Neal's Soapbox

It used to be that America’s school system taught our children how to think; that is no longer the case. Instead, it teaches them WHAT TO THINK. The idea that knowledge and intellect should be aspired to and respected has been replaced with a reduction of the overall American intellect to the lowest common denominator of ignorance and stupidity.

Does the word atrophy mean anything to you? Atrophy means to degenerate due to lack of use; and it perfectly describes what has happened to the minds of most people in this country. Give most people a complex set of ideas and ask them to formulate an opinion based upon them and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see smoke pouring out of their ears as their brains catch fire.

That is why it is next to impossible to have an open and honest political debate with most people; because they have been conditioned to think from their party perspective and to disregard any fact which threatens that perspective. Facts and evidence have absolutely no place in modern political discussions; the only thing that matters is how people feel on an issue. Those who do come to a debate armed with facts are typically insulted or ignored altogether; showing how shallow people’s minds have become.

Yet for some reason me, and people like me, exist; aberrations who are capable of critical thought and who see through the haze of indoctrination that is going on all around us. I hate to bring movie references into a serious discussion such as this, but the Matrix is real people, and you are living proof that it is an effective tool in keeping you in servitude to an ungrateful master…your government.

As long as people continue to believe that their votes matter, without paying any attention to why their government exists or the extent to which it has deprived them of their freedom, the Matrix is working exactly as it was designed; to keep them supporting, (or ignoring in some cases), the very system that enslaves them. It’s as von Goethe said, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

One of the most frightening stories I ever read was Kurt Vonnegut’s, Harrison Bergeron. Harrison Bergeron is a dystopian story about the future when all man has been reduced to perfect equality. Government exists to ensure that this equality remains intact; and all manner of devices are used to make sure no one is prettier, smarter, or stronger than the next person…perfect equality. Harrison Bergeron is an above average person who refuses to be shackled by the limits imposed upon him by society and he seeks to break free of his shackles and utilize his above average intelligence for his own benefit–only to be gunned down by the government while his parents watch the whole thing on TV; unable to respond emotionally because their ability to think critically has been limited by governmental conditioning.

I see a frightening parallel between Vonnegut’s story and society in general. Those who have chosen to use their minds to the best of their ability – to think for themselves – are ridiculed and condemned by a public that is happy to live in a state of perpetual ignorance, apathy and servitude. The reasons why their government was established, or the powers that it was originally given are of no concern to most people; only that their candidate wins and that government does things that fit into their belief as to what government should be doing. The constitutional legality of what government does is irrelevant to over 90% of the American voters, and that in and of itself ought to tell you how screwed up this country has become.

To prove my point, I wonder how many people have ever given any thought to where political power comes from. Where does any group of people derive the authority to enact laws which the people are obliged to obey without question? The Bible tells us that God created man and gave him free will; it didn’t say anything about God sending down a government starter kit along with Adam; so that he could rule posterity for the end of time. In his book The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine states, “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.”

Paine then goes on to say, “It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of Freedom to say that Government is a compact between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with.

The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.”

What Paine is talking about there is the concept of consent of the governed; that government exists because, first it was created by the people, and then continues to derive its authority because the people consent to it, and the laws it passes. But what happens when a portion of society no longer consents to the laws being enacted by their government; are they to be forever bound in servitude to an entity that they DO NOT CONSENT TO?

In political terminology that is the description of a democracy; where a simple majority has the right to bind the minority in all things. We are not, nor have we ever been a democracy. We were supposed to be a Republic where our government was created and bound by a written constitution which outlined its structure and the specific powers given it. As the creators of government, we are not bound to the arbitrary will of those we elect; no matter what they might tell you, or how much force they bring to bear upon those who question their authority. As the true sovereigns in this country we tell government what it can and cannot do, not the other way around…or at least that is how is was supposed to be.

Yet if you even bring up the Constitutional limitations upon government in a political debate these days you are treated as if you were speaking a foreign language; people don’t want to hear about limits upon their government, they only want to hear about what government can do to make their lives better, safer and more comfortable.

If I had any say in the matter no high school student would be allowed to graduate, and they certainly wouldn’t be allowed to vote, until they had passed a comprehensive class on John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government. If our Declaration of Independence is believed to be the foundation upon which America was built, then Locke’s Second Treatise is quite possibly what gave Jefferson the inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.

Let me ask you a question. If there was no government of any kind, who would there be to tell you what you can and cannot do; can or cannot say? Technically speaking there would be no one to tell you what you could or could not do. That is what is known as a state of nature, or pure and absolute liberty.

Locke describes this in Chapter 2 of his Second Treatise as follows, “To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”

But mankind is an imperfect creature; we have all manner of vices such as greed, envy, lust and prejudice. Therefore there will always be those who threaten the life and liberty of others; making government of some kind a necessity. I think that is what Paine meant when he wrote, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”

Then in Chapter 3 Locke goes on to describe the state men find themselves in when others seek to excercise dominion or control over them; calling this condition a ‘state of war.’ Locke explains this condition as follows, “And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life: for I have reason to conclude, that he who would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for no body can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave.”

After all, isn’t slavery simply the attempt by one man, or a group of men, to deprive others of their freedom and rights? Does it matter whether that this slavery is forced upon others by force, or by a government that is consented to by a majority of the people? Any attempt to restrict the freedom of anyone; be it an individual or a group of individuals, is an attempt to place those individuals into a condition of slavery.

It should come as no surprise then that the next chapter in Locke’s Second Treatise discusses slavery. Locke goes on to explain a crucial point when discussing how much power any system of government might be allowed to exercise over the governed, “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.”

If I, as an individual, do not have the right to dictate how you must live your life, then I cannot, by compact or agreement, give that power to anyone else. Yet that is exactly what people do today when they vote; they are seeking to elect candidates who closely match their own personal beliefs and who can use the coercive power of government to make others live their lives in accordance to their belief systems. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, if you are voting for candidates so that they can pass laws that tell others how they must live their lives then you are imposing a form of slavery upon those thusly imposed upon.

The reason why men enter into societies – be they political or civil – is for the security of the rights they hold in a state of nature. In a state of nature the right of an individual to enjoy their freedom is limited by their ability to defend that freedom from attack by others. In a political or civil society the people unite together for the common preservation of their individual rights; granting legislators the ability to enact laws which best secure those rights to all members of the political society.

That is the foundation of a just and honest government; one which secures to every member the fullest exercise of their individual rights. In his Lectures on Law, 1791, James Wilson wrote, “Government … should be formed to secure and enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind.”

