Neal's Soapbox

I have an entire drawer at home that is filled with nothing but T-shirts with sarcastic comments on them. Some of these shirts are store bought while others are ideas that I’ve had and put onto them. Out of all of them I think my favorite is one which says, “I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you.”

Thomas Edison, the guy credited with developing the incandescent light bulb, is said to have once made the following comment, “Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.” While I agree with the overall sentiments, the numbers may be somewhat askew. I think the second category, those who think they think, is probably much larger; probably close to 40-50% of the people, with the remainder being people who would rather die than think.

I think that people mistake reciting what they’ve been taught, or heard on the television for thinking. Yet ask them to support their comments with any kind of factual evidence and it send them into a defensive panic, simply because they have no evidence to back up their positions. A tape recorder can play back what is spoken into the microphone, but that DOES NOT pass for thinking.

I hear people all the time say that this politician or that one should do something, that a problem exists and that government needs to take action to remedy that problem. That mindset, in and of itself, is a problem. First of all it leads to knee jerk reactions to stimuli instead of an investigative process by which the factors which caused the problem are examined, and a logical course of action to prevent the problem from re-occurring is decided upon. Secondly, and possibly even more important than that, is the problem people wish to see remedied among the reasons government was established to serve?

People on both sides of the political spectrum tell me that I need to vote so that the ‘other’ person does not win an election. Let me tell you, that’s one hell of a justification for entrusting an individual, or group of them, with the power and authority to enact all manner of laws that affect your lives. This whole lesser of two evils nonsense is, just that, nonsense. Are you voting for a candidate because you fear or despise the other one more than you do the one you have chosen to vote for?

If you could just think about that position for a moment you might begin to realize how ridiculous it is. It is almost as if you are saying to yourself that you know government is this big evil engine of oppression, but you’d rather that someone you support gets their hands on the controls than someone you oppose finds their way into power. Gone is any regard for the fact that government is a system which has a history of a ‘long train of abuses’ and all you care about is making sure that someone you support gets to run the system.

What that tells me is that an overwhelming number of those who vote don’t care one whit about WHY our government exists, only that those who share their beliefs get to run the system. The limits and checks placed upon the government, however feeble they may be, don’t matter; only that the people you support get to control the system.

That’s the reason I spent so much time yesterday discussing consent; for what would you call the condition of a people who DO NOT consent to the authority of a system, yet are forced to pay the taxes it imposes upon them, and obey the laws it enacts?

That is a serious question, and if you had any integrity at all it is one which I would hope you would give serious thought to. How would YOU feel if you were forced to obey the rules imposed upon you by a system you did not consent to, or have a portion of your income stolen from you to pay for things you do not consent to?

I reckon you’d be pretty upset; not only at the system itself, but also at those who believed that you must comply with the system without questioning why that system was originally put into place. If you can begin to picture how YOU would feel if you were in that kind of a situation, then maybe, just maybe, you can begin to understand how I feel about being forced to pay the taxes and obey the laws imposed upon me by a system I do not consent to.
You may have been taught one thing about your system of government in school, but I wonder if whether what you were taught was based upon factual evidence or if it was just the author of some textbooks beliefs as to why we have this system of oppression ruling over us.

There are times when I mention the names of certain people from our country’s past, or mention certain documents from our country’s past, and people get this look on their face as if they are saying, “Who are these people and why should I give a shit about what they had to say?”

Yet people will fawn all over the feet of a Donald Trump or Barack Obama as if they were some kind of prophet, or, dare I say, messiah. They didn’t create this system of government; they only seek to gain entrance into it so that they can use it to push forward their particular agenda; that agenda often being merely the platform of whatever political party they belong to.

The thoughts and beliefs of those who actually created this system of government are meaningless today; and the thoughts and beliefs of those who opposed the implementation of this system are even LESS meaningful to a people whose only concern is getting people they support into positions of authority within the system.

After all, those who established and opposed this system have been dead for hundreds of years; I constantly hear that there is no way they could have foreseen the problems we would face in these modern, and enlightened, , times. Yet the funny thing is, although they may be dead, the system they put into place lives on.

Now I want you to read something, and I hope that you’ll give it the thought that it deserves. This quote comes from Thomas Paine’s book, The Rights of Man, and declares that, “There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the “end of time,” or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void.”

If you join a club or organization, can you forever bind your children to it, or are they free to decide for themselves whether they wish to remain members of it? Each generation of people are free to decide for themselves what they will consent to, and what they will not give their consent to, and any attempt to bind they by coercion or force to a system they DO NOT consent to is both evil and tyrannical.

In discussing this concept, Lysander Spooner explains it as follows, “Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the Constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children.” Spooner wrote that only 80 short years after this system went into effect; I can’t imagine him feeling any less strongly about it just because that system has survived for 230 years.

I wasn’t taught much in school about the actual ratification of the Constitution, only that it was written and put into operation as if there had been no opposition to it. It is only because I made the conscious decision to delve into that period of our history that I have discovered facts that prove that just wasn’t how things went down.

For instance, Virginia was one of the key States in the ratification process; as others looked to the decision Virginia would make in determining whether they would adopt or reject the Constitution. Although Virginia did ratify it, the consent for it was not unanimous; with the vote being 89 in favor and 79 against; a spread of only 10 votes between those consenting to it and those who opposed it.

So how can we honestly say that we have a system of government that derives its authority from the consent of the governed, when in Virginia alone 47% of the delegates to the State Ratifying Assembly did not consent to it? Taking that one step further, there were 170 some odd delegates to the State Ratifying Assembly, while the total population of Virginia was 3/4 million people. What about those who did not attend the State Ratifying Assembly, is their consent taken for granted; do not each of them, as individuals, have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they will give their consent to a system which is to affect them personally?

So this whole idea that our system derives its authority from the consent of the governed is rubbish, absolute bullshit. There were those alive at the time who did not formally give their consent to it, and not one single person subject to the authority of this system has ever formally given their consent to it. Yet try and resist its authority and see what happens to you. That alone should show you the true nature and character of this system you so obediently support by your votes.

If there were those alive in 1789 who did not give their consent to this system, does the fact that a majority did mean that they must live their lives under the authority and jurisdiction of a system they did not consent to? If you believe that they must, then you believe that any majority, no matter what the issue may be, has the right to bind and control the minority. That is a dangerous belief to hold, for one day YOU may become the minority and see YOUR freedoms taken from you by those you had oppressed while you were a part of the majority.

I say, if all men are created equal, then that equality extends to whether or not they must submit to a system they have not given their consent to. Just because YOU consent to it doesn’t mean that I must, and vice versa. In discussing the forming of civil and political societies, Locke supports my position when he said, “MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature.” (My emphasis)

If a system is in place that was established over 2 centuries ago, by men who are long dead, what authority does that system hold over me, my property, my liberty, and my rights if not by coercion and force; making me a slave, or prisoner to a system not of my consent?

Thomas Paine said the following about the hereditary authority of establishing a system that must forever bind future generations, “If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up.”

In a letter written in 1789 Thomas Jefferson stated the following, “The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; & that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.”

So there you see two leading figures from the American Revolution saying that posterity cannot be bound to a system simply because that system existed at the time of their ancestors, or parents; that each generation is free to choose whether it will give its consent to such a system.

Paine also is quoted as saying, “The rights of men in society, are neither devisable or transferable, nor annihilable, but are descendable only, and it is not in the power of any generation to intercept finally, and cut off the descent. If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free.”

In that statement he explains the nature of unalienable rights; rights which are neither devisable nor transferable, and the fact that simply because past generations may have chosen not to exert those rights does not mean that the present generation must submit to violations of them by their government.

You can argue until you’re blue in the face about this, that I must submit to this system to maintain peace, order and stability; but unless you can provide factual evidence supporting your opinion then your opinion is meaningless to me.

If you wish to be a slave, fine. If you wish to participate in choosing who will be your slave masters, fine. Just don’t demand that I must play the same game or submit to the authority of a system which I have revoked my consent for.

I may obey the laws that system enacts and pay the taxes it imposes upon me, but it is only because I value my life that I do so; I DO NOT consent to that system’s authority to do these things, I simply have chosen not to resist at this time…but that may change if things keep going as they have been.

You may support those who wear the uniforms and badges saying they serve and protect, but in reality the only people they serve are those who write the laws they enforce. Their true motto ought to be, “OBEY OR ELSE.”

What separates me, and the small percentage of the population who think like me, from the rest of society is that we recognize that we are prisoners of a system of oppression, while you bow down and lick the boots of your oppressors.

And Paine had something to say about people like you as well, “When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.”

Patrick Henry saw the writing on the wall way back in 1788 when this system of oppression was being argued over in the State Ratifying Assemblies, saying, “Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man, may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old fashioned: If so, I am contented to be so: I say, the time has been when every pore of my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American.”

That spirit has, for the most part, died; to be replaced by the desire for comfort, security, and an endless stream of mindless entertainment that stupefies the American public, turning their minds into mush that are incapable of recognizing that they are slaves.

Yet people wonder why I’m so angry and frustrated all the time; which only proves that they are incapable of critical thought and analysis; otherwise everything they had just read would have made the causes of my anger and frustration perfectly clear.

As words go consent isn’t a large one, being only 7 letters long, but upon it rests the entire theory of government in America. In its most basic form, consent is when one individual agrees to the ideas or proposals of another. Consent can also come when an individual makes a proposal to a group, who then agrees to the terms of the proposal, and vice versa.

Consent is important for some things to be legal. For instance, sexual relations between two consenting adults is not a considered a crime, but if you remove the consent it becomes rape; which is a crime. But are you aware that there is more than one form of consent? Well there are; in fact there are four kinds of consent.

The first is express consent, which is consent that is given in unequivocal terms; such as an oral or written statement which is often witnessed by others. The next is tacit, or implied, consent. Of all the forms of consent, this is the most murky as it is unstated, yet often taken for granted. There is a Latin maxim which states, “Qui tacet consentit” which means, “Silence gives consent.” This form of consent may apply if one is offered a choice to accept or reject a proposal, but instead of doing so they remain silent; which is then construed as their consent.

Informed consent is another, which is most often used in medical situations; such as when you sign a consent form before surgery which states you understand what procedure they are about to perform and the risks involved.

Finally there is unanimous consent, which is when all the parties involved agree to something. Of the four types of consent, only informed consent will not apply to my discussion as I am not going to be speaking about medical procedures.

In 1776 fifty six men gave their consent, on behalf of their Colonial Legislatures, to a document known as the Declaration of Independence. Yet this was not a unanimous act of the 2nd Continental Congress. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania and James Duane, Robert Livingston and John Jay of New York refused to sign it.

There were some who felt that the Colonies were not yet ready to declare their independence, such as John Dickinson, while others felt it was treason to sever the ties that had bound them to Great Britain for all those years; even though they may have agreed that the laws and taxes being imposed upon them were egregious and a violation of their rights.

Regardless of whether the consent for that document was unanimous among all those living in the Colonies, that document gave birth to America as a free and independent country. Sure, it required that blood be spilled to seal the deal, but it was the principles which were outlined in that document which led them to risk their lives and fortunes fighting for.

Did you know that the Declaration of Independence is broken into four parts? The first part is the opening statement of intent where they explain to the world what they are doing. The next part they explain their beliefs as to why they were doing what they did. The next part contains a list of grievances leveled against the King of England, while the final part contains an oath, or affirmation of their support for the entire document.

It is the second part of the Declaration of Independence that is best known, which in part states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

It is upon those beliefs, or principles, that America was founded, so it behooves us to take a close look at what those words say…and mean.

The first words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” are of great importance, so let’s take a close look at what they say. The first point of interest is the use of the word truths. They could have said beliefs, but instead chose to say truths. A truth is something that is in accordance with fact or reality which differs from a belief which can be based upon emotions and falsehoods.

The next thing they say is that these truths are, “… self-evident…” This means that nobody doubted them; they were obvious, apparent to all in attendance. So this opening statement is saying that they held certain truths to be obvious, and they then went on to list what those truths were.

Instead of going into great detail on these truths, I will simply list them one by one so that you can ponder them at your own leisure.

-that all men are created equal

-that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights

-that among those rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

-that to secure those rights governments are instituted among men

-that government derives its just authority from the consent of the governed

-and that when government no longer serves its intended purpose it is the right of the governed to alter or abolish it

It is the second to last of those truths that I wish to discuss in more detail; that government derives its authority from the consent of the governed.

Is consent for government unanimous? Is it expressly stated, is it implied, or is it a little of both? Well the Declaration of Independence itself was an act of altering and abolishing the system of government that had governed the Colonies for over a century and a half, yet there were those who were against separation from Great Britain; so it certainly wasn’t unanimous in that instance.

Was consent for that separation expressly stated? For those who signed the document itself it certainly was. As those delegates were acting on behalf of, and upon instructions given by their Colonial Legislatures, it can be assumed that consent for what they did was implied. I think it is also fair to say that those who picked up their arms and fought for America’s independence had given their consent to it as well.

Even under the very best forms of government I don’t think you’ll find unanimous consent for it. There will always be those who think that government isn’t doing enough, or that it is doing too much; so unanimous consent for it is something that is probably never going to happen. I suppose the most one can hope for is that government serves the purpose it was established to serve; that being secure the blessings of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Government and liberty are like the opposite ends of a seesaw; as one goes up the other must go down. The more power the government has the less liberty the people have, and vice versa. Therefore the best government is one which is aware of, and attentive to, the rights and liberty of those it governs. For this to happen it must remain close to those it governs, for how can a government know what the wants and needs of the governed are if they are thousands of miles away?

During the Revolution the Continental Congress drafted a document known as the Articles of Confederation; America’s first constitution. This document did 3 very important things. First it established a loose confederation in which the States retained all their sovereignty and independence. Secondly, the powers given to the Congress established by that document were EXPRESSLY listed; meaning that there was no room for construction; or implied powers. Finally, for any act of the Congress to become binding upon the Confederation it would have to be approved UNANIMOUSLY by all 13 State Legislatures.

However, as I just stated, there will always be those who feel that government is either doing too much, or not enough. In this instance there were those who felt the government under the Articles of Confederation was not endowed with sufficient powers to manage the affairs of the Confederation.

