The rapid pace of change in the United States and our unprecedented access to information and opinion about the changes taking place has prompted many people to ask, “What has happened to the America I knew?” As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, there are few left who remember the America that existed before the wholesale embrace of socialism initiated by Franklin Roosevelt. There are some who know who Norman Rockwell was and still dream of that America. More people are beginning to understand the principles upon which this great country was founded and comprehend the distance we have strayed. Most, however, with an attention span abbreviated by the media, a lack of understanding of history and the ability to think deeply reinforced by a woefully inadequate government education system and the complacency engendered by the inherited wealth of our nation, continue to walk around in a stupor, unaware of the destructive path upon which we have embarked. The chains have been added so slowly and with such slick advertising that few are aware of how heavy they have become.
“Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty”
Thomas Jefferson
Things have changed, however. Our bondage no longer takes place in secret and the speed and arrogant compulsion by which our government is trying to secure the last of our chains has made many finally sit up and take notice. The response has been one of protests, protests that are becoming more organized and widespread. The government leaders trying to lock these last chains in place are doing their best to ignore and discredit the dissidents and convince the remainder that the chains are really for their own good. Who will win? Over the short term, the protesters might. They may win some elections or change a wavering politician’s mind. The long term, however, is in the hands of the government and it is not about to relinquish one scrap of its power. At the end of the Reagan Revolution, government was bigger. Since the Contract With America, it has grown exponentially. What some have finally realized is that both parties want the power that comes with bigger and more intrusive government. One party may blatantly admit it, as Democrat Barny Frank did recently. However, the proof is in their actions, not their words, and the actions of Washington, no mater which party has been in charge, demonstrate their desire to reduce us to servitude.
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.”
James Madison
What if we don’t want to live as slaves? What if we don’t want the government telling us what we can eat, how cold or hot our home is, what car we can drive, where to put our retirement money, how to meet our health needs, how to educate our children....the list could go on. Once upon a time when the “Hate America Crowd” was on the outside looking in, a red-blooded American could say, “America, love it or leave it!” Now that same “hate America crowd” has molded our government and the country into their own Marxist image and they say to us “Amerika, love it or leave it!” What are we to do? We are conflicted because we know and believe in ideals and values we know are, or have been, American ideals and we believe that our government was instituted to reflect those ideals. In our form of government we think that the representatives we send will protect and enhance our values and ensure the continuity of all that has made this country great. In our minds, the government, the land and the ideals are inseparable. It is a fallacy that has led us to accept our descent into servitude with little protest and will prohibit us from mentally considering avenues of self-preservation not sanctioned by the government. We erroneously believe that we can work within our system to bring about major changes and roll back the socialism we have embraced. The system is not ours anymore, it has not been for some time. The system is run by those in power for the perpetuation of that power. Elections are controlled by the two parties and any candidate that wants to rise to the national, and to a large degree, the state, level, have to play the game. Sure, there are a few exceptions, there are a few “Mr. Smiths” in politics but most of them play the game and perpetuate their power. The way money is raised, the way voting districts are drawn, the way the parties use PACs and the ability of incumbents to use media at taxpayer expense all ensure the historical ninety-plus percent reelection rate of even the most dimwitted and outrageous politicians.
“The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”
“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness by positively uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is patron, the last a punisher.”