If government, with the consent of the majority, tells me that I MUST purchase health insurance, or participate in a program that takes a portion of my earnings and saves them towards my retirement, and I truly enjoying the full fruits of my labors? If government passes laws that tell me when, and under what circumstances, I can defend myself or my property, am I not having my fundamental right to self-defense limited by those whose job is to protect my rights? If I am supposedly free from unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant, supported by probable cause, then how can the NSA monitor my private discussions and the TSA search my body and my belongings at airports without a warrant stating what is to be searched and why? If prayer is but a conversation between those who believe and their God, then how can the Supreme Court claim to defend freedom of speech when they ban prayer in public schools?

I could go on and on with violations to our freedom that our government is guilty of, and which the people consent to by their obedience to these laws without even a whimper of protest. And don’t even get me started on those who are charged with upholding/enforcing the law upon the slaves of America, (Law Enforcement). Thomas Jefferson once said that law if often but the tyrants will, and if that is true, then what does that make those who enforce these laws upon the people if not tyrants as well?

The reason why men unite into a political or civil society is explained by Locke in Chapter 9 of his Second Treatise, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.” But what is meant by the word property; is it limited to tangible items such as your home, your car and your flat screen TV?

In 1792 James Madison wrote the following explaining what property is, “In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

Chapter 11 of Locke’s Second Treatise discusses the extent of legislative authority. In Section 138 Locke states, “The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society…”

That same sentiment was paraphrased by Madison in his discourse on Property of 1791, “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his.”

If I do not consent to having my pay taken from me in the form of taxes and then spent on programs I do not consent to, am I not enslaved to the will of those who would do just that? If I do not consent to having my rights violated just so that the general public can live their lives in a state of comfort and security, am I not a slave to those who would deprive me of my freedom just so they can feel safe and secure?

Instead of people exercising a little responsibility and providing for their own needs, they have been conditioned to believe that is the true purpose for which their government exists; and they then consider those who do exercise a bit of responsibility to be criminals or outlaws. How many times have you heard someone say that people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands; that they should dial 911 and await the police to come defend them from criminals? If self-defense is an individual right, then I don’t need government to protect me, and I shouldn’t be punished when I exercise that right.

In Chapter 18 of Locke’s Second Treatise he defines tyranny as, “…the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to…” If the power of the legislative is used to deprive me of my property or my rights then it is being used in opposition to the purpose for which it was delegated. Frederic Bastiat described that condition as follows, “The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!”

If our Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, then what condition exists when the people elect candidates to do things the Constitution does not authorize government to do, or when government, of its own volition, decides to exercise powers not given them? Well, Locke has an answer to that question as well, “Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.”

Yet people laugh at me and deride me when I say that their government is tyrannical. The way I see it is that if government is being used to deprive me of the right to enjoy my property and exercise my rights, then it is tyrannical; and it doesn’t matter if these things are being done with the consent of most of the people in this country…I DO NOT CONSENT TO IT!!! Author Ayn Rand once said, “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”

If this is, in fact, tyranny, then why is it that so many people willingly submit to it, and why is it that they condemn people like me who openly speak out in opposition to it? Our Founders rebelled against tyranny by declaring their independence from the government that imposed that tyranny upon them. Yet the same Americans today who honor the patriots of 1776 turn around and denigrate the patriots of 1860 who sought to free themselves from the tyranny of a government that had become destructive of the ends for which it was established.

These same people today scorn me when I say that government should be torn down because it no longer serves its intended purpose; or that people should simply refuse to obey any law which violates their rights. Woodrow Wilson, our 28th President, once said, “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”

Why is it considered unpatriotic to defend the very thing government was established to secure for us…liberty? If government truly was created by the consent of the governed, then government itself cannot say a thing if the people revoke their consent to it and seek to dismantle it, or simply refuse to obey laws that violate their rights.

In Chapter 19 of his Second Treatise Locke writes, “… whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who. have a right to resume their original liberty…”

Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that most people don’t want, or care about liberty; all they want is for government to be there and provide the things they think it should provide them…which means comfort and security…so they can get back to their bread and circus lives.

But I have found that you can’t argue with, or change the minds of stupid people…they are too conditioned and dead set in their beliefs. But you can’t fault me for trying….

Historian Charles Austin Beard once 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.” What do you think it says about America as a political society when the thoughts and beliefs of the man who authored our Declaration of Independence are shunned and ridiculed by a majority of the people?

With increasing certainty I believe that, for the average person, patriotism means bowing down and licking the boots of the very people who deprive them of their freedom. For most people the idea of patriotism means faithfully paying your taxes; voting; and obeying the law. God forbid I ask that people learn what our Founders felt about something as insignificant as liberty or freedom from oppression.

In 1821 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Judge Spencer Roane in which he stated, “Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible.”

If you really want to know how pathetically we have lived up to Jefferson’s hopes and expectations all you have to do is look at how we shun his beliefs on a multitude of subjects, and how we idolize a president who corrupted the principles our country was founded upon…Abraham Lincoln.

Thomas Jefferson was a staunch believer in State’s Rights; that the individual States not only had the right, they had the obligation to oppose laws passed by the federal government which overstepped its just authority and infringed upon the authority of the States.

In 1798 President Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts. In opposition to them Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions, wherein he states, “Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government . . . . and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. . . . that the government created by this compact [the Constitution for the United States] was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; . . . . that this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; . . . and that the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorised by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories.”

Say what you will about that but it sure sounds to me like Jefferson believed the States had the authority to tell the federal government to go to hell when they felt that the laws being passed violated the Constitution.

By the time Jefferson was sworn in after the tumultuous election of 1800 the corruption of principles he spoke of was well under way. The seeds of nationalism which had been sown by Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and John Adams had taken root, and the people of America liked what they saw. It was so bad that some New England States threatened to secede from the Union in opposition to Jefferson’s policy of, “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. That is the sum of good government.” (Source: Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address)

However, in that same address Jefferson also stated, “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Jefferson may have felt that it would be unwise to dissolve the Union, but he felt that as the Union was a voluntary compact between sovereign States that it was within a State’s rights to do so. This belief was later reaffirmed by an outside source, Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book, Democracy in America; wherein it states, “The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; 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 chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right.”

I don’t think I need to explain how Abraham Lincoln felt about that belief; after all, he did raise an army and invade the sovereign territory of 11 States who chose to exercise their right to leave the Union. It really doesn’t matter whether the 11 States of the Confederacy chose to leave the Union over slavery or whether that choice was made because of the tariffs that had been imposed upon them; what matters is that it was their right to do so, and Abraham Lincoln denied them that right when he sent an army to force them into remaining in the Union.

Jefferson felt that the States were not required to submit unquestioningly to the authority of the federal government. Lincoln believed that it was his duty to ensure that the States remain subject to the authority of the federal government; regardless of whether the government itself adhered to the document that created it. Jefferson believed in government by consent of the people; Lincoln, on the other hand, did not believe that consent was required; that the States could be forced into obedience without their consent. That is the fundamental difference between the two men, and one which is rarely mentioned in history books or political debates.