Under the pretext of revising the Articles of Confederation a group of these men gathered together in Philadelphia in 1787 with the goal of abolishing the Confederation and establishing a nation under a new, more powerful system of government. It’s interesting to note that one of the men who would end up contributing to the Federalist Papers, John Jay, would later go on to serve as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, And he was one of those who refused to sign the Declaration of Independence. Could his support for this proposed system be indicative of his desire for a government that resembled the monarchy he was loyal to prior to the Revolution? I’ll leave that up to you to ponder.

In any case, under the Articles of Confederation the central government was representative of the States, given its authority by the consent of the States, and beholden to them for any laws it might seek to enact. The States, in turn, were beholden to the people living within them, and it was the fact that the States had so much power that was a stumbling block for those who sought to create a strong centralized government. So those who designed the system outlined by the Constitution sought to have the consent for their new system come from the people themselves; thereby shutting the States out of the decision making process altogether; which was illegal under the terms for altering the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation. (See Article 13 of the Articles of Confederation)

That is why Patrick Henry hammered upon their use of the words We the People instead of We the States; for he knew what their intentions were and he wanted no part of it. If you were to read any of the Anti-Federalist Papers by Brutus, Cato, or the Federal Farmer you would see that they all questioned whether the Constitution was to maintain a confederacy, or if it was to consolidate the States under a national form of government. Patrick Henry was so incensed that in the Virginia Ratifying debates he stated, “Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: And cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case?”

And Henry was right, for it was a revolution in which a small group of men overthrew the established government for one of their own creation. But returning to my original point; is this system one in which we have given our consent to?

Remember now, consent comes in many forms, so your silence in the face of the power wielded by this government can be taken as your consent for it; which is why I will NEVER stop complaining about its abuses of power and its infringement upon my rights and liberty. The fact that you vote can also be taken to mean that you consent to this system of government; for why would you participate in choosing members to a system you did not consent to.

From the moment the Constitution was introduced to the people to the moment the government it outlines went into effect, those who wanted this system of government did everything in their power to ensure that it became the new system of government for America.

Many of them controlled the press and they refused to publish anything critical of the proposed Constitution. They also ensured that a majority of those attending the State Ratifying Assemblies were loyal to their cause; thereby tipping the scales in favor of ratification. Even then they had a tough time selling their new system of government in States like New York and Virginia. Virginia had Patrick Henry who refused to attend the convention in Philadelphia because he smelled a rat, and New York had John Lansing and Robert Yates, both of whom were delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, but left when they saw that the convention was exceeding its delegated authority.

The final thing they did was they told the States that they must either accept or reject their proposed plan as is; meaning no alterations or amendments to it. Richard Henry Lee argued fervently on behalf of amending it before sending it off to the States for the people to consider, but his proposal was shot down. In fact, not only was it shot down, any record of his having opposed it was stricken from the Congressional Record. The only reason it is known today is due to the fact that he sent a letter to the governor of Virginia containing his suggested amendments and the fact that they were shot down.

Even with all their subterfuge the Constitution faced stiff opposition, and it was only because of that opposition that we have a Bill of Rights attached to the Constitution. When the supporters of the Constitution saw that it might not be ratified by certain powerful States, they promised that if the States would just adopt it, then a Bill of Rights would be added to it once the government went into operation.

The sad thing is, James Madison, the man behind this coup, was the one who weeded through all the suggested amendments sent into the government by the States, and he pick and chose those which he felt would do the least to weaken and restrain his creation. Of particular note is his refusal to include the word expressly in the 10th Amendment, leaving the door wide open for implied powers to be found within the text of the specific powers mentioned in Article 1, Section 8.

Getting back to consent, under the Articles of Confederation unanimous consent was needed for any and all alterations to that document, or any proposed legislation. Under the new Constitution only 3/4’s of the States were required for this new system to go into effect. Are you aware that for a short period North Carolina and Rhode Island were apart from the Union; for they had not given their consent to the Constitution even though the system of government it outlines had already gone into effect?

The question is, once they consented to it, did that mean that the consent of future generations was taken for granted? What about that part of the Declaration of Independence where it states, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”?

I’ll bet you didn’t know that 3 States, Virginia, New York and Rhode Island all included wording in their ratification statements saying that they retained the right to resume their status free of this form of government should it become destructive of the ends for which it was established. Virginia’s resumption statement reads as follows, “We, the delegates of the people of Virginia…Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression…”

I’d also be willing to bet that most don’t know that before the Civil War, talk of dividing the Union was brought up no less than 4 times. Hell, Alexander Hamilton threatened the secession of New York City from the State of New York if the State refused to ratify the Constitution!

In 1795 Rufus King and Oliver Ellsworth brought up secession as a means to settle the differences between the Northern and Southern States. In 1807 the Northern States again broached the topic of secession when President Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act devastated the maritime economy of the New England States. Then again in 1812 five Northern States held a convention in which secession from the Union was brought up.

So the idea that any State be compelled to remain in the Union has absolutely no basis in fact, as it was repeatedly offered as a means for which States which felt oppressed by the government could return to their former status as free of the authority and jurisdiction of said government. In fact, Alexis de Tocqueville clearly wrote about that in his book Democracy in America, “The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and, in uniting together, they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right.”

Yet that is EXACTLY what Abraham Lincoln did when the Southern States seceded in 1860; he raised an army and invaded them in an effort to force them into returning to the Union.

Now tell me how THAT can be considered CONSENT!!! I think if someone were to hold a gun to your head and demand that you do something against your will, you would probably say that you were not giving your consent to whatever it was that person was making you do. So what is the difference between that and what Abraham Lincoln did to the South?

I think the whole idea that we have a government by consent of the governed flew right out the fucking window when Lincoln used force to compel allegiance to the Union. Sure, the principle might still exist, but in fact we do not have a system which is based upon the consent of the governed, it is a system which our consent is mandated or else. If you don’t believe me, try opposing any of the laws the government enacts, or not paying your taxes; see how quickly government resorts to force to compel your obedience.

Even among those who actively participate in electing people to this system of government, the best that can be said about them is that their consent for this system is implied due to the fact that they vote; not a single American alive has given their formal consent for this system of government. The closest that one can come to doing that is by taking an oath to support and defend the Constitution, such as the military does. But that oath terminates upon the person’s return to civilian life; and after their mandatory reserve status has ended. I know, I took that oath 3 times, and I’m glad I’m no longer bound by it.

Have you ever signed a form granting your consent to this system of government, or sworn an oath saying that you consent to its authority? I didn’t think so. Would you sign one if the choice was given you? What if you could choose, and if you chose not to give your consent then the laws it passes and the taxes it imposed were not applicable to you; would you still sign it?

I damn sure wouldn’t. In fact, I’d almost be willing to sacrifice a limb if it would free me from the authority of this tyrannical government we suffer under today; that’s how much I despise it, and those who think I must support and obey it.

But Neal, we need government. Do we? I might concede to that if the ONLY thing government did was secure to me the blessings of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Anything beyond that and I’ll ask you to recall my analogy of the seesaw.

You see, if you’ll recall our rights and liberty come from our Creator, so why do we need government unless the sole purpose of that government is to better secure those things for us. The way I see things is that society consists of opposing factions who seek to gain control of the coercive power of government to enact and enforce laws that oppress those in society whose views and beliefs they disagree with. It doesn’t matter which side of the political fence you’re on, left or right, you seek to use government to impose your views upon those you disagree with. So, no matter who gets elected, liberty loses out.

One rule regarding government that people should keep in mind is that it cannot do anything that would be considered a crime is one person did it to another. Locke explains this principle as follows, “Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more, whether it be always in being, or only by intervals, though it be the supreme power in every common-wealth; yet,

First, It is not, nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people: for it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person, or assembly, which is legislator; it can be no more than those persons had in a state of nature before they entered into society, and gave up to the community: for no body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself; and no body has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another.” (My emphasis)

Again, I can almost hear the hysterical cries of, “But Neal, what would we do without government?” Well for one thing, we’d enjoy the first taste of liberty since before the Civil War. You just don’t get it, if government does not secure liberty to us, then government isn’t doing the job it is supposed to do, and it doesn’t deserve to exist! As Patrick Henry said, “You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your Government.”

So for all of you who voted for this candidate or that one based upon the promises they made to you, you are voting for people to do things that ARE NOT the functions of government; at least a just government that secures liberty to all the inhabitants of this country. When you vote you are voting for someone who is going to do something that violates the rights and liberty of those you oppose politically.

Can you NOT see that?

But Neal, you’ve got to consent, to obey the laws; otherwise if nobody did there would be chaos, anarchy. You’re wrong.

Constitutions, in whatever form they might take, are laws written by man establishing systems of government to handle the affairs of men. But there is a higher law that men are bound by, that being the law of nature, or Natural Law. This Law of Nature is described by Locke in his Second Treatise as follows, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions…”

If man would just adhere to that law then there would be no need whatsoever for government aside from the simple managing of a few internal affairs and the common defense of the Union. There would be no need for all these laws, rules, regulations, and taxes that confine and restrict our liberty.
I would willingly accept whatever punishment society deems to inflict upon me should I violate the Law of Nature, if I could just free myself from the authority of a system of government that violates my rights and liberty.

I do not consent to this system of control that has been erected to govern over my life, my liberty and my property; and I’m not alone in feeling this way; there are many others just like me. Yet we are bound to obey the laws this system enacts and pay the taxes it imposes – all without our consent.

Yet you dare say this is the land of the free, when the moment one tries to free themselves from the authority and jurisdiction of this system faces its full wrath and possible death? If that’s your definition of free, I’d hate to see your definition for slavery.

People throughout the land make all these noble claims saying that they defend the rights of minorities, yet the smallest minority on Earth is the individual. So how can they claim to be defenders of the rights of minorities by demanding that we must consent to and obey a system which deprives us of our rights and our liberty?

If you wish to consent to it, fine, sign a form saying you give your undying consent to it…but leave me free to choose for myself whether I want to be free or live a life of servitude. That’s all I ask. I seek to impose nothing upon you; I only want to be free of your beliefs and the coercive power of a government I refuse to give my consent to.

Is that too much to ask? Oh, and that’s a rhetorical question, for obviously it IS too much to ask; both of the people and the government.

What would you say if a group of people told you that they had the authority to tell you what you could and could not do, all while charging you a fee for the privilege of having such authority over your life? What if you had hired someone to act as your consultant, but they then began exerting that amount of control over your life, and charging you an annual fee to do so, would you not want to terminate their employment and return to a life where you were free to make your own decisions? What if, in either case, they told you that you could not go back to the way things were before they came into your life; that if you did they would send men with guns to compel your obedience to their authority?

Well maybe now YOU are beginning to understand how I feel about the system of government in America today. I feel like I’m trapped in a system I do not consent to, a system in which there is no escaping its reach and influence except through death; and even then the things I leave to my family will be taxed to satisfy their greed.

Aside from a few close friends I don’t think anyone could understand how frustrating it is to have to leave the comfort of their home and interact with people who are nothing better than obedient cattle on a free range tax farm.

But Neal, we’re not cattle, we’re free. Really? Explain to me how free you are when you require permits to do some of the simplest things; like get married, build a home, or carry a weapon on your person for your own protection? If you were really free nobody could tell you what you could and could not do just so long as you did not deny others the ability to live their lives with the same freedom of choice, or deny them the full enjoyment of the property they have accumulated along the course of their life.

If you were truly free you’d be free to make your own choices in life without anyone placing any restrictions upon you. However, with that freedom comes the responsibility of accepting any and all consequences for stupid choices you might make without expecting society to be there to provide for you if you fail.

If you were free and someone broke into your home you would have the choice of either letting them steal your belongings, or defending your possessions by whatever means you felt the occasion warranted. A slave calls their master when they feel threatened; meaning you dial 911 on the telephone and await agents from your government, (police), to come to your rescue.

Tell me again how free you are when you cannot make whatever choice you want for medical treatment because the course of treatment you may wish to pursue is not covered by your insurance or approved of by the Food and Drug Administration.

Tell me how free you are when you can’t speak your mind because government has deemed certain things to be hate speech and your fear of offending the politically correct has further restricted your ability to speak your mind freely. Oh, and let us not forget that everything we do say is recorded, monitored, and stored away by our masters by the NSA.

We are free to work, to pay our taxes, to travel, (even though we require a permit and pay taxes for the right to do so), to be entertained, and yes, free to obey the laws they enact that restrict true freedom. The moment we cross the line separating what they allow us to do and they tell us we cannot do, we quickly find out how un-free we really are. Fines, arrests, and even death at the hands of their agents are the consequences of trying to be truly free in America; yet we still believe the lie that we’re actually free.

What’ makes this whole thing even worse is that we come out of those public indoctrination centers we call schools not knowing anything about this system of control that has been erected over our lives, nor what real freedom is; so we don’t even know we’re slaves to it.

We’re on a large scale prison and people think they are free because they get to elect the warden and the prison staff; who then hire guards to keep us in line. It doesn’t matter if our cell is 10ft by 10 ft, if it is 1,100 square feet, or if it stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic, we’re still living in a free range tax prison where there are limits as to what we can and cannot do; all while we are forced to pay for those who set the limits as to how much freedom we shall be permitted to enjoy.

Real freedom is God’s gift to man, with the only limits placed upon it being those God Himself has placed upon our actions. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet…those are the limits placed upon our freedom and anything other than those restrictions which man places upon his fellow human beings violate the freedom which is God’s gift to us.

Yet we tolerate a system which allows the murder of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies every year; one which sanctions the bombing of innocent people halfway around the world; one that taxes our income to fund these things and so that it use to benefit their crony friends and those who will not accept responsibility for their own wants and needs – creating a dependent class of voters who cannot live without the services they provide; services which come as a result of the theft of the income of those who do provide for their own needs.

Yet try pulling the veil back so that people can see the truth and they resist you, call you all manner of names; all to keep from having to face the truth that the entire system is one which enslaves them and no matter who they elect THAT will never change.

At least the Democrats are somewhat honest about who and what they stand for, but the Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves. They call themselves conservatives and vote for these people who do nothing to lessen the system of control over our lives. They wave the flag, wrap themselves in patriotic slogans, and then proceed to keep on with business as usual; meaning they keep on suppressing true freedom.

Sure, the GOP may lower taxes and create an environment which is more business friendly, one that creates more jobs – but is that the purpose of government, to loosen or tighten the leash on how much of OUR money we get to keep, or to create jobs? Or is the duty of government to secure and enlarge our freedom?

