how they're using it.

As we celebrate this great holiday, let us be grateful for the brilliant, heaven-inspired handiwork of our founders. Amazingly, they fashioned a government framework as relevant and applicable in our modern, high-tech, networked, knowledge-age, global society as in their agrarian society.

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Republican LaVarr Webb was policy deputy to Gov. Mike Leavitt and Deseret News managing editor. He now is a political consultant and lobbyist. E-mail: lwebb@exoro.com. Democrat Frank Pignanelli is Salt Lake attorney, lobbyist and political adviser. A former candidate for Salt Lake mayor, Pignanelli served 10 years in the Utah House of Representatives, six years as House minority leader. E-mail: frankp@xmission.com.