Then of course there is the small fact that Lincoln actively sought to limit the liberty our system of government was supposedly established to secure. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and imprisoned many who opposed his unconstitutional war against the South; he violated the 1st Amendment when he shut down newspapers who printed editorials critical of his policies; he sent troops into Maryland in an effort to block the Maryland State Legislature from voting on the issue of secession; and he even issued an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; although he rescinded it before it was executed.

There is not a doubt in my mind that had Thomas Jefferson been alive in 1860 he would have been on the side of the Confederate States of America. It may have saddened him to be on the side of those leaving the Union he had fought so hard for, but I think the abandonment of the principles our country was originally founded upon would have saddened him even more than leaving the Union.

The Confederate States also did not hate the Union; they only hated the way in which the government was being used which went beyond what they thought were the legitimate powers given it by the Constitution. Confederate President Jefferson Davis once said, “I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”

The Confederacy felt that the government, as it existed in 1860, was unconstitutional and therefore destructive of the ends for which it was established. They sought a peaceful separation from that government; and just like jolly old King George, their government sent armies against them to coerce them into obedience.

Jefferson may very well have foreseen the eventual civil war, as in an 1825 letter to William Branch Giles he wrote, “I see,… and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power… It is but too evident that the three ruling branches of [the Federal government] are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic.”

Whatever your thoughts and feelings are about the Civil War may be, if you are honest with yourself you will have to admit that it forever ended the belief that we have a government that exists by consent of the people. I do not consent to it and yet I am forced to obey all manner of laws that violate my rights and liberty…or face the possibility of fines, jail time, or death if I disobey them.

And that is the true legacy of Abraham Lincoln; the subversion of government by consent to government by duress. It all began in the Constitutional Convention when some felt, including James Madison, felt that the States should be mere appendages; that they should only be subordinately useful to the federal authority. It reached its realization when Lincoln ended the belief that the States had any authority to limit the federal government, or question its authority.

Even his praised Gettysburg Address makes no mention of government by consent of the States; rather it states, “…government of the people, by the people, and for the people…” Well people are stupid, they are gullible, and for the most part they prefer comfort and security over the animating contest for liberty.

All I know is that in 1788 Patrick Henry declared, “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.”

People call me radical and dangerous because I come across sounding like I want to overturn the government. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I only want government to limit itself to the purposes for which it was established and leave me free to pursue happiness however I choose. But, as long as it does not serve that purpose, as long as it does not secure to me the liberty that is my birthright, I will oppose your government no matter which tyrant sits at the throne.

Authors Note: Some of the comments found herein may be offensive to some. Know this, if they are found within quotation marks, (“”), they are NOT my thoughts or beliefs; rather they are the thoughts of the person being quoted.

If you were to ask your friends who the five greatest presidents were, I’m certain you would get a wide range of answers. Some might answer with contemporary presidents; like Obama or Reagan, while others might stick to those that were only names in history books. But I’m almost certain that universally the name Abraham Lincoln would make almost everyone’s list. Why is that? Is it because he saved the Union and freed the slaves?

I find it ironic that people are beginning to accept that the news they see on TV is scripted–fake–yet they won’t accept that what they’ve been taught about men like Lincoln is fake as well. Sure, Lincoln saved the Union, but he did so at the end of a gun and with cannon fire; at the cost of over half a million lives and the destruction of our Republic. As for slavery, people believe that Lincoln was this great humanitarian who freed the slaves. Nothing could be further from the truth; and it is this aspect of the Lincoln myth that I hope to dispel with fact.

Everything I am about to say comes from historical record, and is available to anyone with the inclination to seek this information out themselves. These are not my OPINIONS; they are historical facts; so if you’re going to get upset or offended, don’t kill the messenger; instead you should be angered that your educators withheld the truth from you. But it shouldn’t come as any surprise; the victors in any conflict always end up writing the history of that conflict; so when the North won the Civil War it came as no surprise that they would write the history of that conflict in a light that gave them the moral high ground and made the South out to be rebellious barbarians who fought only to perpetuate slavery.

To begin repairing the travesty done to the truth we must look back to before Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President. In 1860 the tensions between the North and the South were already at the breaking point and to avert open warfare between the two regions Congress considered over 200 various resolutions regarding the institution of slavery…just to keep the two regions living in peace with each other. One of these resolutions was introduced by Thomas Corwin and William Seward; who would go on to serve as Lincoln’s Secretary of State after Lincoln was sworn in. This resolution passed the House by a vote of 133-65 and then went on to be passed by the Senate by a vote of 24-12; (You have to remember, Congress was much smaller in 1860 than it is now).

This resolution was for a constitutional amendment, and after having passed both Houses of Congress, it made its way to the States for consideration. However, the Civil War broke out before this resolution could either be accepted or rejected; which, had it been ratified would have become the 13th amendment to the Constitution.

The text of this proposed constitutional amendment states, “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

In short, what Congress had proposed was a constitutional amendment that made slavery permanent and irrevocable in America unless the States themselves decided to abolish it. However, had this proposed amendment been ratified it would have forever banned the federal government from interfering with slavery in any of the Southern States.

So, if the South’s only concern was keeping their slaves, why didn’t they just ratify this amendment and remain in the Union? So there must have been other reasons besides slavery that caused the South to stick to their chosen course of secession.

Upon being sworn in Abraham Lincoln, as was customary, delivered an Inaugural Address wherein he made reference to this proposed Corwin Amendment, “I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

So, not only did Congress support a measure that would have protected a State’s right to allow slavery within its borders, the incoming President, Abraham Lincoln also supported this measure. That sure sounds to me like Lincoln war more concerned with keeping the peace and holding the Union together than he was with freeing anyone held in slavery.

And let us not forget that in his Inaugural Address Lincoln also said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Not only did Lincoln favor the ratification of a constitution amendment which would have made slavery permanent, he also felt that those held in slavery were inferior to their white owners. In his 4th Presidential debate against candidate Stephen Douglas, Lincoln stated, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Can you imagine any public figure saying that today and not being crucified by the press or the public? Yet it would seem that not only was Lincoln willing to see that the black man be kept in a perpetual state of bondage, he also felt that they were inferior to him.

Lincoln used slavery as a tool in his war effort to defeat the South and maintain the Union as it was before he was elected; that and nothing more. In an 1862 letter to editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln stated, “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

But, but what about the Emancipation Proclamation Neal, didn’t that free the slaves? Nope, not really. Technically speaking Lincoln had no authority over the seceded Southern States; they were a nation unto themselves. To say that he did would be like saying Canada has the right to tell the U.S. what to do. So even if his Emancipation Proclamation did free the slaves, it had absolutely no authority to control the actions of the seceded Southern States.