Patrick Henry believed that to be the case, and said so in the Virginia Ratifying debates, “You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your Government.”

But hey, Patrick Henry is just some old dead guy, why should we listen to him? Do you know who George Orwell was? George Orwell was an author, but he may as well have been a prophet or visionary, for he wrote about the society we currently live under with constant government surveillance, restriction of our freedom, and deciding what truths we will be taught, (his Ministry of Truth).

To most people today the words of a bunch of old dead guys are of as much value to them as is an icemaker in Antarctica. The people of today will listen to the words of a George Bush, a Barack Obama, a Bill Clinton, or a Donald Trump, but they won’t listen to, or even search out the words of those who established this country 200 some odd years ago.

It’s funny, because just 30 years after this system of control was put into place Thomas Jefferson warned that we ought not to see what powers it could squeeze out of it through interpretation, rather we should look BACKWARDS in time to see what was promised to those who adopted it were told it would exercise. Jefferson’s exact words were, “On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

Yet who wants to read all that old boring stuff? The Federalist Papers, who has time for that? The Anti-Federalist Papers; who were those guys anyway? The debates from the State Ratifying Assemblies; are you kidding me, I’m not gonna read 400 pages of debates that aren’t going to change anything today.

The reason I mentioned Orwell a moment ago is because he is famous for saying, “Those who control the present control the past and those who control the past control the future.” Those in charge today decide what we are taught today in our schools and what their propaganda arm, (the news media), covers, or the bias it gives to the stories they do cover. They control and manipulate not only how we think, they also control how we think. They establish the parameters of any political debate or discussion, and when someone introduces facts and evidence that is not within those parameters they are labeled as troublemakers, seditious, radicals, or any of the many other names they have given us for violating their limitations upon public debate.

The people, for fear of being ostracized by friends, family members, or the PC Police, stay within the limits imposed upon debate. Furthermore, their minds have not been taught how to think critically beyond the narrow scope of their education; or should I say indoctrination? This creates a climate where the truth is shunned, while the lie is accepted as the truth; such as we are free. Free, most people wouldn’t know or recognize freedom if it came in a gift wrapped box; and most would send it back to whomever sent it to them because they didn’t want the responsibility it entails.

Two Hundred years before America claimed its independence from Great Britain a French Judge named Etienne de la Boetie wrote a book called The Politics of Obedience-The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. This book explains why people voluntarily submit to a system that suppresses their freedom. Yet there is a passage in the book that explains why people like me, those who resist that authority, exist.

Boetie explains that phenomenon as follows, “There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off: these are the men who never become tamed under subjection and who always — like Ulysses on land and sea, constantly seeking the smoke of his chimney — cannot prevent themselves from peering about for their natural privileges and from remembering their ancestors and their former ways. … These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it. For them, slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.”

There is a movie called The Shawshank Redemption in which an innocent man finds himself serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. He accepts that the system he is trapped in exists, and resists it as best he can. But there is one scene that explains why so many accept a system that deprives them of their freedom. That scent comes when Brooks Hatlin, played by James Whitmore, is granted parole. Brooks has been in prison for so long that he cannot handle his freedom and ends up hanging himself in a halfway house.

When the inmates learn of his suicide they say they’d never do that, but Red, played by Morgan Freeman, tells them that people reach a point where they’ve become institutionalized; meaning they rely upon the institution for some form of normalcy in their lives. If you take away the institution that tells them what they can do, and when they can do it, their lives fall apart and they can’t handle life without the institution, or system.
But Andy, played by Timothy Robbins, is like me; he never becomes institutionalized; he always craves his freedom – and eventually he escapes the system and becomes free again.

Our country was established by men like Andy, and those like me; men who recognized a system of control and sought to free themselves from it. There were those living at the time who sought to maintain the status quo; remain subjects to that system. But those who sought their freedom had enough followers, and were willing enough to risk their lives to obtain their freedom, that they prevailed over the system that deprived them of their freedom.

The same thing occurred in 1860, only this time the power that sought to suppress the freedom of the people prevailed. We call this the Civil War, but it was actually America’s Second War for Independence.

Is a third war for independence on our horizon? I honestly don’t know. I know that there are those who say they are willing to fight should one come. I know that there are many who think we need one. But will it come; only time will tell; and only time will tell the outcome should it come.

All I know for certain is that I live in a land of free range slaves who have become so institutionalized that they cannot recognize their slavery; for they have been indoctrinated into believing it is freedom. They have been taught to treat anyone who teaches them any truths beyond what they were taught in school, or spoon fed by the media, to be the enemy and to be resisted and opposed.

That is the ONLY logical explanation I can find for why facts, THE TRUTH, does not matter to most people; they have been taught to ignore or shun it. They are like the people walking the street in the scene from the Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo, “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

You can rail against the system and they’ll just call you a lunatic or a conspiracy theorist. However, tell them they are not free and, to quote Jack Nicholson from Easy Rider, “Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are.”

There is a system and you are trapped within it; even if you don’t see it for what it is. I recognize that fact, and although I cannot escape it, I will not willingly submit to it either. I have chosen to be a virus, one who speaks the truth in a land where the truth has become hate speech.

So, while you all obey, give your consent, and pay your taxes thinking that you live in a land where your government represents you and defends your freedom, I’ll be over here stirring up shit; spreading the truth like seeds; hoping that the spirit of liberty is rekindled and we can once again become the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Nothing in the world strikes me as being more absurd than people who take great pride in defending their own ignorance. In the face of overwhelming evidence I encounter people who refuse to admit that they were wrong, that their beliefs and positions on certain things were based upon bullshit and lies. It’s almost as if they are saying to me, “I know I don’t have any facts to support my position, but I know I’m right and I know that you’re wrong.”

Last weekend I was in a Dominoes Pizza waiting for my order to be finished and some guy came in to pick up his order. He noticed the tattoo on my right arm of the Confederate Battle Flag and he said he liked it. Then he said, “The South will rise again. Now only if we could get rid of those damned Democrats.”

Normally I would have smiled and said thanks, but I decided to mess around with him a bit, so I said, “You do know that Abe Lincoln was a Republican, right?” He said, “No way man.” I said Google it if you don’t believe me, but it’s true. He remained silent for the remainder of the time he was there, but gave me a perplexed look when he finally left with his pizza. I guess I shook the foundations of his beliefs and he didn’t know how to handle it.

The truth can do that to you; especially when you’ve lived most of your life believing the lies that have been spoon fed to you for your entire existence. I suppose, and I could be going out on a limb here, that the measure of a person’s integrity is how they act once they are presented with the truth. Does one embrace the truth and change their beliefs accordingly, or do they get defensive, calling the bearer of that truth all manner of names; just to protect their precious beliefs?

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe once said, “Knowing is not enough, we must apply.” I think there are 3 categories of people when it comes to the truth. There are those who don’t care one way or the other about it; there are those who may read or listen to it, but remain unchanged in their beliefs; and finally there are those who embrace the truth as a lover and change to beliefs to conform to what it teaches them. Of those 3 categories I think the first two comprise about 95% of the population in this country, if not more.

Every day, after I’ve e mailed these rants out to my mailing list, I print out 6 copies of them and take them to work. I give one of them to my supervisor, (who likes reading them) and the remainder I leave on a counter in the cafeteria for others to read. I’ve found them scattered all over the place, used for note paper, or in the trash; apparently what I said was disagreeable to someone. Rarely do I hear someone come up and say, “I liked what you said.” Approaching nonexistent is when someone comes up and provides an educated opposition to what I’ve said; providing facts and evidence in an attempt to prove me wrong.

I have had people go off on me in an emotional tirade, but never has anyone offered me a logical rebuttal to anything I’ve said – they simply can’t do it. Why is that? I can only assume it is because they simply don’t have the facts to support their position; all they have is what they’ve been spoon fed by the schools and the media; so they go off on emotional tirades instead because I’ve threatened the lies they’ve come to accept as truth.

People think I’m opinionated, (which I am), and that I’m not willing to have a civil debate regarding the issues, (which is wrong). Some of the best conversations I’ve had on social media platforms such as Facebook have been with people with opposing beliefs, but who were well informed and provided facts and evidence to back up their positions. A debate is when one side offers up a position, then they provide evidence to support that position. Once they are finished the other side the other side counters that position with facts of their own to refute it. That’s not what happens today. What happens is one person may offer a position and then give the reasons why they believe as they do, then the other goes off on an emotional tirade without giving any facts to explain why they don’t agree.

Look at this country, it is divided along all manner of issues; from people’s positions on immigration, abortion, gay rights, the war on terror, or even just simply along the division between Republicans and Democrats. With all this hatred and animosity, where is there any room for the truth, for a logical debate when people’s emotions get in the way?

The Republicans say the Democrats are the ones screwing this country up and the Democrats say the same thing about the Republicans. The people line up behind their respective political parties like the fans at a football game who line up to support one of the two teams on the playing field. When that happens right, wrong, THE TRUTH never comes into play in their discussions/arguments. One side will accuse the other of wrongdoing and then turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings of their side, and vice versa.

Nobody seems to be able to move beyond this hatred for the ‘other side’ and look at the one underlying theme that remains constant; SUPPORT FOR THE SYSTEM. Both the Republicans and the Democrats believe in THE SYSTEM, with the only difference being how they wish to use the system to oppress those who disagree with their beliefs.

Where does the defense of my liberty and the preservation of my unalienable rights fit in when there are two opposing sides seeking to gain control of a system of oppression? Answer me that, someone…PLEASE!!! Where does liberty fit in to all this when all people can do is stand around pointing fingers at the people on the other side of the political fence?

If there is one thing I’ve discovered it is that the closer one gets to the truth the more radical they sound to the masses. The masses are convinced they are right; even though they may disagree with each other over how THE SYSTEM should work to fix all the problems in this country.

The moment one suggests that maybe they ought to oppose THE SYSTEM itself, they become uncomfortable and they begin backing away from the speaker of such radical ideas; as if they had some kind of contagious disease. The more radical the person becomes the fewer there are who will listen to them, and their circle of friends grows smaller and smaller; for who wants to be friends with someone who the ‘masses’ believe is a raving madman?

However, in some instances the reverse is also true. I have found many friends online who share my beliefs; some of whom are far more educated and informed than I am. I have learned a lot from them, and owe them a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

I think those who love the truth as much as I do have a way of finding others who feel the way we do. Look at the American Revolution, those who actively opposed the policies of King George consisted of only about 1/3 of the population of the Colonies, but they found like minded individuals and banded together to rise up and shake off THE SYSTEM that oppressed them.

They knew it wouldn’t be easy, and that they may be asked to give their lives to obtain what they sought – LIBERTY, but the prize was well worth the cost to them. There is a song by the Canadian rock band RUSH that kind of explains how they felt about liberty. The song is called Bravado, and the lyrics say, “If the dream is won, though everything is lot, we will pay the price, but we will not count the cost.”

If you were to read as much as I, and some of my other friends do, you would find a common theme running throughout the writings of the staunchest defenders of the public liberty; that theme being resistance to government. Patrick Henry spoke of it, as did Thomas Jefferson. Samuel Adams and his Son’s of Liberty took it even further and actively committed acts, that today, people would be calling acts of domestic terrorism.

Let me be absolutely clear on this, we are NEVER going to fix what’s wrong with this country as long as we bow down and worship THE SYSTEM, or play by the rules it has established for our participation in the American Dream. The American Dream is not a SYSTEM which provides for our needs and desires, while destroying our freewill and freedom of choice. The American Dream is that we are free to make our own choices, and succeed or fail based upon our own merit; while leaving others to do the same. You don’t get in my way, or deprive me of my rights and I’ll show you the same respect. THAT is the American Dream, and it has been replaced with this clusterfuck of a SYSTEM that denies individuality and demands conformity.

I’m not saying it would be easy, to shake off this SYSTEM that oppresses us; they have more tools at their disposal than did the Redcoats and jolly ole King George, but what is the alternative; a life of servitude and bondage.

As Patrick Henry so famously said, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

That’s why I don’t vote. I pay attention to what the SYSTEM is doing, but I DO NOT participate in choosing who gets to become a player within a SYSTEM that oppresses me. What difference does it make if a person is a Republican or a Democrat when the SYSTEM they are a part of is one which deprives me of my freedom?

If you cannot see that, then maybe you’re one of the people who boggle my mind; those who take great pride in being ignorant. There is a cure for that, it’s called knowledge; but for that cure to be effective it first requires that you pull your heads out of your asses; and I’d gladly buy you a crowbar if you’re willing to take the cure.

In discussing rights I have heard people say all manner of falsehoods about them. I’ve heard the terms Constitutional Rights, or Constitutionally protected rights; both of which are wrong. I’ve also heard that the Bill of Rights grants us those rights, or that it protects them. Wrong again. The Bill of Rights is just words on a piece of paper and it couldn’t protect my rights anymore than a sheet of printer paper could protect my face if someone were to fire a gun at my head. What defends our rights is our willingness to stand up and oppose any and all attacks upon them; from whatever quarter those attacks may come.

So what is the Bill of Rights and what does it do if it doesn’t protect our rights? To understand what the Bill of Rights is will take more than a simple one paragraph explanation, but I think it needs to be discussed, as far too many are not aware of the truth regarding it.

To begin our discussion one must first look to how the States existed at the end of the American Revolution. Each State was a distinctly separate and sovereign nation unto itself, much like France or Germany are, or were, before the establishment of the European Union. Each State Legislature had completed control over the internal operation of their State and the authority to enact laws that directly affected the people living within their borders.

That said, they were all bound together in a loose confederation for their common and mutual needs with a central Congress as the governing body; whose delegates represented the States in their sovereign capacity. The Congress could enact no law of its own, instead suggestions were sent to the various representatives in it by their State Legislatures, and then they would issue a proposal which would be sent out to all the States for consideration. These proposals would only become binding if they were agreed to by all 13 State Legislatures.

Some say the Articles of Confederation were written in haste and that they made the central government weak and ineffective. I believe otherwise. I think it was their intent all along to create a weak central government, keeping most of the power and authority where it belonged; close to the people. Each State had their own written constitution which established a system of government to provide for the needs and requirements of their people, as well as having established Bills of Rights placing certain rights beyond the legislative authority of their chosen representatives.