Thomas Paine
Even if we could elect a few good men and women, most of government is out of their hands anyway. Once upon a time we had a government that had three coequal branches that were all subject to “We the People”. For a time those branches contested for supremacy. Early on it was the executive under President Jackson which could ignore the supreme court and Lincoln’s tyrannical activities during the civil war. In the twentieth century the courts reasserted themselves and for years citizens bemoaned “legislation from the bench”. Now, the power resides in the vast bureaucracy created by the congress and loosely directed from the executive branch. For example, because the congress is not moving quickly enough to pass cap and trade legislation, the Environmental Protection Agency has stated it will implement a similar program with no input form the people’s representatives necessary. If the courts do not believe so called “Net Neutrality” i.e. government control of the Internet, is constitutional, the Federal Communication Commission will declare it a public utility and regulate it anyway. The myriad of government agencies, all of which appear to have eternal life as Reagan said, pump out tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations we are expected to know and obey on pain of fine or imprisonment. Again, no input from the people’s representatives necessary. We have gone from a government with three equal branches under the direction and authority of “we the people” to a government run from the top down with the executive bureaucracy on top and “we the people” at the bottom. Government no longer exists to serve us-we exist to provide our treasure and toil to the government. It is a situation that has followed a logical and historical progression that has never been reversed. Power, once attained, is never relinquished voluntarily by the government that finds itself with a virtually unlimited ability to impose and control. Historically, there are only three ways such tyranny has come to an end. First, such governments can be destroyed from he outside. Iraq is a recent example. Second, they will collapse under their own weight as the Soviet Union did and we are coming very close to. Or the people will rise up in revolution. This can be violent or non-violent. In India it was primarily non-violent. Our revolution was violent. Both were rebellions against Great Britain and the only difference were the choices Great Britain, not the revolutionaries, made. If the despotic government in power chooses to negotiate, the revolution can proceed along non-violent lines. If, however, the tyrannical power chooses to hold onto its power no matter what and not allow its people even to leave, the people have only two choices. They will submit to being slaves or they will rise up and fight for their freedom using whatever means they have at their disposal.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearfulsome master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action”
George Washington
Before any revolution will take hold among the people,however, there needs to be a separation in the minds of the people between the idea of “America” and our current government. America is not our government, America is an idea, it is a set of values and ideals. Most people that live in the United States rarely, if ever, think about what “America” is and what makes it unique among all the nations of the earth. What does it mean to pursue the “American Dream” and how do we define Liberty and Freedom? America was founded on the idea that a national government should interfere in the lives of its citizens at little as possible. “That government governs best that governs least.” Thomas Jefferson. The citizens of America should be free to believe, act, say and become anything they want to as long as those actions do not interfere with the God-given rights of others. Rights; not wishes, desires or sensibilities. Those rights, given to us by God, include the right to life, liberty and the right to pursue that which makes us happy. We have the right to our property and the right to any activity that increases our property that does not infringe on the rights of others to pursue or exercise the same. America embraces the ideals of capitalism and the free market system in which any person can engage in any occupation they choose and they have the right to dispose of the fruits of their labor any way they wish. Americans believe in compassion, we are the most generous people on earth. American civil society is based on Judeo-Christian Biblical principles. The American ideal is one of blind justice in which no man is treated with favoritism. The American vision is one in which there are no distinctions among men based on class, race or religion and a man is free to become anything he desires based on his talent, passion and hard work alone. Americans are entrepreneurial, inventive and have a “can do” spirit and the mentality and wealth those values produced led to most of the inventions that make modern society what it is. Freedom, compassion, justice, liberty, capitalism, inventiveness, virtue and basic morality. These are the historical American ideals, these were the ideals that led to the American Revolution, it was these ideals and values the founders designed our government to protect and enhance. Only to the extent to which our government embraces these values can it be called and “American” government.
“Of liberty I would say, in the whole plentitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
Thomas Jefferson
Consider now the government we have in Washington, and even those at the state and local level. It is a government that takes our property and the more successful we are, the more it takes. It takes this property to feed itself and its army of bureaucrats first and distributes the reminder to other citizens for their support. The creation of this dependent class, a class that has grown to encompass nearly half of the citizenry, has destroyed the values of inventiveness, capitalism, and entrepreneurial spirit that difficult economic situations stimulate. It eliminates their liberty and freedom and discourages their morality and virtue. Our government believes that our rights are derived from its good graces, not from God, on whom it has made war for a century. Our government has, through law, regulation and outright confiscation, sought to destroy capitalism and the free market system, which it has proclaimed a “failure”. It has created protected classes of people within the citizenry that are given special “rights” and privileges. It has forced our compassion through confiscatory taxation. Justice has become more equal for the wealthy, powerful and politically correct than for the rest of us. Governments at all levels have passed laws regulating even the minute of our behavior. Can a government that acts this way be called an “American” government? Is it not time to revisit the injunction contained in the Declaration of Independence regarding our rights and duty concerning governments that fail to secure our rights? Is such talk and action “un-American”?
“I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation; as free to transact their common concerns by any agents they think proper; to change these agents individually. or the organization of them in form or function whenever they please; that all acts done by these agents under the authority of the nation are the acts of the nation, are obligatory on them...and can in no wise be annulled or affected by any change in the form of government or the persons administering it.”