Furthermore, if you would but read what the Emancipation Proclamation says you might find that it did not grant freedom to every single slave in the Union; only those in areas which were still under control of the Confederacy. The relevant portion of the Emancipation Proclamation states, “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”

What about those held in slavery in New York or Illinois; why weren’t they included? Why did Lincoln limit his proclamation to areas only under Confederate control if he truly cared about ending slavery?

You may think Lincoln, and the North in general, held the moral high ground because of what the history books teach you were the causes for the Civil War, but did you know that they were as racist as you claim the South was?

When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America he studied this country from top to bottom; side to side; and then returned to France to write his epic book, Democracy in America. In it De Tocqueville states one of his findings, “In that part of the Union where the Negroes are no longer slaves, have they come closer to the whites? Everyone who has lived in the United States will have noticed just the opposite. Race prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those states where slavery was never known.”

Many of the Northern States, including Lincoln’s home state of Illinois, had passed laws banning blacks from emigrating to their State. Some allowed it, but required a $1000 bond be placed before they were allowed to enter the State, and allowed for their removal should they ‘misbehave.’ The Northern States may have viewed slavery as a blot upon America, but they certainly didn’t want any freed slave living amongst them. In fact, fear amongst the white people of the American North of freed slaves coming to live among them caused the Republicans to lose the Midwest to the Democrats in the 1862 mid-term elections.

Not only that, Lincoln himself wanted our country rid of the slaves completely under a plan of colonization outside the boundaries of the United States. In August of 1862 Lincoln met with a committee of former slaves at the White House to discuss this very issue. Lincoln sought to gain their support for the measure; hoping that by their supporting it the remaining black slaves would fall in line behind them and move out of this country forever.

Lincoln told these delegates, “You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.”

Although his efforts came to naught, Lincoln continued to support the idea of colonizing all those held in bondage somewhere outside the United States where the two races would not have to interact with each other.

Some humanitarian, this Lincoln fellow!!!

Yet those who had served as slaves on the plantation of Robert E. Lee had been freed ten years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War; but they chose to remain on the Lee plantation of their own free will. Lee’s personal servant, William Mack Lee, had this to say about that, “I was raised by one of the greatest men in the world. There was never one born of a woman greater than Gen. Robert E. Lee, according to my judgment. All of his servants were set free ten years before the war, but all remained on the plantation until after the surrender.” Yet those held in slavery by Union General Ulysses S. Grant were not given their freedom until the 13th Amendment required him to do so.

Yet monuments dedicated to Lee are being taken down across the country while a monument dedicated to the biggest racist to ever sit in the Oval Office remains unscathed in our nation’s capital. Talk about irony!

In 1901 an American political scientist published a book entitled A History of the American People. In it this author states, “It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.”

This political scientist would go on to become our 28th President, and his name was Woodrow Wilson.

I don’t know if anything I’ve said is going to change the minds and beliefs of anyone who still believes that the South was only fighting to keep their slaves, and that therefore all images and monuments dedicated to them are racist, but know this, this flag flew over a nation that had allowed slavery to grow into an institution for nearly 75 years before it was finally ended, yet people fly this flag all the time and no one says shit about it. So, who are the racists and who are standing for the principles that gave birth to this country and are found in the Declaration of Independence, “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.”

Even Lincoln supported that belief, stating in 1848, “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.” (Source: Lincoln’s War with Mexico Speech, House of Representatives, January 12, 1848)

But then again, this only proves that not only was Lincoln not the Great Emancipator people think he was, he also wasn’t the Honest Abe they had been raised to believe he was; honest people don’t change their position on things due to political expediency. So not only was Lincoln racist, he was a hypocrite as well.

I can only speak for myself, but if I had any say on it the Lincoln Memorial would be torn to the ground and his face would be blasted off the surface of Mount Rushmore. To me, Lincoln was the President who killed our Republic and fought a war against those who fought for the same principles and beliefs as did those we call patriots and Founding Fathers.

Way to go America, you picked a real winner to call one of our greatest presidents ever…

In 1776 fifty-six men affixed their signatures to a document which, in the eyes of their government, made them guilty of treason. If caught these men would most likely have been hung; which is why after signing that document Ben Franklin supposedly uttered, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” I could go into a rather lengthy discussion as to what Franklin meant by that, but to keep things short I’ll simply insert an image of one of the many flags that the patriots flew during that period of our country’s history…

To understand why these men risked the wrath of their King one must first understand how they felt about their rights. Most, if not all of them, believed that their rights came from their Creator and that government should exist to secure and protect those rights; and that whenever any form of government seeks to deprive them of those rights it is their right, nay, their DUTY to alter or abolish that form of government and institute one which will secure and protect those rights.

The Declaration of Independence states 3 primary rights which those who signed it believe belonged to all men; Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I think that many people believe that rights and liberty are one and the same; they aren’t. A right is an individual thing that belongs to each and every one of us; such as the right to breathe, or think as we please. Liberty, on the other hand, is the ability to freely exercise ALL our rights without restraint or interference, so long as in so doing we do not restrict others from enjoying their rights as well. Thomas Jefferson stated this belief as follows, “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

One of the rights that our Founders believed was theirs was the right to establish a system of government which would protect all their other rights. They believed that no many, by compact or by force, could be made to submit to any government that deprived them of certain fundamental rights.

In 1791 James Wilson would write, “Government … should be formed to secure and enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind.” So if that truly is the purpose for which governments should be established, what would you call a government that does not respect our rights, or one which actively seeks to restrict them? I certainly wouldn’t call it legitimate.

Those signers of the Declaration of Independence, and those who fought in the war to achieve the independence it declared, risked all they had to obtain one simple thing, country founded on the belief that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that governments are instituted among men to secure those rights; and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

They didn’t risk all they had so that they could have a strong booming economy, so that they could have universal health care, or all the other things people want from their government today – all they wanted was a country that offered them the liberty to go out and make a life for themselves without their government getting in the way.

In his first Inaugural Address Thomas Jefferson defined good government as, “A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Yet, from the moment our system of government went into operation it began to be infiltrated by those who sought to use the coercive power of government to benefit business and industry rather than to simply leave people be and let them seek wealth or success on their own.

The Constitution was written to represent two political bodies; the States as sovereign entities and the great body of the people. Yet from the moment Alexander Hamilton was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Treasury he sought to use government as a tool to represent, or at least benefit, banking and business.

It almost seems to me that many in our country back then seem to have forgotten what they had so recently fought for. They had gained their independence, now they wanted to build their country into a great and mighty empire with a booming economy.

There were those who tried to remind people of the purpose for which governments should be established; men such as Patrick Henry who reminded his fellow Virginians, “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.”

Yet even he foresaw the degree to which liberty had become a secondary concern to the desire for a great and mighty empire, chastising them as follows, “…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.”