That relationship between a weak central government and strong local governments was forever altered with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. All manner of deceit was used by the proponents of this Constitution to hide the fact that it was, in fact, a consolidation of the States into a single Union under a strong system of government that could not be controlled by those who established it; which was the intent all along if you ask me.

Patrick Henry clearly addressed this point on June 4, 1788 when he asked the following of the delegates to the Virginia Ratifying Assembly, “My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states.”

The Constitution, according to the Preamble, was to be ordained and established BY THE PEOPLE. It was to be ratified by conventions, or assemblies, of delegates chosen from AMONG THE PEOPLE. It, therefore was, as Abe Lincoln would later affirm, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. (Source: Gettysburg Address)

But there were those who saw through the deception and sought to stave off the institution of such a strong and centralized government. These Anti-Federalists, as they were called, wrote essays pointing out the myriad dangers and deficiencies of the Constitution, only to have their words fall upon, for the most part, mostly deaf ears. (I certainly know how that feels)

Yet they were a powerful enough force to cause those who supported ratification give in and consent to the drafting of a Bill of Rights; amendments to the Constitution which would supposedly place the rights they mentioned from being under the legislative authority of the government they were establishing.

If you think of the Constitution as a legal charter, delegating certain powers and authority to a system of government, then the Bill of Rights was a legal charter placing restrictions upon the power and authority of that government. The problem in both instances is that there was absolutely no means by which the government they were establishing could be held to its delegated authority, or prevented from infringing upon the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.

Think about it, they have agents for almost every executive agency who have the power to fine you, arrest you, and kill you if you resist the laws they enact; whether those laws be in accordance with their delegated authority or not. Where is the reciprocity; where is our authority to fine, arrest, or kill them if they violate the law we wrote to govern their actions? I’ll tell you where, it lives in the land of unicorns and dragons – it is imaginary – it does not exist.

The Bill of Rights is a parchment barrier set up to keep government from doing anything to violate the rights listed therein, but the actual defense of those rights is up to each and every person to whom the authority and jurisdiction of this government extends; meaning you and I. Our rights are only as well protected as we are willing to oppose laws that infringe upon them.

Yet people still think the Bill of Rights protects their rights; or worse, that it grants them those rights. No, those rights existed before our government was established, and all the Bill of Rights does is place restrictions upon our government’s ability to pass laws that violate them. But hey, murder is against the law too, yet people still commit thousands of them per year. So the restrictions placed upon government by the Bill of Rights is as effective as the enforcing mechanism attached to it is; and the Bill of Rights has only our understanding, our love of, and our willingness to defend those rights as an enforcing mechanism.

The best way of explaining what the Bill of Rights is would be to compare it to the Ten Commandments. When Moses came down from Sinai with the two tablets containing God’s laws for the people they were laws given to the people by their Creator. The Bill of Rights is similar in that they are laws given to the government by its creator; the people.

The Ten Commandments say that thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not covet; thou shalt not commit adultery; yet the people disobey them anyway and commit those offenses. The only way that those laws can be upheld is if the people know them, and our virtuous enough to live by them; there is no punishing mechanism attached to them; not in this life anyway. The same goes for the Bill of Rights, they impose restrictions upon our government, but those restrictions have no means of enforcing them upon government by which we can hold those we elect accountable if they do things that violate the rights contained within it.

Think of the Bill of Rights as if they were commandments to our government. For instance, the First Amendment might very well have been written as follows: Thou shalt not pass any law telling the people what they can and cannot say; whether they must or must not attend church, or when, where and how they may worship according to their faith.

The Second Amendment, thinking along the same lines, might have been written to say: Thou shalt not deny the people the right to form militias; nor to keep and bear the arms of their choosing; nor require that fees or permits be required to exercise these rights.

The Fourth Amendment could very well say: Thou shalt not spy upon the people, perform searches and seizures without a warrant stating the things to be searched for and the reasonable cause for performing these searches.

The Fifth Amendment might, therefore say: Thou shalt not deprive a person of their life or liberty without their having been charged by a Grand Jury and found guilty of a crime against the life, liberty or property of another. Thou shalt not deprive anyone of their life, liberty, or property without their having due process of law where they may confront their accusers and present evidence in their defense.

The best explanation I’ve seen from anyone in government about our Bill of Rights comes from a 1943 Supreme Court case where Justice Robert H. Jackson states, “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” Do you understand that? I mean honestly, is that too complex a thought for your pea brains to comprehend?

My rights are not dependent upon whether the government passes laws protecting or infringing upon them; they are not dependent upon whether society finds them offensive or considers me dangerous because I choose to exercise them. My rights neither require, nor can they be limited by an act of government; nor can the public call for their repeal and restriction because they are offended by, or fearful of those who exercise them.
END OF STORY!!!

Yet that’s the whole problem with government today; people view it from the perspective of this big benevolent entity whose purpose is to protect us, provide us with comfort and security, and keep us safe from ideas and beliefs that we disagree with. When people view government from that perspective it becomes acceptable for government, or society itself, to restrict and deny certain rights.

We, meaning the people of the United States collectively, both present and past, have lost most of our rights because we have craved comfort and security. Yet the freedom to exercise to exercise those rights laid at the root of why the Colonists rose up and shook off the ties that had bound them to their system of government for over a century and a half.

They did not wait until volumes of law books had been written denying their ability to exercise their rights, they resisted each and every infringement upon them; sometimes in methods that would turn the stomachs of people today. Yet we call them patriots and honor their cause every July 4th, while at the same time calling people like me radicals and domestic terrorists.

Excuse the language, but where’s the fucking logic in that?

We have not lost our rights because government has enacted laws restricting them; we have lost our rights because we have asked and expected government to pass laws protecting them; when that was our responsibility all along. We have lost our rights because we have lost the backbone to stand up to government, and we won’t get them back until we, collectively as a people, grow a set of balls and stand up to Uncle Sam and fight for them.

And that’s the truth about the Bill of Rights; as uncomfortable as it may be for you….

The other day Pacific Gas and Electric, PG & E, announced that they would most likely be shutting power of to residents living within 25 counties in California in their efforts to reduce wildfires. They say these outages could last up to 48 hours and affect thousands of people. Just last week the shut off power to more than 10,000 customers in my old hometown; Oroville and this particular outage was small in comparison as it only affected 4 counties.

PG & E pretty much has a monopoly on the power industry in California; you either buy your electricity through them or you buy or lease solar panels; there are no other options unless you choose to go without electricity altogether.

I am no legal expert but I thought the government had enacted laws prohibiting monopolies. From what I understand three acts, The Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 were all designed, in one way or another, to prevent monopolies and promote free trade and competition; yet here we are with PG & E being the only distributor of electricity in California.

Yet PG & E is regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, meaning it is a monopoly that has to ask the State for permission to raise its rates or make any other changes that would affect the price of their product – electricity and natural gas.

PG & E used to have a 4 tier system in which you would fall into one of 4 tiers based upon your power consumption; the more you used the higher rate you would pay. They, with permission of course, did away with the 4 tier system; knocking it down to a 2 tier system; meaning you either paid the poverty level rate for electricity and gas or you paid out the ass for it. Recently they petitioned the CPUC for a rate increase as well, and were granted it; meaning the cost of our utilities will go up by roughly 15% over the course of the next couple years. Already my rates have more than doubled since they did away with the 4 tier system, now they’re gonna jack them up even more with a rate increase.

Screw them. So yesterday when they announced they would be cutting power to residents in 25 counties I got pissed and posted a suggestion on Facebook. I said that if your power was cut due to PG & E’s efforts to prevent wildfires that those affected should wrap their smart meter in aluminum foil; thereby cutting it off from PG & E by blocking its ability to send and receive radio signals.

I got one comment and 2 likes on my post…that’s it. I also printed my suggestion out and took it to work and showed it to people. Some agreed with what I said; although no one admitted openly that they’d do as I suggested should their power be cut off. Others gave me a funny look, while some told me that they wouldn’t do it because they were afraid of the repercussions of doing so – which leads me to the point of this article.

There is a scene in the film The Dark Knight in which the Joker comes to confront the crime bosses of Gotham City and he asks them, “What happened, did your balls drop off?” Thatt is a question I have been wanting to ask the people of this country as well. I understand that when fighting a behemoth like government one has to pick and choose their battles, but to just bend over and take every infringement of our rights without a single complaint or act of civil disobedience is pathetic.

I sometimes have to shake my head in both disgust and exasperation when I see and hear people talk about how much they admire civil rights leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, yet they bend over and take infractions upon their own rights right up the ass without even thinking about fighting back. Not only that, when someone does take a stand to the tyranny being forced down our throats they condemn and ridicule them; calling them radicals, subversives, or treasonous.

If you don’t believe me, just ask yourself what your thoughts are on Edward Snowden; whose only crime was exposing the crimes being committed by your government against your right to privacy. Ask yourself what your beliefs are regarding the Branch Davidians; who were slaughtered by YOUR government in 1993. Ask yourself what your thoughts are regarding Ruby Ridge; where an unarmed Vicki Weaver was shot by an FBI sniper while holding her infant child. Then of course there was the Bundy Standoff and the murder of LaVoy Finicum by state and federal authorities.

With increasing frequency we also see and hear stories of how local law enforcement uses excessive force to subdue and harass people whose only crime is to question the reason they were stopped or detained. Yet I hear people who say they love liberty also say that they support law enforcement and that we should just obey their orders and be good obedient little sheep.

The media, which is merely the propaganda arm of those that seek to control us, tells us they were subversives, or a cult, and that it was the government’s duty to roust them out like they did; and the people swallow that garbage hook, line and sinker.

What the hell happened to this country; did, as the Joker asked, our balls drop off? We have a system of government which, as the Preamble states, was designed to secure liberty to the people; yet these same people bend over and submit to all kinds of rules and regulations which restrict their liberty. We have a Bill of Rights which was supposed to place certain rights beyond the ability of government to infringe upon or violate, and the people sit there with their thumbs up their asses watching TV while those rights are slowly vanishing.

In 1787 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Abigail Adams in which he said, “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” Yet whenever a true lover of liberty exhibits a little resistance to government the media portrays them as a radical or subversive, and the people applaud their government for violating this persons rights and maintaining law and order.

If there was any justice at all left in this country those responsible for the massacre at Waco would all be behind bars, serving multiple life sentences for murder. The list of guilty includes Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Louis Freeh, (head of the FBI), and every law enforcement officer on the scene of the massacre on April 19, 1993. Seventy six people were murdered that day by agents acting on orders given by YOUR government; including 26 children. Where is the justice for Vicki Weaver when the FBI Sniper, (Lon Horiuchi) who snuffed out her life still walks free; again under the watch and authority of the Clinton administration?

And those are just the murders your government has committed against its own people. What about the costs associated with our global war on terror? Some estimate that just in the retaking of Mosul in 2017 tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis lost their lives. In a study released by the Watson Institute states that between 180,000 to 204,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq alone since President Bush sent our troops there in the wake of 9/11.

Oh, but they’re not Americans, they don’t deserve justice. They are human beings who did nothing to us to deserve being murdered by our government; which is why I say if our troops were truly be defending OUR freedom they wouldn’t be spread all over the globe waging war against those who have never attacked the U.S., they would be right here in America waging war against our real enemy – our government.

Gee Neal, that’s not very patriotic, is it? I say it is; it is the very definition of patriotism; resisting the unjust exercise of power by YOUR government. Let me ask you something, who do you think the patriots of 1776 were fighting against? You may say Great Britain, but that isn’t actually the case. They were fighting against the authority of the government of Great Britain, and those who would enforce that government’s edicts upon them.

The Redcoats of 1776 were no different than the agents of the FBI, DEA, BATF and local law enforcement today that enforce whatever laws our government enacts; not to mention the military that goes wherever it is ordered to go and wages war against people who have never thought of attacking us. Yet the people today say, we should support them, submit to their authority, that we should obey their every command and bow down and lick their boots while they trample all over our rights.

It is so sad, so disgusting, so pathetic that we ought to just up and abolish Independence Day, for we no longer know what the patriots of 1776 were fighting for, and we certainly don’t have the spirit to even complain about our rights being trampled upon, let alone resist against those who are trampling upon them.

Did you know that those whose deeds you celebrate on July 4th were considered criminals by their government; much as people like me are considered a criminal and subversive by people like you today?

They were tax evaders, they chased the governor out of his home in Massachusetts then proceeded to ransack and loot it; they broke windows in the offices of those charged with collecting the Kings taxes; they tarred and feathered tax collectors; they violated restrictions upon the importation of certain goods – establishing smuggling routes and a black market economy, and let us not forget that little incident where they dumped a bunch of tea into Boston Harbor. Then, God forbid, they refused to obey common sense gun control measures designed to maintain the peace; meaning governments control over their lives and their rights.

Quite the merry band of political miscreants we supposedly honor when we celebrate July 4th, isn’t it?
In 1921 Justice Benjamin Cardozo was quoted in the Nature of Judicial Process as saying, “The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles.”

Compare that to what Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama’s White House Chief of Staff, said in 2008, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Perhaps things like pass more laws that violate more of our rights?

The esteemed orator Patrick Henry, who gave us the famous saying, “Give me liberty or give me death” is also quoted as saying, “Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings-give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else: But I am fearful I have lived long enough to become an fellow: Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man, may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old fashioned: If so, I am contented to be so: I say, the time has been when every pore of my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American.”

What was Mr. Henry protesting? Why he was protesting the adoption of the system of government outlined by the Constitution. Henry, as well as the other anti-federalists saw through the lies, deceptions, and false promises made by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and all the other Federalists who promised that this government would not endanger the public liberty.

Yeah right!!!

Yet, aside from the few true patriots I call my friends, I see a nation of people who submit to, bow down to, and almost worship at the altar of a government that does just that; the very thing it was promised it WOULD NOT do.

Yet people like me are the enemy; we’re the subversives, the radicals, the dangers to society. If you only knew how ass backwards you were. If the truth were to hit you all at once you’d snap your spinal cord spinning your head around towards it.

I’m not your enemy, if I were I would be demanding that you do things for me, or give me a part of your wealth or liberty so that I could live a better life. All I want is for you, and for your government, to leave me the hell alone so that I can live my life the way that I choose. I want them to cut the ties to the Federal Reserve and stop flooding our economy with currency to artificially inflate it; which also serves to devalue the money we are allowed to keep for ourselves.

