Give Me LibertyGive Me Liberty

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

George Orwell

America is rapidly reaching a point of no return. Our constitution has been shredded by both Bush (I had to destroy the free market to save it) and Obama. They are not alone in this, virtually every president since Teddy Roosevelt has trampled it to some degree.

Thomas Jefferson wrote to Joseph Priestley in 1802

Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of their political creed.

One hundred and twenty five years of trashing the constitution is not a moment of passion or delusion. Many are now calling for a return to a constitutional form of government. It strains belief how thoroughly we, the American people, have abdicated our responsibility to hold public officials accountable to their constitutional duties.

Do we not recall there were men and women who died to protect and defend the form of government spelled out in that document?

If we are honest we can see that the Progressive usurpation has not been the exclusive domain of the Democrats, though they seem on the face to be the most radical. Every Republican administration, Teddy was a Republican after all, has participated in the debauchery that has come to power in Washington or at least sanctioned it by acquiescence.

 Some would say “you’ve got issues man”. We all have issues. That is the problem. For those who attended any of the recent tea parties you will probably recognize the fact that everybody had their issue and it was the only issue they wanted to talk about. Everybody was talking at each other or around each other and politely applauding each other’s speeches. One guy is intent on lower taxes, another wants less spending, another to stop bailouts, Term Limits, The Fair Tax, The Flat Tax, ObamaCare, drug laws, seat belt laws, etc.

We must recognize that ending all government interference in the lives of Americans is critical to recovering the liberty lost. And make no mistake, it is already lost. We are no longer in “preserve our freedom” mode.

• When the federal government taxes us at whatever rate they determine to be in their best political interest, without any restraint and there is none, we are not free.
• When the federal government promulgates rules that determine the height of the handrails on stairs in my small business of twelve, we are not free.
• When the federal government determines in its sole discretion how many gallons of water our toilet can use when we flush, we are not free.
• When the federal government defines which light bulbs are allowed and which are not based on what is most profitable for GE, we are not free.
• When we don’t have the right to build the home of our dreams if it conflicts with the state planners desires, we are not free.
• When we don’t have a right to expect the delegated power of eminent domain to be used wisely; instead anybody who can afford to buy a politician can steal our land for their own purposes (Kelo v. New London), we are not free. This may not yet have been expanded beyond real estate but there is no legal reason it can’t apply to your restored antique car that Hollywood wants to destroy for its latest picture. In reality Kelo says the government may take anything it wants for any purpose it wants as long as the government benefits from the taking. Does it require you be compensated? Sure but who decides what is fair? That’s right the same people doing the taking in most cases.
• If we start a business and we have to constantly worry that some bureaucrat will see a line painted in the wrong spot, count our employees and decide we didn’t hire enough pink or blue people, decide we are gouging the public (the customers we hope will come back), are undercutting our competitors unfairly by selling our products at too low a price, we are not free. The list of what the limited federal government can do to disable or destroy our business is unlimited.
• When the federal government mandates a bomb in your glove box “for your protection”, we are not free.
• When the federal government enacts gun laws in clear violation of the constitution, we are not free.  We do not even have a universally recognized right to self defense. There are people today in prison for defending their lives or property.
• When the federal government enforces laws relating to discrimination by private individuals against private individuals, we are not free.
• When the federal government decides a crime committed against a protected individual is worse than when the identical crime is committed against a regular American, we are not free.
• When the federal government outlaws a weed that grows naturally, we are not free.
• When the federal government issues every American a number to track and control our financial life, we are not free. 
• When the federal government protects as free speech the vilest of pornography but arrests a prolife demonstrator for speaking to victims before they are violated, we are not free.
• When that same government uses our money to fund pornographic art against our clear wishes, we are not free.
• When the federal government mandates to the various states and by extension to the people what, when and how their children are to be educated, we are not free.
• When the federal government requires it’s religion be taught in every school (secular humanism) and bars any form of dissent or discussion about the truth of its religion, we are not free.
• When the federal government requires our children be taught immoral behavior is a lifestyle choice and protects the doers of immoral behavior with special laws and dispensations, we are not free. Gay rights? Be Happy?
• When the federal government can insert itself into the homes of Americans to tell our underage daughters while they cannot have their ear pierced without Mom and Dad’s consent, they can destroy a growing life without any parental consent, waiting period or knowledge about what they are actually doing, we are not free.
• When the federal government uses our money to teach our children that a promiscuous life is a happy life and subverts our attempts to inculcate basic morality into our children, we are not free.
• When the federal government determines, as it did in Wickard v Filburn, we do not even have a right to feed our family, we are not free.

• When we don’t have a right to fill a ditch or swamp on our property unless the bureaucrats approve, we are not free.

“Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?”         Franklin Delano Roosevelt

How do you deal with people who would see you starve before they would give up their power aspirations?

• When the federal and state governments require you to have a license to drive or fly, you are not free. The constitution explicitly recognizes our God given right to travel, are we to believe that right only applies when we walk or ride with someone else.
• We don’t have a right to engage in honest trade or business unless we pay for a license. What right must be paid for?
• When we have random roadside checks for sobriety or citizenship, we are not free.
• When government declares itself empowered to seize private property on the mere suspicion of criminality and places the burden of proof on the citizen to prevent this legalized theft (which they have done), we are not free.
• When the federal government is moving without significant opposition to require as a matter of law every American to purchase government mandated health insurance, we are not free. Go ahead sign the Health Care petition see what good it does. But I mean it really, sign the petition just understand by itself it is meaningless.

 

Who did this to us?

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

                We did. I am willing to bet there are at least a few of the tyrannies mentioned above you have supported at one time, if not today. Most were popular in their own right. We have been divided up according to our prejudices and our fears. Today it is mothers against drunk drivers demanding illegal roadside stops, tomorrow it is gun controls freaks demanding restrictions on firearms. When drugs were outlawed in this country it was because so few had tried them it was easy to vilify them and take away their rights. Today the massive profits of an illegal trade mean we have pushers dedicated to introducing as many as possible to these addictive drugs. The majority of people have experimented and large numbers are addicted to drugs that had little attraction before they were criminalized. And there is no federal authority to outlaw drugs in the constitution. At least the prohibitionists recognized the need for an amendment to outlaw alcohol. Later seeing the incredible crime and corruption such an amendment created; they repealed it. Drugs existed well before the country was founded; it was not a new problem. The solution is simple, I already drug test my employees and fire them if they fail. Beyond that, if someone is determined to destroy their life I will not destroy my liberty to stop them.

                Instead of recognizing the power grab; too often we decide that a particular law would be a “good” law and conveniently forget to ask ourselves if the law is constitutional. After all if it makes sense to us it must be constitutional. That attitude has got to stop, liberty doesn’t work that way.

Licensing schemes are a prime example of where we have allowed our common sense to be distorted or even compromised by governmental power grabs described as efforts to make us more secure.

Driver licenses are one of the things conservatives latch onto as some sort of necessity. Really? Why? Well cars are dangerous they say. So are guns but we would all agree requiring a license to keep and bear arms would be more dangerous to liberty than no license requirement. At least we have held that line, if loosely.

Driver licenses are as dangerous. They have helped to breed this notion, which is now firmly embedded, that we are somehow to be treated as children by the government. Government is the great giver of “privileges” instead of God being the giver of rights. If we had never conceded drivers licenses we would not likely be discussing concealed carry as a permit or license but instead taking it for granted as a right. But these new fangled, scary cars came along and people were scared of the dad-blamed things and after all only the rich had them so we could stick it to the rich and control these terrifying contraptions.  And now that drivers license in conjunction with a Social Security number is effectively a National ID card.

But do driver licenses make us safer? Not likely, after all 98% or better of people who try to get a driver license get one. Are we really to believe that the skills required to drive a car are on the one hand so rare it has to be taught and licensed and on the other hand so easily learned that a 98% licensure rate demonstrates proficiency?

Studies indicate 80% of automobile accidents are caused by the same 20% of the driving population. Why didn’t the licensing process screen them out? It can’t. The skill level to drive a car is low. They don’t have accidents because they are not able to drive. They have repeated accidents because they are careless or reckless. A real licensing process would screen out careless people of all skill levels. Of course that doesn’t make sense because suddenly “careless” would justify the denial of licenses to people the examiner or local sheriff didn’t like. Careless is a subjective judgment. Issuing a concealed carry permit at the discretion of local law enforcement resulted in people’s rights being abrogated.  “Careless” would come to mean the sheriff or examiner doesn’t like you or you didn’t contribute to his campaign. So we use a skills test that doesn’t screen out anybody.

                This is not to say we don’t need traffic laws. We don’t have licensing for guns (yet) but we have laws concerning murder and brandishing that are the equivalent of stop signs and reckless driving.

                Did the founding fathers think a driver’s license was necessary? Of course not. How could I know that you say. They didn’t have cars then you say. They did have roads and they rode horses and wagons on them. Compare for a moment in your head the skills needed to ride a horse, drive a horse drawn wagon, with the skills needed to drive a car. If you have never ridden a horse you will fall into one of two camps; either you think it would be really dangerous and difficult or you think it is easy and anybody can do it. A horse is much more complex than the car. Cars are predictable in their operation, point and shoot. Horses are organic. Every horse has a unique personality. Even the best horsemen, obviously highly skilled, will acknowledge that any horse can act in an unpredictable manner at anytime. Most people today have never been on a horse and have no idea how to ride a horse. If horses were some new fangled notion, and assuming the government didn’t outlaw horse riding at the behest of PETA, the government would be selling a licensing scheme. And the people being unfamiliar with the “horse” concept would allow their fear to override their common sense and the natural skepticism they should possess of everything the government does and agree to the licensing scheme.