Yet years later Alexis de Tocqueville would write about this phenomenon, “Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them to despise and undervalue the rights of private persons. The attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they display for it, is generally proportioned to its importance, or to the length of time during which they have enjoyed it. The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly of small importance, of recent growth, and extremely precarious; the consequence is that they are often sacrificed without regret, and almost always violated without remorse.”

I could be wrong, but I believe Alexander Hamilton was the first agent of the Deep State everyone has been talking about lately. It was his ideology and beliefs that held the ear of President Washington; much to the chagrin of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Political columnist George Will once wrote, “There is an elegant memorial in Washington to Jefferson, but none to Hamilton. However, if you seek Hamilton’s monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton’s country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.”

It could be said that the Civil War was a direct consequence of the implementation of Hamiltonian ideology of using government to help grow US business and industry. Former Vice President John Calhoun stated the effects of Hamiltonian policy as follows, “The North had adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North… the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue.”

In 1828 Senator Thomas Hart Benson stated the following in a speech to the U.S. Senate, “I feel for the sad changes, which have taken place in the South, during the last fifty years. Before the Revolution, it was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality. Money, and all it commanded, abounded there. But how is it now? All this is reversed. Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac; and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions, of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing….Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue….Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths, of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing, or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of government expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite direction—it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North…taking from the South, and returning nothing to it.”

Sure, Northern interference in the institution of slavery was one of the issues which led the Southern States to secede, but it was not the only issue which forced them to take such drastic measures. The fact that they were being raped economically played a large role in their decision to leave the Union; and the loss of that revenue was the primary reason Abraham Lincoln could not let them leave. An 1861 editorial from the New York Evening Post explains in clear detail what would happen if Lincoln allowed the South to go in peace, “…either the (federal) revenue from duties (protective tariff) must be collected in the ports of the rebel states or the ports be closed to importations from abroad… If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe.”

After the war Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest made the following comments regarding the South’s decision to secede, “I loved the old government in 1861. I loved the old Constitution yet. I think it is the best government in the world, if administered as it was before the war. I do not hate it; I am opposing now only the radical revolutionists who are trying to destroy it. I believe that party to be composed, as I know it is in Tennessee, of the worst men on Gods earth – men who would hesitate at no crime, and who have only one object in view – to enrich themselves.”

All that bloodshed and destruction could have been avoided had the government only kept to the Jeffersonian belief regarding good government, and not the Hamiltonian belief that government should be used to help prop up and grow the US economy.

In 1862 Doctor James Henly Thornwell wrote the following, “If they (the North) prevail, the whole character of the Government will be changed, and instead of a federal republic, the common agent of sovereign and independent States, we shall have a central despotism, with the notion of States forever abolished, deriving its powers from the will, and shaping its policy according to the wishes, of a numerical majority of the people; we shall have, in other words, a supreme, irresponsible democracy. The Government does not now recognize itself as an ordinance of God, and when all the checks and balances of the Constitution are gone, we may easily figure to ourselves the career and the destiny of this godless monster of democratic absolutism. The progress of regulated liberty on this continent will be arrested, anarchy will soon succeed, and the end will be a military despotism, which preserves order by the sacrifice of the last vestige of liberty.”

From a purely legal standpoint, America had a Constitutional Republic up until the end of the Civil War when the checks and balances of the Constitution, and the fair and equal representation of the States was forever abolished; to be replaced with an entity that seeks only to enrich those corporate sponsors and donors who sit behind the scenes and are the true masters of our government. We may elect the candidates, but their loyalty is not to us, it is to those who sit behind the scenes in secret cabals and determine the fate of America – and the world for that matter – while we argue and bicker with each other over petty issues and whether the Republicans or the Democrats get to drive the bus.

This Deep State, Shadow Government, or whatever else you want to call it, has had over a century to work their magic by indoctrinating generation after generation of our youth as to the purpose for and powers given their government. Only those who actively seek out the truth on their own can see that no matter who we elect nothing really changes; for our liberty continues to vanish at an alarming rate, and the national debt continues to climb.

Let me ask you something; who profits from debt? It certainly isn’t those who have to pay it back…with interest. So, who profits if it isn’t the money lenders; which in this case is the banking cabal known as the Federal Reserve. They don’t care who makes the laws; all they care about is that the laws create debt and that the debt slaves, (the public), keep paying their taxes so that they can get rich off the sweat of our brows.

In an 1816 letter to John Taylor, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “And I sincerely believe with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; & that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

But try getting people to see past their pathetic support for political parties; their blind support for wars we have no business fighting; for their blind support for those who enforce this tyranny upon us, and all you get is this…

Try engaging in an intelligent political debate with people and you’ll find yourself attacked by both sides because you do not conform to the two party paradigm; facts and logic have no place in modern day political discussions.

I remember those old ads on TV which said, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Well I see a lot of wasted minds walking about; reciting sports statistics; quoting celebrities, playing video games, or watching an endless stream of mind numbing drivel on the television. Yet try getting them to pick up a book and read something that might actually teach them something about the sorry state of affairs in this country and you may as well be asking them to amputate their own head.

This country is screwed because people are either ignorant and apathetic, or they refuse to look beyond their partisan loyalty and see that government as an institution has been taken over by those who seek to use it as a tool to pilfer the wealth of this country and create a class of modern day serfs to work the federal plantation for them.

People today will tear down monuments which they believe represent slavery, then turn around and vote for candidates who pass laws that makes slaves out of all of us. I’m sorry, but there is only one word that describes people like that…STUPID!

John Adams once wrote, “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.”

Ben Franklin is quoted as telling a woman who asked him what kind of system the Constitutional Convention had come up with, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Well, America has done neither and yet people still put their trust and faith in a system that bears absolutely no resemblance to the one outlined by the Constitution. I’m, quite honestly, sick and tired of repeating myself and arguing with people who are so brain dead that they couldn’t tell shit from shinola; (an old quote my dad used to use when he wanted to call me stupid).

I’ve come to the realization that I’m not going to get most people to think, to care, to pull themselves away from their precious entertainment and become informed; and it was vain for me to think that I stood any chance of doing so.

So, for the most part, this will be the last you’ll hear from me. I’m going to devote my time to something useful; rather than trying to educate and inform people who, quite simply, aren’t worth my efforts. I’ll be here, but I just won’t be writing as much…if at all. After all, everything I’ve learned I found on the internet on my own. So, if you are truly interested in learning, maybe it’s time I stop holding your damned hands and let you go find the information the same way I did, through Googling the writings of our Founders and following the trail wherever it may take you.