Is that too much to ask? Or was Jack Nicholson right in Easy Rider; people like to talk a lot about freedom, but when they see or hear someone trying to be free they get scared? Do I scare you, do my thoughts and beliefs make you uncomfortable? I hope so, because that’s your conscience speaking to you, telling you that I’m not your enemy, your government is. Maybe you ought to listen to it and stop licking the boots of those who oppress you.

All I know is that, were any of the signers of the Declaration of Independence alive today, they’d almost assuredly be saying that we, collectively as a people, were not worthy of their efforts and that we deserved to be slaves to an ungrateful oppressor; for we have fallen far from the lofty principles they held; the principle that our rights come from our Creator and that it was our right and our duty to resist any encroachments upon them.
John Adams once said, “Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.”

Were Adams alive today, the only thing I could think to say to him would be, “Sorry bud, we let you down; we weren’t worthy of your sacrifice; we threw the gift of liberty you bequeathed to us away for the illusion of comfort and security.”

But hey America, the elections are coming up next year, I’m sure we’ll do better next time…

It has been said that the first step of solving a problem is recognizing that the problem exists. Using that same logic, the first step towards real freedom is recognizing that you are not free – you may think you are, but you aren’t, not really.

Freedom and liberty are almost synonymous, with freedom being the ability of an individual to do whatever they please while liberty is the same, but with protections against invasions upon the equal rights of others. I don’t care which word you use to attempt to describe your state of existence, freedom or liberty, neither of them apply to you in this country today.

The truest measure of a person’s freedom is their ability to do as the please with their property. Now I’m not solely talking about a person’s personal possessions, like their automobile or their home; although those are certainly included among a person’s property. My life is my property, and therefore I ought to be free to do with it what I choose. My income is my property, and I ought to be able to enjoy the full benefit of it without having it stolen from me by government to fund things I disagree with, or which are blatantly unconstitutional. My rights are my property, and therefore they are not subject to the whim and caprice of the public, or those the public elects to represent them in government.

Freedom means freedom; it means no limitations or restrictions; it means not having to ask permission to do something; it means not having to pay a tax or a fee to enjoy the benefits of what you wish to do with your property.

What can you honestly call your property if it is subject to confiscation by government?

Your life and your freedom can be forfeited if you violate any of the untold millions of laws government has enacted; regardless of whether in violating those laws there is a victim. For isn’t that the real definition of a crime, that Person A does something that either harms, or deprives Person B of their life, liberty, or property? So if there is no Person B in the equation, how can government pass a law saying that something Person A does is a crime?

Laws that criminalize what a person puts into their body are of this nature; there are no victims other than what society deems to be morally acceptable. Laws that deprive a person of their rights when there is no victim other than the feelings of society regarding the exercise of those rights are also of that nature. Restrictions on praying in public schools are of THIS nature, as it is not a crime to say or do something that other find offensive, and restrictions based upon our ability to worship our God whenever, and wherever we please, cannot be justified simply because others might find it offensive.

You see, freedom of speech is freedom of speech; either you have it or you don’t. It can’t be restricted or regulated based upon the fact that what you say or do offends someone, or hurts their feelings.

I get up every day, as do many others, and go to work to earn a living. The income I receive is what’s known as the fruits of my labor. I work, I sweat, and I sometimes bleed in the performance of acquiring that income; therefore it is MY property and cannot be taken from me by government and then given to others, or used for programs and wars that I do not consent to.

You see, that’s one word people fail to understand; consent. Consent is defined as giving permission for something to happen, or for someone to do something. We give our consent to government to do things, not the other way around. They cannot take it upon themselves to deny us the freedom to enjoy our lives, our property, and our liberty without our consent.

Yet they do…all the damned time; and the people take it up the ass without ever questioning the justification for it.

It’s almost as if people think that government created man so that they would have someone to rule over and to plunder, when the exact opposite is true. Man creates government, not to plunder his wealth or deprive him of his freedom, but to better secure to him the full enjoyment of those things; and when government no longer serves that function it becomes oppressive, and a real freedom loving individual would not give their consent to its continued existence.

If I were to ask you who consented to this system of government that we have today, how would you respond? You might say, “The people living in 1789 consented to it.” However that isn’t even true; at least not completely. The ONLY people who consented to this system of government are those who gave the Constitution a YES voted in the State Ratifying Assemblies.

Those who voted against the ratification certainly couldn’t be said to have given their consent to it, could they? What about the remaining people; those who did not attend the State Ratifying Assemblies; did they give their formal consent to be governed by the entity established by the Constitution?

There is a Latin proverb that states, “Qui tacet consentire videtur”, which roughly translated means, “Your silence implies consent.” So if the people living in 1789 did not speak out in opposition to the Constitution it can, therefore, be implied that they consented to the government it established.

But that brings another question to mind. As those who lived in 1789 have long ago passed away, can you tell me who among us has given their formal consent to the government we live, and suffer under? Have you, either by a verbal or written statement, formally consented to this system of government?

Now there may be all kinds of legal principles that declare that by doing certain things it grants your consent to being governed by this government; such as registering your child at birth, or applying for a Social Security Number; but that’s now what I’m asking. Have you ever raised your right hand and sworn an oath, giving your consent for this system of government?

Then by what authority does this government even exist, let alone do things that violate the very purpose governments are supposed to be established to serve?

Maybe if you’re currently serving in the armed forces, or employed as a law enforcement officer you can be said to have given your consent; for the all take oaths to support and defend the document that established our system of government. But as for everyone who is not currently serving in those capacities, not a one of them has formally given their consent for this system of government.

I want you to read something now, and think long and hard about what it says. This was written almost 150 years ago by a man named Lysander Spooner, and it strikes at the heart of what I’m trying to say, “And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.”

You may not give it much thought, but by voting you are consenting to the idea that we have a system of government that was established in 1789 by men who have long since passed away; men who had no authority at all to bind their posterity to the system they were establishing.

Think about it, if each and every one of us truly is free, then each and every one of us is free to either consent to this system of government, or withhold, and in some instance, revoke our consent to it should we believe it no longer serves the purpose all governments are instituted among men to serve – namely the preservation of our freedom.

You might be saying that the government has been in existence for all this time and who are we to suddenly change that by abolishing it? I would then ask you, by what authority did those living in 1789 bind all of posterity to a system which they had no hand in creating? In a letter to James Madison, dated September 6, 1787, Thomas Jefferson hinted at the fact that he believed they had no authority to do so, “The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government.”

Jefferson wasn’t alone in expressing such sentiments. In 1791 Thomas Paine wrote, “There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the “end of time,” or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it…”

One of the most ridiculous things I hear people say is that if one does not vote they lose their right to complain, as they are not making any effort to bring about a change in the system.

By voting you are giving your consent, not so much to specific candidates, but to the idea that you consent to a system in which there may be times when people whose beliefs and ideologies get elected that you disagree with; but because they are part of the system, whatever laws they enact you are obligated to obey because they are passed by the authority of THE SYSTEM.

I do not vote. I withhold my vote not because I do not like any of the candidates seeking office, I withhold it because I do not consent to the idea that this system we live under has any authority over me, my property, or my rights.

I recognize that the system exists, and that in the name of self-preservation I must abide by the laws it imposes upon me; but I do not consent to its authority, and I will oppose every action it takes to my last dying breath.

You see, you people who say by not voting we lose our right to complain are trapped in the two party paradigm; where your complete political perspective is based upon the platform of either the Republicans or the Democrats. The idea that you should vote for people to do less for you, or vote for people who will not violate the rights of those you oppose, or plunder the wealth of others to fund programs you support, is beyond your ability to comprehend.

You believe that the only solutions we have lie in choosing between a group of career criminals belonging to warring crime families; when it is the entire system that needs to be dismantled and torn to the ground.

All this talk of draining the swamp is both humorous and pathetic. If you really want to drain the swamp you’d begin by abolishing Congress. Then you could move on to the Judiciary by abolishing the Supreme Court. Finally, you could do away with every agency under the authority and control of the Executive Branch – then, and only then, would the swamp truly be drained. I can’t believe that Republicans fell for that nonsense. At least the Democrats are honest with who and what they are, Republicans call themselves conservatives then fall for bullshit like this.

In Thoreau’s book, Civil Disobedience, he opens by saying he supports the belief that, “That government is best which governs least.” If that be the case then the reverse must be true as well, “That government is worst which governs the most.”

I do not vote because I know, without any doubt, that we cannot fix this system; that it was broken from the moment it was put into operation back in 1789. The only thing this system of government has done effectively is to continually accrue more power and restrict more of our freedom as time passes.

Voting is not going to change that, no matter how well intentioned the voters, or the candidates for that matter, might be. The system is broken, corrupt, and dare I say, EVIL; and that cannot be fixed at the ballot box.

All you do by voting is show those in power that you still put your trust and faith in the SYSTEM; that you have not yet awakened to the fact that the SYSTEM exists not to serve you, but to make you its servants. I am not saying I’m any freer than you are, I’m only saying that I know the nature of my enemy, and I choose not to participate in choosing my own slave masters – so I don’t vote.

The moment I realized that I was a slave to a system I did not consent to, I decided to become a virus. As a virus my only concern is to infect as many as I can with the same love of liberty and freedom that burns in my breast. If I can do that, then I can go to my grave a happy man.

You see the truth of the matter is this; not only are your bodies slaves to the system you consent to by voting, your minds are also slaves to the lies and bullshit the system taught you in school. I’m simply trying to free your mind from that garbage so that it is uncluttered by it and capable of seeing the truth:

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, IT IS YOUR ENEMY

Freeing your mind is the first step in regaining the freedom we have lost. Once you do that, the rest becomes easy.

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your
informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”
~Harlan Ellison~

People all the time, and this is true regardless of which side of the political fence you sit on, clamor for things they believe will make America a better country. Both the left and the right have their own beliefs as to what needs to be done to turn this country into their vision of a Utopian society. Both also see government as the means to accomplish their agenda. Neither the Democratic or the Republican party has the capability of imposing their agenda upon the American people; they need the lawmaking and coercive power of government to do that.

The unfortunate thing is that very few people in this country have taken the time to learn what powers the Constitution delegates to their system of government. Of those that have, fewer still have taken the time to understand how the Constitution radically and permanently altered the state of our political system for the worse. Patrick Henry described that change as follows, “Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: And cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case?”

So, from my perspective, this is what I see happening in America. I see a vast majority of the people voting for people to hold office, yet not knowing what powers those they elect are authorized to exercise on their behalf. Of those that may have read the Constitution, party affiliation takes precedence over whatever limits that document, at one time, may have imposed upon government. I say at one time because the Constitution has been construed to say many things which were promised to those who ratified it that it WOULD NOT allow government to do.

This loose interpretation of the limits imposed upon government is known as construction. Construction, as it applies to the Constitution, not building a home, means how the document is interpreted. So you can have either a strict construction; meaning it says what it says and means what it says, or you can have a loose construction; meaning there are hidden, or implied powers contained within it.

The question arises, which one is it? Is the Constitution to be interpreted loosely, or strictly according to the express powers mentioned within it?

In 1866 the Supreme Court held, “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of men than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.” (Source: Ex parte Milligan)

So there we see that the Constitution is a law, and that law applies to both those we elect, and to those who do the electing; they cannot ask their elected representatives to do anything that violates the Constitution. But that still does not answer the question of whether we should interpret the document loosely or strictly.

Well, let’s see what Thomas Jefferson had to say about it. In a letter to William Johnson, dated 12 June 1823, Jefferson wrote, “On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

This only affirms my stance that the average American voter has absolutely no idea what the Constitution says, or what it means; because less than 5% of them, (and I’m being VERY generous with that number), have ever read any of the arguments against it, nor have they read any of the notes taken during the State Ratifying Assemblies.

Yet tell people that they are ignorant and they become upset and their minds shut down to any truths you might be attempting to show them. But what is ignorance if it is not the lack of knowledge? Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Stupidity is the inability to learn, or utilize knowledge, while ignorance is merely the lack of knowledge. So, if you don’t know what the Constitution says; if you don’t know what those who opposed it said about its flaws; if you don’t know what promises were made to those who ultimately ratified it, YOU ARE IGNORANT!

Yet is seems that people are proud of their ignorance; they wear it like a badge of honor and they reject anything that threatens it. Isaac Asimov explained that phenomenon as follows, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Hendrik Willem van Loon went even further, “Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession – their ignorance.”

Yet James Madison, the purported Father of the Constitution, once said, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

So whose fault is it if you don’t know the truth about the powers delegated to your system of government, of the fact that it was promised to those who ratified it that it would not become the very government we have today? Certainly not my fault, as I’ve tried time and time again to get people to actually start thinking beyond their narrow political party tunnel vision.

People sometimes complain that my articles are too lengthy, or that I use words that they do not understand. Yet some of the research material I read to get ideas for these articles is hundreds of pages long and contain words that I, myself, have to look up in a dictionary to learn their meaning. That’s how you learn people, you push yourself to acquire new knowledge and expand your vocabulary beyond the few words you learned in the 5th grade. The only other option is to stay where you are, ignorant and enslaved to a system you know absolutely nothing about.

So I thought I’d try something a little bit different this time. I’m going to stop saying anything now; instead I’m going to provide you with but one document from the essayist Samuel Bryan who wrote under the pseudonym of Centinel.

Your homework assignment, if you want to call it that, is to read through this essay and try to discern the meaning of what he says. Yes, it will tax your ability; as your minds probably aren’t used to doing any real thinking – but if you can do that the results will be well worth any effort you expend.

So here you go, tonight’s homework assignment: Centinel’s first essay, published on October 5, 1787, (which coincidentally was exactly 202 years before I married my wife). I hope you try this exercise in thinking; who knows, you might come to enjoy it.

Centinel 1
October 5, 1787

Friends, Countrymen and Fellow Citizens, Permit one of yourselves to put you in mind of certain liberties and privileges secured to you by the constitution of this commonwealth, and to beg your serious attention to his uninterested opinion upon the plan of federal government submitted to your consideration, before you surrender these great and valuable privileges up forever. Your present frame of government, secures to you a right to hold yourselves, houses, papers and possessions free from search and seizure, and therefore warrants granted without oaths or affirmations first made, affording sufficient foundation for them, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded or required to search your houses or seize your persons or property, not particularly described in such warrant, shall not be granted. Your constitution further provides “that in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the parties have a right to trial by jury, which ought to be held sacred.” It also provides and declares “that the people have a right of FREEDOM OF SPEECH, and of WRITING and PUBLISHING their sentiments, therefore THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS OUGHT NOT TO BE RESTRAINED.” The constitution of Pennsylvania is yet in existence, as yet you have the right to freedom of speech, and of publishing your sentiments. How long those rights will appertain to you, you yourselves are called upon to say, whether your houses shall continue to be your castles; whether your papers, your persons and your property, are to be held sacred and free from general warrants, you are now to determine. Whether the trial by jury is to continue as your birth-right, the freemen of Pennsylvania, nay, of all America, are now called upon to declare.