Thomas Jefferson
If we accept our “right” and “duty” to “alter or abolish” any government that “evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism” what are we to do? One option many have taken is to make their “government footprint” as small as possible. They earn little so they don’t pay to support the tyrannical system or they legally or illegally withhold their income and property. They do their best to exercise their God-given freedom and rights when they can get away with it. They are like Winston in Orwell’s 1984 sitting in a corner writing in his journal where the camera of Big Brother can’t see him. They do their best to fall between the cracks of our totalitarian state; to one degree or another, go underground. Is that any way to live? Perhaps for the short term, it is an option but is a life between the cracks and hoping not to get caught any life at all? It is still a life dictated by the state. By definition, the cracks are there because the state has allowed them or neglected them. That is not freedom.
“Fear is the foundation of most governments”
John Adams
In the past, there have been revolutionaries who have succumbed to terrorism and indiscriminate violence. Such actions are not consistent with the American values previously enumerated, particularly our morality and virtue and a society and nation founded on such violence is no place to live. There are enough nations in the world that have followed this path. However, we have been conditioned to believe that the use of violence in defense of freedom is never justified. We have made heroes and gods out of Gandhi and Dr. King to the point where non-violent protest is the only acceptable form of protest. Certainly, violence should be a last resort. As our founders said in the Declaration of Independence, men are disposed to suffer and will suffer a long time. But a point will come when the abuse becomes unbearable. They hoped to avoid war and violence but ultimately government is force and it can choose to exercise that force when it believes it is in its best interest; and self preservation is always in a government’s best interest. Negotiations and patience will only go so far. We are under no obligation to negotiate away our God given rights nor must we sit back and wait while tyrants whittle away at them over time. The opposite is true. It is our duty not only as patriots but as human beings to resist any infringement on our rights whether the tyrants be elected or self appointed.
“When the principle that force is right becomes the principle of the nation itself, they would not permit an honest minister, were accident to bring one to power, to relax their system of lawless piracy.”
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protest themselves against tyranny in government.”
Thomas Jefferson
We have the right and obligation of resistance to tyranny and it is time we started to exercise that right. Violence, of course, should be the last option on our list but it needs to remain an option. There are other options available right now. There is massive tax protest, defunding the voracious monster that is our government. There is always the remote possibility of actually electing people that will have the courage and integrity to dismantle the beast. There is the refusal to obey unconstitutional and immoral laws dictated by the government like the invasive actions of the census or cooperating with unlawful investigations of our fellows who have been labeled “terrorists” by this administration. Such things require the majority of individuals and businesses to become involved. I sincerely hope that we have time to organize such activities. However, we need to consider what happens when the government takes action against dissident activity. What happens when the EPA shows up at your home with a court order to vacate your property because it has been declared a wetland? Do you leave? How far does your resistance go? What about when the local utility appears on your doorstep to install your government approved thermostat that will remotely regulate your energy use? What if child protective services decides that our religious beliefs or our desire to homeschool our children makes us unfit to raise our them and they want to put them in a more politically correct environment? What do we do when some bureaucrat decides our life is not worth spending health care resources on and we should just take the pain pill and die? At what point do we defend our family, our property and our lives against a totalitarian government? When do you stand proudly in your doorway as a free man against the agents of tyranny with your gun and say “No more!” The time is soon coming when we will be confronted with these situations and we had better be prepared beforehand to make our choice to fight for liberty or meekly allow the government to fasten the remaining chains of our servitude.
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative,and deciding by a jury of themselves in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.”
Thomas Jefferson
The time is nearly upon us when our hand will be forced one way or another. Power continues to coalesce in Washington and they are endeavoring to find new and creative ways to impose their will on us. They are also following a path to economic disaster that will bring about an opportunity for unimaginable oppression or the rebirth of freedom. Dark times are coming and the struggle between the forces of tyranny and liberty will come to a head. When everything we know know has been torn down what will be rebuilt? Will we allow the current power brokers to create their Marxist utopia and plunge us into total darkness or will we resist the last desperate efforts of a despotic government and witness the renaissance of the American ideal? Will the sons and daughters of liberty come together and assert their rights loudly and forcefully once again or will we meekly descend into socialist oblivion with only a few isolated voices of protest? It is a choice each individual must make. In ten years will we be living in a despotic nation called “Amerika” or will we be rising from the ashes like the phoenix, lady liberty at the fore to reestablish “America” as the light of freedom to the world it once was.
“The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence as persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of their war for independence, a nation begins going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of that war will remain on them long, will be made heavier and heavier, till their rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”
Thomas Jefferson
Credit to www.patricksamuels.com
Credit to www.patricksamuels.com