Sure, that might take time, but if you aren’t willing to spend an hour or two daily seeking out knowledge, you damned sure aren’t going to be willing to risk your life defending your liberty. And if that’s the case, then I’ll repeat the words of Samuel Adams, “Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

P.S. To those who have been faithful followers and loyal friends, the sentiments contained herein are not directed towards you. I’m just tired of wasting my efforts on people who don’t care, or are too stubborn and pig-headed to consider that everything they believe in is a lie. I’m done with them…

I know some may not agree with me on this, but I think the closer one gets to understanding why we have a federal government the less they support the government they actually have. I find it ironic, and a tad hypocritical, that people love to point out the crimes those belonging to the ‘other’ party are guilty of, but ignore the crimes the person belonging to ‘their party’ is guilty of; or the crimes government itself commits on a daily basis.

If people truly cared about upholding the principles this country was founded upon there is no way they could support the government we have today; no matter which party holds a majority in Congress or the Presidency. But people don’t care about principles, all they care about is whether the government is being run by people of their choosing; people holding the same political ideologies they do. The principles held by those who fought a war for their independence are old-fashioned and outdated; people could care less about liberty and small government; instead they want comfort and security, and they are more than willing to sacrifice their rights to get it.

If facts mattered to people they would be forced to conclude that government was not established to be their babysitter and caregiver, it was established to secure their liberty. The Declaration of Independence is the document which established America as a free and independent nation among the nation’s of the world. Therefore, doesn’t it make sense that whatever that document says is the purpose of government should be taken as gospel; that whatever form of government we might choose to implement should adhere to the principles found within it?

Well here is what the Declaration of Independence says about that, “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…” (My emphasis)

For any thinking person that should be enough to convince them that their government was not created to provide for their every need – it was created to protect them in their Life, Liberty and their pursuit of Happiness. But, seeing as how people often need a bit more convincing, let’s look at the document which actually created their system of government to see what it says about the reasons for which this form of government was created.

The Preamble to the Constitution is not a grant of any power or authority; it is simply a declaration of intent for the document that follows it. I’m not a big fan of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, but in his Commentaries on the Constitution he says this about the Preamble, “The preamble never can be resorted to, to enlarge the powers confided to the general government, or any of its departments. It cannot confer any power per se; it can never amount, by implication, to an enlargement of any power expressly given. It can never be the legitimate source of any implied power, when otherwise withdrawn from the constitution. Its true office is to expound the nature, and extent, and application of the powers actually conferred by the constitution, and not substantively to create them.”

Taken in that context let’s look at what the Preamble says about why this system of government was created; what purposes it was supposed to serve, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (My emphasis)

I have heard it said that in a staff meeting one of President Bush’s staff members kept warning him of the unconstitutionality of the things the President was proposing. Bush is claimed to have said, “Stop waving the Constitution in my face, it’s just a goddamned piece of paper.” Now regardless of whether Bush actually said that, the sentiments are basically true; it is just a piece of paper with words scrawled across it. What gives it life is the consent of those who are to be governed by the government it outlines. Without the consent of the people our government would be no better than any third world dictatorship; not that it is any better right now as far as I’m concerned.

The point I’m trying to make is that, just like our currency, government only has any authority, any value, any worth because the people put their trust and faith in it. If the people were to withdraw their consent there isn’t much the government could do about it. In their 1968 release The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees there is a song entitled Zor and Zam, about the leaders of two countries who called for war, but no one showed up to fight it. In the closing lyrics the Monkees sing, “The war was over before it began.”

That is what is meant by government by consent of the governed; what power would any form of government have over the people if the whole of the people simply refused to consent to it? Could they arrest or kill us all? Who would they govern if they did? No, the government needs us, they need our consent to validate their existence. The problem arises when the people consent to a government that no longer serves the purpose it was originally created to serve.

Yet our two founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both say that the preservation of our liberty is one of the primary reasons for which governments are created to serve.

Before the Constitution was adopted a heated debate raged across the country over whether to accept or reject the proposed plan for a new system of government in America. Those supporting the ratification of the Constitution were known as Federalists, while those who opposed its ratification were known as Anti-Federalists. It should come as no surprise that Patrick Henry, who during the buildup to the Revolution said, “Give me liberty or give me death” would take the side of the Anti-Federalists because he feared this new system would pose a grave threat to the liberty they had so recently won. So, when the time came for Virginia to debate the question of whether to accept or reject the Constitution Patrick Henry stood up and told his fellow delegates, “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.”

However Mr. Henry did not stop there, he continued by saying, “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.”

If Patrick Henry could say that about his countrymen in 1788 I wonder what he would have to say about the people living in America in 2018. I know that whenever I hear a political discussion amongst the people I come into contact with I never hear any discussion over whom to vote for to restore our liberty; all I hear is people debating what new powers to give our government which further deprive the people of their liberty.

I honestly think that few people in this country actually know what liberty, real liberty is. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines liberty as: the power to do as one pleases. Yet that implies that people are free to do whatever they want without fear of punishment. You see, liberty does have restrictions imposed upon it, which are best summed up by something Thomas Jefferson said, “…rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

Therefore, if governments are instituted to secure liberty then can it not be said that governments are established to keep us from depriving others of their rights? I have the right to seek employment, but I do not have the right to require that someone hire me if I am unqualified to perform the work that job entails. The pay that I receive from whatever job I choose is what is known as the fruits of my labors; and they are my property; not the property of society of the government. Therefore when government takes my money in the form of taxes, then turns around and spends it on programs I disagree with, or which are blatantly unconstitutional, aren’t my rights being violated?

I have the right to put whatever I want into my body without the government telling me I can’t. Yet they criminalize certain substances and they tell us certain substances are not authorized as legitimate means of treating disease; simply because to do so would undermine the profits of the pharmaceutical companies who are major contributors to both the political parties, and the individual candidates seeking office.

Your government was not established to serve the needs of business and industry; yet from the moment of its implementation, under the direction of Alexander Hamilton, that is what it slowly began to do. Hamilton felt that the power of government should be used to help do exactly what Patrick Henry said was not the purpose of government, increase trade and make us a great and powerful people.

Did you know that back in 1907 Congress passed a bill known as the Tillman Act which restricted corporations from donating to political parties? In support of this bill President Theodore Roosevelt said, “I again recommend a law prohibiting all corporations from contributing to the campaign expenses of any party. Such a bill has already passed one House of Congress. Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly.”

Look at your government today, it bails out banks and infuses huge sums of cash into a faltering economy in the hopes of artificially propping it up; while suffering the unavoidable consequence of a massive growth in the inflation rate.

When you think about it who is it that has the ears of those you elect; you or the donors who make huge campaign contributions and hire K Street lobbyists who have easy access to YOUR representatives? Sure, they need your vote to get into office, but once there they serve a different master, and the sooner you realize that, the better.

How many of the laws passed by your government have you been told are in your best interests, but in reality serve the corporate masters who really run our government? How many wars have we fought just so that the bottom line of the military industrial complex stays in the black, or so that other American business interests can have easy access to the resources of those we fought?