Without presuming upon my own judgement, I cannot think it an unwarrantable presumption to offer my private opinion, and call upon others for their’s; and if I use my pen with the boldness of a freeman, it is because I know that the liberty of the press yet remains unviolated, and juries yet are judges.

The late Convention have submitted to your consideration a plan of a new federal government–The subject is highly interesting to your future welfare–Whether it be calculated to promote the great ends of civil society, viz. the happiness and prosperity of the community; it behoves you well to consider, uninfluenced by the authority of names. Instead of that frenzy of enthusiasm, that has actuated the citizens of Philadelphia, in their approbation of the proposed plan, before it was possible that it could be the result of a rational investigation into its principles; it ought to be dispassionately and deliberately examined, and its own intrinsic merit the only criterion of your patronage. If ever free and unbiased discussion was proper or necessary, it is on such an occasion.–All the blessings of liberty and the dearest privileges of freemen, are now at stake and dependent on your present conduct. Those who are competent to the task of developing the principles of government, ought to be encouraged to come forward, and thereby the better enable the people to make a proper judgment; for the science of government is so abstruse, that few are able to judge for themselves; without such assistance the people are too apt to yield an implicit assent to the opinions of those characters, whose abilities are held in the highest esteem, and to those in whose integrity and patriotism they can confide; not considering that the love of domination is generally in proportion to talents, abilities, and superior acquirements; and that the men of the greatest purity of intention may be made instruments of despotism in the hands of the artful and designing. If it were not for the stability and attachment which time and habit gives to forms of government it would be in the power of the enlightened and aspiring few, if they should combine, at any time to destroy the best establishments, and even make the people the instruments of their own subjugation.

The late revolution having effaced in a great measure all former habits, and the present institutions are so recent, that there exists not that great reluctance to innovation, so remarkable in old communities, and which accords with reason, for the most comprehensive mind cannot foresee the full operation of material changes on civil polity; it is the genius of the common law to resist innovation.

The wealthy and ambitious, who in every community think they have a right to lord it over their fellow creatures, have availed themselves, very successfully, of this favorable disposition; for the people thus unsettled in their sentiments, have been prepared to accede to any extreme of government; all the distresses and difficulties they experience, proceeding from various causes, have been ascribed to the impotency of the present confederation, and thence they have been led to expect full relief from the adoption of the proposed system of government, and in the other event, immediately ruin and annihilation as a nation. These characters flatter themselves that they have lulled all distrust and jealousy of their new plan, by gaining the concurrence of the two men in whom America has the highest confidence, and now triumphantly exult in the completion of their long meditated schemes of power and aggrandisement. I would be very far from insinuating that the two illustrious personages alluded to, have not the welfare of their country at heart, but that the unsuspecting goodness and zeal of the one, has been imposed on, in a subject of which he must be necessarily inexperienced, from his other arduous engagements; and that the weakness and indecision attendant on old age, has been practiced on in the other.

I am fearful that the principles of government inculcated in Mr. [John] Adams’s treatise, and enforced in the numerous essays and paragraphs in the newspapers, have misled some well designing members of the late Convention.–But it will appear in the sequel, that the construction of the proposed plan of government is infinitely more extravagant.

I have been anxiously expecting that some enlightened patriot would, ere this, have taken up the pen to expose the futility, and counteract the baneful tendency of such principles. Mr. Adams’s sine qua non of a good government is three balancing powers, whose repelling qualities are to produce an equilibrium of interests, and thereby promote the happiness of the whole community. He asserts that the administrators of every government, will ever be actuated by views of private interest and ambition, to the prejudice of the public good; that therefore the only effectual method to secure the rights of the people and promote their welfare, is to create an opposition of interests between the members of two distinct bodies, in the exercise of the powers of government, and balanced by those of a third. This hypothesis supposes human wisdom competent to the task of instituting three co-equal orders in government, and a corresponding weight in the community to enable them respectively to exercise their several parts, and whose views and interests should be so distinct as to prevent a coalition of any two of them for the destruction of the third. Mr. Adams, although he has traced the constitution of every form of government that ever existed, as far as history affords materials, has not been able to adduce a single instance of such a government; he indeed says that the British constitution is such in theory, but this is rather a confirmation that his principles are chimerical and not to be reduced to practice. If such an organization of power were practicable, how long would it continue? not a day–for there is so great a disparity in the talents, wisdom and industry of mankind, that the scale would presently preponderate to one or the other body, and with every accession of power the means of further increase would be greatly extended. The state of society in England is much more favorable to such a scheme of government than that of America. There they have a powerful hereditary nobility, and real distinctions of rank and interests; but even there, for want of that perfect equallity of power and distinction of interests, in the three orders of government, they exist but in name; the only operative and efficient check, upon the conduct of administration, is the sense of the people at large.

Suppose a government could be formed and supported on such principles, would it answer the great purposes of civil society; If the administrators of every government are actuated by views of private interest and ambition, how is the welfare and happiness of the community to be the result of such jarring adverse interests?

Therefore, as different orders in government will not produce the good of the whole, we must recur to other principles. I believe it will be found that the form of government, which holds those entrusted with power, in the greatest responsibility to their constituents, the best calculated for freemen. A republican, or free government, can only exist where the body of the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally divided; in such a government the people are the sovereign and their sense or opinion is the criterion of every public measure; for when this ceases to be the case, the nature of the government is changed, and an aristocracy, monarchy or despotism will rise on its ruin. The highest responsibility is to be attained, in a simple structure of government, for the great body of the people never steadily attend to the operations of government, and for want of due information are liable to be imposed on–If you complicate the plan by various orders, the people will be perplexed and divided in their sentiments about the source of abuses or misconduct, some will impute it to the senate, others to the house of representatives, and so on, that the interposition of the people may be rendered imperfect or perhaps wholly abortive. But if, imitating the constitution of Pennsylvania, you vest all the legislative power in one body of men (separating the executive and judicial) elected for a short period, and necessarily excluded by rotation from permanency, and guarded from precipitancy and surprise by delays imposed on its proceedings, you will create the most perfect responsibility for then, whenever the people feel a grievance they cannot mistake the authors, and will apply the remedy with certainty and effect, discarding them at the next election. This tie of responsibility will obviate all the dangers apprehended from a single legislature, and will the best secure the rights of the people.

Having premised this much, I shall now proceed to the examination of the proposed plan of government, and I trust, shall make it appear to the meanest capacity, that it has none of the essential requisites of a free government; that it is neither founded on those balancing restraining powers, recommended by Mr. Adams and attempted in the British constitution, or possessed of that responsibility to its constituents, which, in my opinion, is the only effectual security for the liberties and happiness of the people; but on the contrary, that it is a most daring attempt to establish a despotic aristocracy among freemen, that the world has ever witnessed.

I shall previously consider the extent of the powers intended to be vested in Congress, before I examine the construction of the general government.

It will not be controverted that the legislative is the highest delegated power in government, and that all others are subordinate to it. The celebrated Montesquieu establishes it as a maxim, that legislation necessarily follows the power of taxation. By sect. 8, of the first article of the proposed plan of government, “the Congress are to have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, but all duties, imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States.” Now what can be more comprehensive than these words; not content by other sections of this plan, to grant all the great executive powers of a confederation, and a STANDING ARMY IN TIME OF PEACE, that grand engine of oppression, and moreover the absolute control over the commerce of the United States and all external objects of revenue, such as unlimited imposts upon imports, etc.–they are to be vested with every species of internal taxation–whatever taxes, duties and excises that they may deem requisite for the general welfare, may be imposed on the citizens of these states, levied by the officers of Congress, distributed through every district in America; and the collection would be enforced by the standing army, however grievous or improper they may be. The Congress may construe every purpose for which the state legislatures now lay taxes, to be for the general welfare, and thereby seize upon every object of revenue.

The judicial power by 1st sect. of article 3 “shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made or which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admirality and maritime jurisdiction, to controversies to which the United States shall be a party, to controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.”

The judicial power to be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such Inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

The objects of jurisdiction recited above, are so numerous, and the shades of distinction between civil causes are oftentimes so slight, that it is more than probable that the state judicatories would be wholly superceded; for in contests about jurisdiction, the federal court, as the most powerful, would ever prevail. Every person acquainted with The history of the courts in England, knows by what ingenious sophisms they have, at different periods, extended the sphere of Their jurisdiction over objects out of the line of their institution, and contrary to their very nature; courts of a criminal jurisdiction obtaining cognizance in civil causes.

To put the omnipotency of Congress over the state government and judicatories out of all doubt, the 6th article ordains that “this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

By these sections the all-prevailing power of taxation, and such extensive legislative and judicial powers are vested in the general government, as must in their operation, necessarily absorb the state legislatures and judicatories; and that such was in the contemplation of the framers of it, will appear from the provision made for such event, in another part of it; (but that, fearful of alarming the people by so great an innovation, they have suffered the forms of the separate governments to remain, as a blind.) By sect. 4th of the 1st article, “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the place of chusing senators.” The plain construction of which is, that when the state legislatures drop out of sight, from the necessary operation this government, then Congress are to provide for the election and appointment of representatives and senators.

If the foregoing be a just comment–if the united states are to be melted down into one empire, it becomes you to consider, whether such a government, however constructed, would be eligible in so extended a territory; and whether it would be practicable, consistent with freedom? It is the opinion of the greatest writers, that a very extensive country cannot be governed on democratical principles, on any other plan, than a confederation of a number of small republics, possessing all the powers of internal government, but united in the management of their foreign and general concerns.

It would not be difficult to prove, that any thing short of despotism, could not bind so great a country under one government; and that whatever plan you might, at the first setting out, establish, it would issue in a despotism.

If one general government could be instituted and maintained on principles of freedom, it would not be so competent to attend to the various local concerns and wants, of every particular district, as well as the peculiar governments, who are nearer the scene, and possessed of superior means of information, besides, if the business of the whole union is to be managed by one government, there would not be time. Do we not already see, that the inhabitants in a number of larger states, who are remote from the seat of government, are loudly complaining of the inconveniencies and disadvantages they are subjected to on this account, and that, to enjoy the comforts of local government, they are separating into smaller divisions.
Having taken a review of the powers, I shall now examine the construction of the proposed general government.

Art. 1. Sect. 1. “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives.” By another section? the president (the principal executive officer) has a conditional control over their proceedings.

Sect. 2. “The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year, by the people of the several states. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000 inhabitants.”

The senate, the other constituent branch of the legislature, is formed by the legislature of each state appointing two senators, for the term of six years.

The executive power by Art. 2, Sect. 1. is to be vested in a president of the United States of America, elected for four years: Sect. 2. gives him “power, by and with the consent of the senate to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law,” etc. And by another section he has the absolute power of granting reprieves and pardons for treason and all other high crimes and misdemeanors, except in case of impeachment.

The foregoing are the outlines of the plan.

Thus we see, the house of representatives, are on the part of the people to balance the senate, who I suppose will be composed of the better sort, the well born, etc. The number of the representatives (being only one for every 30,000 inhabitants) appears to be too few, either to communicate the requisite information, of the wants, local circumstances and sentiments of so extensive an empire, or to prevent corruption and undue influence, in the exercise of such great powers; the term for which they are to be chosen, too long to preserve a due dependence and accountability to their constituents; and the mode and places of their election not sufficiently ascertained, for as Congress have the control over both, they may govern the choice, by ordering the representatives of a whole state, to be elected in one place, and that too may be the most inconvenient.

The senate, the great efficient body in this plan of government, is constituted on the most unequal principles. The smallest state in the union has equal weight with the great states of Virginia Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania–The Senate, besides its legislative functions, has a very considerable share in the Executive; none of the principal appointments to office can be made without its advice and consent. The term and mode of its appointment, will lead to permanency; the members are chosen for six years, the mode is under the control of Congress, and as there is no exclusion by rotation, they may be continued for life, which, from their extensive means of influence, would follow of course. The President, who would be a mere pageant of state, unless he coincides with the views of the Senate, would either become the head of the aristocratic junto in that body, or its minion, besides, their influence being the most predominant, could the best secure his re-election to office. And from his power of granting pardons, he might skreen from punishment the most treasonable attempts on liberties of the people, when instigated by the Senate.

From this investigation into the organization of this government, it appears that it is devoid of all responsibility or accountability to the great body of the people, and that so far from being a regular balanced government, it would be in practice a permanent ARISTOCRACY.

The framers of it, actuated by the true spirit of such a government, which ever abominates and suppresses all free enquiry and discussion, have made no provision for the liberty of the press that grand palladium of freedom, and scourge of tyrants, but observed a total silence on that head. It is the opinion of some great writers, that if the liberty of the press, by an institution of religion, or otherwise, could be rendered sacred, even in Turkey, that despotism would fly before it. And it is worthy of remark, that there is no declaration of personal rights, premised in most free constitutions; and that trial by jury in civil cases is taken away; for what other construction can be put on the following, viz. Article m. Sect. 2d. “In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases above mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact?” It would be a novelty in jurisprudence, as well as evidently improper to allow an appeal from the verdict of a jury, on the matter of fact; therefore, it implies and allows of a dismission of the jury in civil cases, and especially when it is considered, that jury trial in criminal cases is expresly stipulated for, but not in civil cases.

But our situation is represented to be so critically dreadful that, however reprehensible and exceptionable the proposed plan of government may be, there is no alternative, between the adoption of it and absolute ruin.–My fellow citizens, things are not at that crisis, it is the argument of tyrants; the present distracted state of Europe secures us from injury on that quarter, and as to domestic dissensions, we have not so much to fear from them, as to precipitate us into this form of government, without it is a safe and a proper one. For remember, of all possible evils that of despotism is the worst and the most to be dreaded.