Licensing only serves to enhance government power over the people. It rarely makes the people more secure. This is true for mechanics, lawyers and doctors as well. A license for any of these professions has generally resulted in a high degree of trust being placed in the individual by consumers. More often than not the system that creates the licensing process protects the screw-ups from public scrutiny. How many people do doctors get to kill through incompetence or carelessness before their license is in jeopardy? We have all seen plenty of stories related to some doctor who finally has his license pulled after numerous deaths or disfigurements. It is like looking at criminal rap sheets with thirty or forty convictions before the perp finally kills twenty-five people in a shopping mall and gets a real sentence. Doctors have rap sheets as well but, like the criminals rap sheet, we don’t get to see it until long after it is too late. The doctor is protected by the same people who created the licensing scheme. Absent a licensing scheme for doctors everybody would have to be careful who they choose to be their doctor instead of relying on a system that protects doctors at the expense of patients. Before a lot of the current government licensing schemes distorted the market, private organizations like Good House Keeping existed expressly for the purpose of helping consumers select reputable products and services. The proof of the complete failure of the licensing schemes is visible today because we have so many services like Consumer Reports and Angie’s List to do what the licenses can never do, help us find good reputable products and services. A government manufacturing or occupational license is a license to steal.

We need to recognize the truth; whatever trip wire was set has long been tripped, the canary is dead. The freedom is gone. We cannot preserve what we don’t have. We will have to take it back and then we can talk about preserving it. I know if we compare the US to any country around the world we may still be freer than most countries, if not all. That is not a good enough standard. The US was never about comparing our freedoms to others and celebrating small victories. The people who braved oceans on the Mayflower or an inner tube didn’t do it for a small margin of liberty over what they left. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, et al, didn’t freeze and bleed and die so the IRS could consume their posterity with vindictive spite. The Underground Railroad, peopled by black and white alike, did not risk everything so some petty bureaucrat could order them to plant a particular tree or paint their house a certain color.

If we are to recover our liberty we must stop trusting the government is looking out for our best interest. The government is now, always has been and ever will be looking to protect its own best interest. That always means expanding government power at the expense of liberty. And they are more than willing to create the crisis. If that means failing to enforce immigration laws and creating a needless illegal immigrant problem to sell a national ID card that allows them more power and control they will do it. They have done it.

Realistically, we need to question every single law propagated since 1800. If the law didn’t exist before then; it is probably not needed. Technology may have changed but the world hasn’t changed that much. We need to control our fears instead of allowing the government to stoke our fears as a means of grabbing more control. If we do not control our fears; they will control us.

Unless you are quite old you have never lived under a constitutional government. And both sides at all times have kept quiet about some of the most egregious offenses committed by the other side in order to protect their own deviations. Ask the Republicans how they justify the national drug laws or seat belt coercions and you will hear the same lame excuses the Democrats use when justifying the use of federal law to steal property in the form of wetlands conservation or when they pass firearms laws. Both sides run directly to the commerce clause or the general welfare clause to justify their unconstitutional power grabs.

They could not have made these power grabs without the consent of the governed. In the near future that may not be the case but up to now it has been the case almost exclusively. The consent may not come directly but it comes in one form or another. When the plumber rips you off it is because you don’t want to get dirty so you hire somebody and don’t bother to know his job well enough to tell whether or not he is doing a good job. When an auto mechanic rips you off it is again for the same reasons, you don’t want to get greasy or dirty and he takes advantage of your laziness. When your congressman, reelected for the 100th time, rips you off, you can hardly feign surprise you already let the plumber and the mechanic do it.

There is only one political solution for America and the window is closing rapidly, restore the founders’ intent both in the constitution, by strict adherence to the constitution, and in the congress by running for office and restoring the citizen legislature that they intended. We are not going to get the former until we do the latter.

We have waited until awfully late in the game. There is no question the other side has been tunneling under the foundations of liberty and they almost have the walls ready to collapse. A Russia scientist recently predicted the breakup of the US next year. Seems a little soon but we are going there or to civil war within a few years. It’s frightening but anybody can see that is where we are headed. Most of would rather our children didn’t have to fight that battle. If we don’t fight this battle now at the ballot box they will be fighting it in the fields.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. Thomas Paine

Run for office; don’t trust a politician to do it.

www.roguepolitics.com

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