Have you ever heard of Smedley Butler? Butler was a former 4 star general in the Marine Corps, and at the time of his death in 1940 he was the most highly decorated Marine to have ever lived. As such one would think that Butler would be the living embodiment of patriotism. Why then did he say, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” Makes you think twice about the justification for all these wars we have been in; at least it makes me think about it –I don’t know what you’re thinking–or if you are even think at all.

But getting back to liberty, James Wilson, who was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, once wrote, “Government … should be formed to secure and enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind.”

Therefore, if government does anything that restricts the liberty of the people then that government IS NOT LEGITIMATE AND SHOULD BE OPPOSED! I’m sure most of those who signed the Declaration of Independence would agree with me on that point; while I’m not so sure about those who signed the Constitution; as I believe it was knowingly written to create a system of government that would eventually lead to one that served business and industry and obliterate the rights of the people and the States as sovereign entities.

After all, when you do away with the various causes which led the Southern States to secede from the Union, the Civil War was basically just another war for independence; with the South seeking to withdraw from the Union and establish a system of government of their own, while the North sought to keep the South in a Union against their will so that the government could retain its authority over them, and continue to collect the taxes that were being imposed upon them. After all, Lincoln did say that his purpose for the whole war was to restore the federal authority; and this comes from his own pen in a letter he wrote to Horace Greeley in 1862, “The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.”

Americans today have very limited freedom; with a few paltry privileges…but they don’t have liberty. In fact, most Americans not only wouldn’t recognize liberty, they wouldn’t want it if it were offered to them on a silver platter. With liberty comes responsibility for their own lives; and that is something many people simply do not want to accept. So, they prefer what I like to call soft servitude; where they are free to do many things without much interference, but while having the important rights like freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to privacy having been denied them.

But if Jefferson was right, that rightful liberty has only the boundaries protecting the equal rights of others, then for anything to be a crime there must be a victim; someone’s rights, life, or property must have been threatened for there to be a crime. Who do I harm if I smoke a little marijuana in the comfort of my home? Who do I harm if I own a fully automatic rifle? Who do I harm if I wear something with an image of the Confederate Flag on it? Whose rights do I deny if I pray in a public place? Who is being harmed if I want to be free of the prying eyes and ears of my government inside my own home?

See what I mean? Sure, you can watch whatever you want on TV; you can choose between beef and chicken for supper; you can choose to dress in a suit or wear blue jeans and a T-shirt; but as for the important rights, you are a slave…for you don’t have any unless the government permits you to exercise them; and when you require permission to exercise a right it ceases being a right and becomes a privilege; and privileges can be revoked!

If the Constitution is, in fact, the Supreme Law of the Land, and if government is established to secure your rights, your liberty, then what would you call those who pass laws which violate your rights and restrict your liberty? I can’t speak for you, but I would call them criminals; and I certainly wouldn’t stand behind them and support them in their crimes against me.

In 1850 Frederic Bastiat published a book simply titled, The Law. He begins his book by stating, “The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose!”

That is the state of affairs in America today; the law has been perverted and now seeks to limit and restrict the very liberty government was established to secure. Yet millions of Americans flock to the polls every election and do what…vote for more of the same.

Not me, I refuse to vote for any candidate, or to place any candidate into an entity that has proven time and time again that my liberty is of no concern to it. I revoked my consent to this government a long time ago, and I only acquiesce to the laws they pass so that I don’t end up in jail or dead.

You see, in 1775 Thomas Jefferson posed the following question in a letter to William Small, “Can it be believed that a grateful people will suffer [individuals] to be consigned to execution, whose sole crime has been the developing and asserting their rights?”

Knowing people as I do, I would have to answer yes, they would suffer people to be consigned to execution simply for developing and asserting their rights. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you try asking the survivors of Waco how their right to live as they please ended in flames in April of 1985…

Juvenal was a Roman who wrote satirical poems during the late first and early second century A.D. He is probably best known for saying, “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” Juvenal must have been a cynic like me, for I too believe that as long as people’s bellies are full and they have things to keep them entertained they will never, no matter how tyrannical and oppressive their government might become. Sure, they might gripe, they might even protest; but revolt…not in a million years.

Although no one knows for sure, attendance at the gladiatorial games in Rome was probably free; with tickets being given out to the public to ensure they sat in designated seating areas according to wealth and social status. Often, before the games began, Roman soldiers would toss food and gifts into the crowd to satisfy their hunger. It is due to the fact that often this food consisted of bread, and that it was handed out at circuses and gladiatorial games that the term bread and circuses came into existence.

Those in the upper crust, or upper classes of Roman society, knew that, no matter how impoverished the lives of the people were, that if you provided them with food and entertainment they would not rebel against established authority. Have people changed that much in the 2,000 years since the Romans offered up spectacles of blood and gore? Aside from a few shining moments, (like the American Revolution), when people cared more for liberty than life itself, people haven’t changed that much; they would rather be fat, dumb and happy than to exert any effort in obtaining or defending something as trivial as liberty.

Look at all the ways in which people seek entertainment today; and often it isn’t even free like it was in the times of ancient Rome. People will pay, and endure pouring rain and snow to attend a football game. They will sit in the blistering heat in an outdoor concert to see their favorite pop star. They will spend hours glued to their iPhone or PC scouring Facebook and Twitter for something to like or comment upon. Yet ask them to spend ten minutes reading something that might open their eyes to the fact that their government is depriving them of their liberty and you may as well be asking them to amputate their own head.

Today it seems to be that the extent of people’s political involvement is limited to the support of candidates belonging to the same political party they do; and to ask that the general public actually make an effort to learn how their system of government came into existence, the purpose for which it was originally established, or how it has perverted the fundamental principles it was founded upon is simply asking too much of them.

The simple fact that many people believe America has a democracy is enough to justify that statement; even when a vast majority of them couldn’t tell you the difference between a democracy and a Republic. Yet these same people vote – in droves – and then have the audacity to say that those who do not participate in the fraud of voting lose the right to complain when their government does things they disagree with.

I didn’t vote for these criminals and idiots; so why is it that those who did retain the right to bitch and moan about what they are doing, while those who understand that the game is rigged, the system is broken, lose that right?

People today want their government to do all manner of things for them that it was never intended it be the function of their central government to do. Yet because the rule of law no longer applies, because the will of the majority is all that matters, they allow their government to do these things…which ALWAYS come at the cost of the infringement of one group’s rights.

People want to feel safe and secure, so they ask their government to pass laws that restrict the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. People do not want to be offended by the things people say or the images they look at, so they ask government to censor speech and they tear down monuments they disagree with. People want the poor to be cared for, so they demand that those who earn a living subsidize the existence of those who can’t or won’t fend for themselves.

Yet no matter what government does to satisfy the masses someone, or some group is always the victim if any of their rights are violated to satisfy the will of the masses.