Besides, it cannot be supposed, that the first essay on so difficult a subject, is so well digested, as it ought to be,–if the proposed plan, after a mature deliberation, should meet the approbation of the respective States, the matter will end, but if it should be found to be fraught with dangers and inconveniencies, a future general Convention being in possession of the objections, will be the better enabled to plan a suitable government.

Over the past weekend I had a short conversation with someone on Facebook who actually believes that Donald Trump wouldn’t sign into law any Red Flag gun laws that infringed upon a person’s right to keep and bear arms. I thought to myself, is this person and imbecile or what; does he even know the meaning of the word infringement?

Then this morning, after a short trip to the post office, I found a message on my computer from a friend who told me that a friend of his in Colorado has just been charged with child abuse for having a loaded firearm in his closet with two children in his home; making him the perfect candidate for being placed on a Red Flag list and having his guns taken away from him.

Do you know what a crime is; I mean REALLY know? A crime is when you deprive, or threaten to deprive, someone of their life, their possessions, or their liberty. What crime did that guy in Colorado commit other than have a loaded firearm in his home? Whose life did he physically threaten with that firearm? Whose property did he threaten to deprive them of by having a loaded firearm in his home? Whose liberty did he deprive by having a loaded gun in the closet?

Yet now this man has a criminal record and faces the deprivation of his right to keep and bear arms because of some stupid law enacted that pre-judges people according to WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN if they use that gun for anything other than self defense. Yet that asshat on Facebook says that Trump wouldn’t sign any bill that infringed upon a person’s right to keep and bear arms. Well, if he signs such a bill, then I hope that idiot chokes on his own words because Red Flag laws are an infringement upon a right because they judge you according to what some pissant analyst thinks YOU MIGHT DO according to some formula or algorithm they’ve worked out!

You know what the problem is in this country? The problem is that the minds of our youth are being poisoned by the b.s. they are being taught in school about the nature of their rights and their right to resist encroachments upon them by their government. By the time a child graduates from high school, unless they are constantly monitored by well informed parents, a child has been so fully indoctrinated to obey government without question that they will submit to an almost unlimited stream of laws depriving them of their rights.

I remember as a kid I had swallowed some model glue and my parents rushed me to the doctor who then pumped my stomach of the poison I had swallowed. That’s what needs to happen to the people of this country, they need to empty their minds of the poisonous bullshit they are taught in school and learn the truth about their rights before they’re all gone. So, with that thought in mind, I thought I’d offer a refresher course on the 2nd Amendment in the hopes that this time I might get through to more than just the choir who routinely read these rants I scribble out.

As many of you know, I live behind enemy lines out here in California. If I wasn’t so old, and if I didn’t have roots planted so deeply I’d pack my shit up and leave this state forever, never looking back. As is I have to put up with the idiocy of both the lawmakers in Sacramento and the majority of the populace that supports them.

California already had a Red Flag law on the books where law enforcement could request that the guns of someone deemed dangerous could be taken away from them. Now they are seeking to expand the list of those who could request guns be taken from ordinary law abiding citizens. Those who may be able to petition to have a person’s rights violated include employers and co-workers; which means I’m screwed because many of the people at work seem to think I have an arsenal capable of equipping a small army, and that I am so unhinged that I could go off the deep end at any time and do something stupid with them.

Listen, the only people who have to fear my guns are those who MAY come to take them from me without just cause – those and anyone else who breaks into my home and tries to deprive me of my property or bring harm to me and my family that is.

Yet I’ve heard, from people on both sides of the political aisle, say that we need these common sense gun control measures to prevent these mass shootings. Every time I hear that phrase, common sense, I want to gag; for common sense is the last things these laws possess as they only go after the guns, not the underlying causes that lead people to commit these types of crimes.

It seems to be widely accepted these days that it is reasonable to restrict the rights of people who have never done anything wrong, simply because a few bad apples have done something wrong by abusing their rights. My God, if you only knew how ridiculous you sound when you say you support these kind of ‘common sense’ gun control laws!

Gee, using that logic why don’t we pass some common sense car control laws; as roughly 37,000 people died in automobile accidents in the U.S. last year. Why don’t we enact some common sense doctor control laws as well, because according to the Journal of American Medicine roughly 225,000 people died last year in the U.S. due to medical malpractice? Why don’t we just take the drivers licenses away from those whose cars are parked outside bars and liquor stores; for according to the same logic being used to target people for gun confiscation under these Red Flag laws, those people are GOING TO DRIVE UNDER THE INFlUENCE.

You see how stupid you sound now?

I know it may sound incredible to those who believe government is our caretaker and caregiver, but government has absolutely no authority to deprive us of ANY of our rights. To believe otherwise leads me to believe that you think our right originate from government and that they can, and ought to restrict or limit them if it serves the overall public good; or general welfare as I’ve so often heard.

WRONG!!!

Let me throw some logic at you and hope smoke doesn’t start pouring out of your ears. If you believe our rights come from government, then how do you explain this? Our government was established in 1789 when the Constitution was ratified. Are you saying that prior to 1789 that no one living had any rights; that it took the establishment of a system of government for man’s unalienable rights to be bestowed upon them by an entity THEY created?

How then do you justify the fact that our Founders were able to rise up and overthrow their existing government, using guns, in 1776 when the right to own those guns wasn’t even granted to the people until 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified?

Again, do you see how ridiculous your arguments sound?

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence believed that their rights came, not from government, but from a higher authority; God. They also believed that governments were existed, not to minimize or deny those rights, but to better secure them for all the people. All one has to do to verify that is to read the opening lines of the second paragraph of that document, where it states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Sure, that doesn’t specifically say that we have the right to own guns, but it doesn’t deny that we have that right either. It only says that among our unalienable rights are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; implying that there are other unspoken rights that we also enjoy.

In 1772 Samuel Adams wrote something that was very telling about the nature of our rights, “Among the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First. a Right to Life; Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can–Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature.”

If you’ll note, he said that not only do we have certain rights, we ALSO have the right to defend them in the best manner we can; meaning I have the right to defend my right to keep and bear arms, my freedom of speech, my right to a trial by a jury of my peers, my right to justice, my right to be able to retreat into my home and be free from intrusive searches and seizures; all of which have been infringed upon by government.

Yet I’m the lunatic, the radical, the threat to society because I understand what my rights are, and because I choose to stand up to every infringement upon them. That gives a lot of credence to what historian Charles Austin Beard said, “You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence.”

I won’t go into the fact that I believe our Constitution was written to produce a government that would end up violating our rights; I’ll play along with those who believe that it was a basically good document, establishing a good system of government that has been hijacked by crooks and other malcontents.

Playing by those rules, where in the Constitution does it authorize the government to enact any law that deprives people of any their rights; and to be more specific, the right to keep and bear arms? I’ll give you a hint, the specific powers delegated to government can be found in Article 1, Section 8. So go ahead, pull out your copy of the Constitution, and if you don’t have one, Google Article 1, Section 8 and read through the specific powers delegated to your government…I’ll wait…

Couldn’t find anything, could you. Well that’s because it wasn’t among the powers delegated to the government by the Constitution. In fact, prior to the establishment of this system of government there were those who demanded that a Bill of Rights be included in it to protect certain rights against the government’s ability to infringe upon them. These people basically said, “You introduce a Bill of Rights, or we won’t agree to accept your proposed system of government.”

That’s how we got the Bill of Rights. But I think some people believe that the Bill of Rights was a document declaring that government had granted those rights to the people; that without it those rights wouldn’t exist.

WRONG!!!

The Bill of Rights only declares that government cannot enact any law that infringes upon, or violates those rights. Those rights pre date government; they existed before government was established and the Bill of Rights is simply a legal attachment to the Constitution telling government to leave them alone.

The Preamble to the Bill of Rights supports that position, stating, “THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.” (My emphasis)

Can’t you see that the Bill of Rights does not grant us our rights, it only places restrictions upon the government’s ability to infringe upon them? There was a time when those who rose to positions of authority within our government understood that.

For instance, in his book of Commonplace Quotations, Thomas Jefferson had saved the following quote regarding the right to keep and bear arms, “It is a false idea of utility to sacrifice a thousand real advantages for the sake of one disadvantage which is either imaginary or of little consequence; this would take fire away from men because it burns, and water because it drowns people; this is to have no remedy for evils except destruction.

Laws forbidding people to bear arms are of this nature; they only disarm those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

The courts, at one time, believed that too, “To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.” (Source: Wilson v. State, 1878)

The 2nd Amendment itself clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It doesn’t say what kind of arms, only that our right to keep and bear them shall not be infringed. It’s ludicrous to believe that our Founders could not have foreseen the advancements in the arms industry that allowed for weapons to be built that could fire multiple rounds with the squeeze of a trigger; yet we are told by government that ONLY government and law enforcement can possess those weapons.

How in the hell do people even justify that belief? Think about it, an entity created by the people to be the servant of the people turns around and says, “Oh, we can have these military style weapons, but you peasants cannot.”

Do people not know the meaning of the word infringe? Infringe means: act so as to limit or undermine. Call me whatever you will, but if the fact that government passing laws that tell the people what type guns they can own, the rate of fire they are capable of, how many rounds the magazines can hold, and whether those magazines are easily detachable aren’t limitations upon our right to keep and bear arms I don’t know what are.

Now the government is telling us that according to certain behavioral characteristics they are going to give law enforcement the authority to come and confiscate the arms of those they deem a danger to society. Well you want to know something? I think that government itself is a danger to society and therefore we ought to confiscate the arms it routinely uses to impose its will upon us. That’s what I believe.

And this is where I see the schizophrenic tendencies in many. I have seen and heard people say that they support and defend the right to keep and bear arms, then at the same time say they support and defend law enforcement.

Who do they think is going to come to their homes to confiscate their arms, Donald Trump; Dianne Feinstein? No, it will be local law enforcement that engages in the confiscation of our guns.

There may be some who refuse to follow the order to confiscate guns; but they will be a minority. There may be others who question the law that requires they confiscate our guns, but they will follow orders regardless of their feelings on the matter. And then there will be those who relish the ability to take our guns away from us; as they love being able to bully us around without the fear of retaliation on our part.

I’m not saying cops don’t have a shitty job, having to see the criminal underbelly of society all the time, but they chose that career and they took an oath to support and defend the Constitution; and if they can’t uphold that oath then maybe they ought to go seek employment at WalMart!

That’s why I preach knowing history so much; and not just the history of THIS country. History is rife with examples of what happens when the government disarms the people; and it NEVER ends well for the governed.

Stalin killed upwards of 10 million people who opposed his regime; people who did not have the arms to resist his totalitarian rule. Hitler did the same, as did Mao, Pol Pot, and every other tin pot dictator who has ever risen to power and oppressed those under them. And now, because if a misplaced sense of trust in their government, the people of this country want to create the conditions where tyranny has free reign over us?

SCREW YOU, I want no part of it!!!

The sad thing is this, once they’ve taken our guns and gotten rid of any means the people have of resisting their authority, they will come after the disenfranchised who realize they were betrayed by them; pawns used to push forth totalitarian rule. I believe it was either Stalin or Lenin who called them the useful idiots because once they had helped bring them into power they were no longer needed, and quickly and quietly eliminated.
That’s what I see when I see people talking about one more common sense gun control law, useful, or should I say, useless idiots who are paving the pathway to their own enslavement.

It’s coming people, and I fear that it’s coming faster than many of you are ready for. When it gets here you’ll realize that maybe Neal wasn’t so crazy after all, maybe we should have listened to him. But as they say, hindsight is always 20/20 and it often is useless when you live on your knees under the rule of tyrants.

Me, I’ll probably be long dead when it comes, having been eliminated in the first wave of purges. Then they’ll come after you, as there will be no one left to stand up and defend YOUR rights. And with that thought in mind I leave you with the following, from Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran Pastor in Germany during World War II, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

They’re coming for our guns now, and when they get them they’ll come after all your other rights as well. If, perchance, I’m still alive afterwards, please, don’t ask me why someone didn’t warn you this was coming, for that’s what I’m doing right now…but you’re too blind to see it.

I awoke this morning with a burning question in my mind; what if the reason people pay little attention to what I say is because I focus too much on the past, while they are more interested in current events. I rarely watch the news, at all; not because I’m not concerned with what is happening in the world around me, but rather it is the fact that the coverage they give it is so full of b.s. and lies that it makes me physically ill to watch it.

I believe, and you can take this with a grain of salt if you like, that whatever stories you hear on the news are there to keep your focus on current scandals and crises while keeping the two sides, left and right, at odds with each other. I’m not saying some of these crises and scandals aren’t real, that they don’t affect us in some fashion, I’m only saying that so long as we focus all our attention upon them we fail to take note that no matter who has control of our government, some things never change.

For instance, war seems to be a constant no matter which party is in control of the government. Taxes also remain a constant; although the rate you pay may fluctuate a bit with a shift in which party controls government. Our rights also continue to be infringed upon at an almost exponential rate no matter which party is in control.

Yet while all that is happening all people can think of is getting their side into power, and what can their side do to fix all these problems; most of which are due to the fact that government has already enacted laws that have screwed things up so badly that they even require fixing. What a novel concept it would be that, instead of passing more laws and creating more bureaucracies, they revoked a few laws and eliminated a few bureaucracies and see if the problems didn’t start resolving themselves of their own accord?

That will never happen though, primarily due to the fact that people have been indoctrinated into believing that they need this huge, all powerful government; that without it chaos and anarchy would run rampant without its guiding hand in our lives. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I think I can manage my own affairs far better than the government can, and I’m man enough to accept the consequences of any stupid decisions I might make.

I’m not a huge fan of Theodore Roosevelt, not after learning how he abused Executive Authority while serving as president, but he did get a few things right in the speeches and editorials he wrote. One of the things he got right was when he said, “If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.”

You see, that’s the flip side of freedom that no one wants to look at, accepting complete and total responsibility for all your wants and needs. A simple example to explain how one feels about freedom is how they would react if a burglar broke into their home. Would that person pick up a phone and dial 911 or would they pick up a gun and send the burglar to an early grave? If you would rely upon an agent of the state to do what is, ultimately, your responsibility, then you choose bondage over freedom. If you believe that those who do excercise a little freedom by shooting a burglar should be charged with a crime, then you don’t know the first thing about what it means to be free, and accepting complete responsibility for your own needs.

That is why I do not focus too much on current events; I prefer to focus on how we got to where we are today with this massive government that intrudes upon almost every aspect of our lives, while denying us the freedom our forefathers fought for in 1776. History provides the answer to how we got to where we are today, if you would just look back in time instead of focusing all your attention upon whatever manufactured scandals and crises consume the airwaves and keep you from focusing your attention where it is really needed.

For a people to be truly free 3 things regarding government must occur. First it must be kept small with its scope of powers kept very limited. Secondly, it must be local; meaning that those governing are familiar with and respectful of the needs of their constituents. Finally, the purpose of government should be to secure the rights of all classes of the people against infringement.

For a very limited time Americans enjoyed the most freedom that they have ever seen; that period being between the years 1783 to 1789. I’m not saying that they enjoyed perfect freedom, but they enjoyed a whole lot more then than they do now. For instance, during that period the government in Massachusetts imposed a tax to help pay for the debt accumulated during the Revolution. This didn’t sit well with some of the citizens, so they rebelled.

This event, known as Shay’s Rebellion, was one of the things that gave weight to the idea that a stronger central government was needed to maintain peace throughout the union. Yet Thomas Jefferson felt that a little rebellion now and then was good, that it kept government within the strictest confines of its delegated authority. In a letter to Abigail Adams he wrote, “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

The history of the world is rife with examples of times when ambitious and power hungry people sought to gain control over their countries system of government, and America was not immune from that tendency either. In 1787 a convention was held in Philadelphia where the delegates were given specific instructions to deliberate on amendments, “…for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the states render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government & the preservation of the Union.” (Source: Report of the Proceedings in Congress, 21 February 1787)

That was all they were supposed to do, propose amendments that would strengthen the existing government, not abolish that government altogether and replace it with one of their own creation. Can you imagine if such a convention were to be held today, and they proposed abolishing Congress altogether, while making the presidency a life term, while granting that office almost monarchal powers? How would you react if that were to happen today? I imagine some of you would be all for it, while others would say, “Hold on a second, I don’t support that idea.”

Such was the case in 1787 when the finalized constitution was presented to the people for consideration, there were those who supported it’s ratification and there were those who opposed it. One of the leading proponents for liberty during the Revolution, Patrick Henry, was among the staunchest opponents of this new system of government. In a speech to the Virginia Ratifying Assembly Henry stated, “Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: And cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case?”

You may not see it because all you’ve known is the system you were born into, but back then it was a radical change in the structure of government. The government under the Articles of Confederation gave a lot of power to the States and very little to the central government. Furthermore, it took a unanimous vote of approval from the States before anything became law; a single state could stop the passage of a measure; thereby preventing it from going into effect.

Therefore the States were a major stumbling block in the way of those who sought a much stronger and more centralized form of government; so whatever form they came up with had to be one which sought to weaken, and subordinate the States under the central authority.

Yet like it or not the existing law at the time, the Articles of Confederation, was created by the States and the members of Congress were to act as representatives of the States, not the people, but the States as political entities. Furthermore, the Articles of Confederation stated that for any alterations to occur to them they must be approved by both the Congress, AND the unanimous vote of all the State Legislatures. As I said, that was the law, and anything that occurred that did not conform to those requirements should have been considered a crime.

Yet when the Constitution was finalized and sent to the Congress that body never voted either to approve or reject it, nor did they submit it to the State Legislatures for their consideration. Instead it was submitted to assemblies and conventions consisting of the people.

This was another aspect of the radical revolution that Henry spoke of. Instead of a government created by, and serving the States, this one would be given its authority by, and effective upon the people themselves. Numerous times Patrick Henry spoke out against this aspect of the proposed system of government. For instance, on June 5, 1788 Henry said, “The fate of this question and of America may depend on this: Have they said, we, the States? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation: It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing-the expression, We, the people, instead of the States, of America.”

One day prior Mr Henry addressed the convention, saying, “My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states…”

Now if you recall there were 3 things I said that must occur for freedom to remain secure for the people. One of them was that the government should be kept local so that it would know and be respectful of the needs of its constituents. Can you honestly tell me that your representative in Congress is aware of, and mindful of the things that affect you in your day to day life? I can tell you right now that not a one of those serving me in Congress has the slightest concern for my wishes and desires, nor the preservation of my liberty.

That was another concern of those who opposed the constitution, that the government they were attempting to establish could not possibly be mindful of the wants and needs of the people of such a large consolidated Republic. In his second essay writing under the pseudonym of Federal Farmer, Melancton Smith stated, “The essential parts of a free and good government are a full and equal representation of the people in the legislature, and the jury trial of the vicinage in the administration of justice — a full and equal representation, is that which possesses the same interests, feelings, opinions, and views the people themselves would were they all assembled…”

Are you aware that after the Constitution was put into operation, the ratio of representation in Congress was roughly 1 representative for every 57,000 people? Now that may seem like the people were not effectively represented in Congress, but let’s look at the ratio of representation today. The current ration of representation is one member of Congress for every 747,000 people, plus or minus a few hundred here or there. How can one member of Congress know the wants and needs of 57,000 people, let alone 747,000 people? Simple answer, they can’t; proving that the anti-federalists concerns over a fair and equal representation were valid.

Now this may be a tad long, but in his first essay writing as Brutus, Robert Yates stated the following, “History furnishes no example of a free republic, any thing like the extent of the United States. The Grecian republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. Both of these, it is true, in process of time, extended their conquests over large territories of country; and the consequence was, that their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in the world.

Not only the opinion of the greatest men, and the experience of mankind, are against the idea of an extensive republic, but a variety of reasons may be drawn from the reason and nature of things, against it. In every government, the will of the sovereign is the law. In despotic governments, the supreme authority being lodged in one, his will is law, and can be as easily expressed to a large extensive territory as to a small one. In a pure democracy the people are the sovereign, and their will is declared by themselves; for this purpose they must all come together to deliberate, and decide. This kind of government cannot be exercised, therefore, over a country of any considerable extent; it must be confined to a single city, or at least limited to such bounds as that the people can conveniently assemble, be able to debate, understand the subject submitted to them, and declare their opinion concerning it.

In a free republic, although all laws are derived from the consent of the people, yet the people do not declare their consent by themselves in person, but by representatives, chosen by them, who are supposed to know the minds of their constituents, and to be possessed of integrity to declare this mind.

In every free government, the people must give their assent to the laws by which they are governed. This is the true criterion between a free government and an arbitrary one. The former are ruled by the will of the whole, expressed in any manner they may agree upon; the latter by the will of one, or a few. If the people are to give their assent to the laws, by persons chosen and appointed by them, the manner of the choice and the number chosen, must be such, as to possess, be disposed, and consequently qualified to declare the sentiments of the people; for if they do not know, or are not disposed to speak the sentiments of the people, the people do not govern, but the sovereignty is in a few. Now, in a large extended country, it is impossible to have a representation, possessing the sentiments, and of integrity, to declare the minds of the people, without having it so numerous and unwieldly, as to be subject in great measure to the inconveniency of a democratic government.”

Those are but two aspects of this new system of government that concerned the anti-federalists; I could list more, but you’d quickly lose interest in what I was saying. The point I was trying to make is that there were many valid concerns over this system of government, yet the voices of reason were ignored for the promise of a great and powerful American empire. Gee, that sounds kind of familiar. I wonder where I’ve heard that before…(spoken with a heavy dose of sarcasm)

Yet Patrick Henry warned about that as well, “You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your Government.” Much as few listen to what I have to say today, few listened to what the anti-federalists had to say, and the Constitution went into effect, establishing our current system of government.

The government established by the Constitution didn’t suddenly become this monster we have today, it was a slow and gradual process that has been going on since the day it was put into effect. It’s not like we elected a Hitler or a Stalin who suddenly started oppressing the people, it has been slowly growing in power since the day it went into operation. It began under the administration of George Washington, and it has continued almost unabated ever since.

The only hiccup along the way came in 1860 when a bunch of Southern States had the audacity to stand up to this system of government and reclaim their status as free and independent States. I mean, HOW DARE THEY??? But before I get into that, let me tell you a little story you weren’t taught in your American History class.

You may not be aware of their political party tendencies, but the first two presidents of these States united were strongly federalist; meaning they felt the powers granted the government were not limited to those few specific powers found in Article 1, Section 8; that they could exercise implied powers as well.

This belief served many in the North well as the power of taxation was a means by which the wealth of one part of the country could be used to finance economic growth and expansion in another. But then another party began to rise in popularity which threatened the interests of the Northern industrialists and bankers; the Democratic-Republicans, led by none other than Thomas Jefferson.

The policies being espoused by Jefferson were such that the Northerners feared what would happen should he, or one of his followers were to be elected to the presidency. It was during this time that two leading Northern Congressmen, Rufus King and Oliver Ellsworth, approached the Southerner, John Taylor of Caroline, with a proposal; that the Union be divided into two segments which would be free to govern themselves as they saw fit.

The two Northern Congressmen argued, “it was utterly impossible that the Union could continue―that the South and East never agreed, and that the former clogged and counteracted every operation of the government.” They then went on to say, “Under the circumstances, therefore, a dissolution of the Union by mutual consent was preferable to a forced dissolution.”

This proposal was delivered to James Madison, who kept it among his personal papers until his death. It then fell into the hands of his wife, and upon her death it fell into the hands of her nephew. Upon his death, his widow finally sold them and they became public domain. But you won’t be taught this in school because it proves that the Union was not believed to be permanent and irrevocable; that in fact it was the North that first spoke of dividing the Union into two separate and independent entities; thereby justifying the South’s claims that they had the right to secede – which makes Abraham Lincoln a war criminal for engaging in an unprovoked war against a sovereign nation.

The ultimate question of the Civil War was not whether or not slavery should exist, that was not the cause of the war, not the issue solved by it. The question posed by the Civil War was, does a State, or group of States, have the right to revoke their consent to a system of government, and return to their status as free and independent entities?

Abraham Lincoln claimed they didn’t, and he felt it was his duty to use whatever means were at his disposal to hold the Union together. Which is why you’ll never be taught that it was the North that first proposed splitting the Union in two; for it would shoot Lincoln’s whole justification for his war of aggression down in flames.

Now you might say, But the Civil War answered that question when the South lost, didn’t it?” Do you believe that; that a superior armed force achieving a victory is all that is required for determining right or wrong? Well, how would you feel if a group of 20 or so armed men stormed into your home and began pillaging your property and raping your wife and young daughters, would the overwhelming use of force justify such an act? I didn’t think so; so just because the North won the war, doesn’t make their cause just or noble; and it certainly doesn’t make Lincoln a national hero!

What the Civil War did do was prove that the government could, and would use whatever force it felt necessary to maintain its control over the entire union. Now please, perform some mental gymnastics and explain to me how that even comes close to being a government based upon consent of the governed. I’ll wait; this ought to prove quite interesting…

After the war ended the South was treated even worse when they were treated as occupied territories; governed by former Union Generals to manage them until they had proven their worthiness to rejoin the Union. The Southern States had to rewrite their Constitutions and then submit them to Congress for its approval. No one loyal to the Confederate Cause could hold office in the South; opening the door for Carpetbaggers and Scalawags to come flooding in from the North. Then to make matters worse, they were told that they MUST ratify the 14th Amendment before anyone selected by them could resume their positions in Congress.

We are taught the nobleness and compassion of the North after the war with its Reconstruction efforts; yet you should read about the conditions in the South during Reconstruction if you want to learn how it was a continuation of the pillaging of their wealth that led them to secede in the first place. It truly makes me ashamed to call myself an American how our government treated them after the war.

Oh, and for those of you who still claim that the North was fighting a noble war to free the slaves, you may want to do some research on a place called The Devil’s Punchbowl in Mississippi. The Devil’s Punchbowl was a UNION run concentration camp for freed slaves. These were slaves that had been granted their freedom, yet the Union tossed them into this hellish concentration camp where they were barely fed, and suffered disease and starvation. It is estimated that 20,000 freed slaves died under the ‘protection’ of the Union Army at the Devil’s Punchbowl.

Yeah, the North was real noble and considerate of the slaves…You keep on believing that, history proves it to be untrue.

Something else you may not be aware of regarding the period following the end of the Civil War. By the year 1877 the Union occupation of the South had all but ended, with only 3 States remaining under Union control; South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. 1876 saw the presidential election take place between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden won the election with 51% of the popular vote and 203 Electoral Votes to Hayes 165. Yet the Electoral vote came into question due to the fact that 19 of those votes came from the 3 occupied Southern States.

A commission consisting of 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats was established to settle the issue, and the Democrats agreed to give the election to Hayes if the Republicans would agree to 4 demands. Those demands were “…that the military occupation of all the former Confederate States be brought to an end; that a Democrat be named to the Hayes cabinet; that a transcontinental train line be created through the South and that Federal legislation be passed to assist in the actual reconstruction of the region.”

Although the demands were agreed to by the Republicans, the final request for federal assistance in rebuilding the South after the war never saw a single dime of federal money flow into the South; even though for decades prior to the war Southern wealth had been confiscated by taxes and tariffs and saw its way into federally funded programs to benefit Northern interests.

And yet people wonder why there is still such hatred and animosity between those living in the South and those living in the North? I don’t even live in the South, but I feel a kinship to those who do; and I hate and despise the Yankees and their system of government as much as any rebel ever did.

That’s why I study history and ignore current events; because not knowing how we got to were we are with all these problems only means that we will find ourselves stuck in the rut of repeating the things that caused them in the first place. It is why I don’t vote; because I believe the entire system to be morally corrupt, and intentionally so. I believe that whatever answer to our problems will not come from more government, but from the complete and total dissolution of this current system and the establishment of one more closely related to the Confederation established by the Articles of Confederation.

I also realize that, to use modern terminology, that shit ain’t ever gonna happen. I realize that 99% of the people don’t care about their freedom, that they are happy as a herd of free range cattle just so long as they have a job that pays the bills, or are on the dole from some government program that provides for their needs. Freedom comes at a cost, and too few are willing to pay it, so we’ll just keep on trudging on down the pathway to absolute despotism until we get to the point that even a blind man can see what has happened. But by then it will be too late; you will have given up all the means you had of fighting tyrants, and you’ll have no recourse other than submission or death.

But hey, don’t let me get you down with all this gloom and doom talk; there’s a new episode of The Voice tonight, and hey, the Super Bowl is coming up real soon; so what’s there to worry about, right?