Science fiction author Robert Heinlen often spoke of the modern day bread and circuses of American Politics, calling it the cancer of democracy. Did you know that when America first became an independent nation that only white male landowners were allowed to vote? But over the course of our nation’s history the right to vote has been extended to everyone who has reached the age of 18; aside from those in some states who have been convicted of felonies.

Heinlen said this about what happens when you extend the right of voting to everyone, no matter how educated or well informed they are, “But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”

If I were to propose that before anyone be allowed to vote they pass a comprehensive civics test to ensure that they understood the structure and function of their government I would be accused of attempting to violate their right to vote. I suppose it doesn’t matter to them that due to their ignorance the people they vote for are infringing upon the rights of others and destroying the very liberty our system of government was supposed to be protecting.

People have been conditioned well by their educational systems, by the media, and by the fact that they care more about being entertained than they do about picking up a book that might teach them the truth.

If there is one thing a study of American History would teach people it is that for a brief moment liberty was the driving force behind the political decisions of those who ended up shaping American into an independent nation. But even that didn’t last long, as Patrick Henry bemoaned when objecting to the system of government proposed by those who supported the new Constitution, “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.”

Henry spoke those words 240 years ago, and the concern over liberty has diminished even further amongst the general public. Those who do understand what liberty is, and that their government is actively seeking to undermine and destroy it are labeled radicals and extremists; which only goes to give credence to what historian Charles Austin Beard once 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 can only speak for myself, but as for me the pursuit of the truth is more important to me than is the pursuit of happiness and entertainment; and the pursuit of liberty is of much greater importance than is the number of friends I have; in real life or on Facebook.

So, if my writings, my opinions offend you; tough shit. I’d rather go down into the Earth knowing that I lived my life standing for the same principles and beliefs as did the men who founded America on the precept 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.”

If those words frighten you, or you feel that your beliefs are threatened by them, then maybe you need to turn off your TV’s and put down your iPhones and pick up a copy of the Declaration of Independence and study the words that gave birth to America. Who knows, you might actually learn something.

In the meantime, I will continue to oppose this system of government we have…and anyone who blindly supports it simply because their party is in control of it.

If there is one belief that really pisses me off it would be the belief that some people have that they are entitled to something without having earned it. In fact, if I had my way I’d make an entitlement mentality a criminal offense; punishable by life in prison without the chance of parole. It seems that no matter where I go, or what I’m doing, I’m exposed to people who believe that they are entitled to something without having earned it; and it’s beginning to wear away at my ability to restrain my anger over it.

For instance, when I go to work I encounter people who think that just showing up for work every day entitles them to a paycheck; having to actually work for that pay is completely foreign to them. Now I don’t know if this is due to the fact that they are flat out lazy or if it is due to the fact that they have been taught to believe that they don’t have to work to earn their pay; but whichever it is, some people simply refuse to do the job that is expected of them, yet they sure as hell think they are entitled to that paycheck every week.

My job does not take a PhD to perform; it simply requires a certain degree of physical strength, a bit of commons sense, and a willingness to keep busy. Unfortunately, many of the people hired by my company are lacking in two of these pre-requisites; common sense and a willingness to keep busy. Some of these people think that simply because they are present on the premises, and in the general vicinity of their assigned work area, that that alone entitles them to a paycheck; and job performance standards can go to hell.

I was raised to believe that if you want an honest day’s pay you need to put in an honest day’s work to earn it. Yet a great many people where I work must think that if they are to be expected to work they should be paid extra; above and beyond their regular pay scale.

That is just one thing that pisses me off about some people. Unfortunately, there are more things about them that anger me.

What about this belief that some people have that society owes them a living, a home, an education, or a form of sustenance; that by the virtue of their gracing us with their presence on this planet that they are entitled to these things? I hate to burst your bubble people, but the ONLY thing you are entitled to is the chance to obtain these things; society doesn’t OWE YOU a damned thing!

I am the one who goes to work every day and gives 100% towards earning my pay; me, not you. You are not entitled to one red cent of my pay unless I decide to be charitable and give it to you. But you sugarplums have this belief that since society owes you a life that the reason government exists is to ensure that you achieve success; riches, and a comfortable lifestyle. Well excuse me, but you can kiss my ass! I wasn’t handed anything, I earned every single thing I own; and if I can do it, so can you.

Recently California passed a law which will eventually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour; simply because there are those in this State who believe they are entitled to a ‘living wage.’ I guess it is just too much to ask of them that they put forth some effort to educate themselves; to learn a skill that is worthy of a decent paycheck. So instead they demand that their lawmakers pass a law forcing employers to pay them more than their skill set deserves. It doesn’t seem to bother these snowflakes that the cost of paying them $15 per hour will get passed on to those who end up utilizing the services their employer provides, or the cost of a burger at your favorite fast food joint will go up to pay for your worthless ass; so long as you are provided what you think you are entitled to.

Well excuse me for thinking that if you want a decent salary you should pull yourself away from your Facebook, your iPhones, your sports and learn a skill that is worthy of a decent salary. Are you aware that Mike Rowe, the same Mike Rowe who starred on the TV show Dirty Jobs, has a program where he provides the funding for people who are willing to learn a skill that is demand, and pays a good wage? The only requirement is that you be willing to relocate to where the work is in demand, and that you are expected to actually work to earn the pay you get.

Oh, but that is simply too much to ask; people want to be able to flip burgers and support their family on a job that was never intended to be a CAREER. So instead of seeking to improve themselves, they demand that government pass a law to improve their status in life for them. What a bunch of losers!!!

Then of course there is this insane belief people have that their opinion is entitled to respect; even when it is not supported by any facts or evidence. People actually get offended when someone contradicts their opinion with facts and evidence; resorting to name calling and insults. Hell, I have been turned in numerous times at work simply because I have spoken, or written truths that people simply don’t want to hear.

What does it say about your character or integrity when you are unwilling to accept evidence that contradicts your beliefs? I’m sorry if I’m blunt, but I say it makes you an intellectual coward. Of all the traits that people exhibit, this belief that their opinions are entitled to consideration without any supporting evidence angers me more than all the others combined.

People think that they are entitled to vote; to elect people to office who will then turn around and pass laws that affect me and my rights. Yet at the same time these people don’t think that they should be required to understand how our system of government was supposed to work. Would you let a child drive your car without knowing the basics of motor vehicle operation or the rules of the road? Would you let a plumber perform open heart surgery on you? If not, then why should people be allowed to participate in choosing who fills the various seats of power within our government if the voter does not understand how that system of government was designed to work; or care about the limits the document which established our government imposes upon it?

Not only do people believe that their opinions are entitled to respect, they are often hypocritical in their opinions. Take for instance the liberal left’s steadfast belief that it is a woman’s right to terminate the life growing insider her womb; yet these same people believe that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. Uh, does double standards mean anything to these ass-clowns? And just to make sure the conservative right who support Donald Trump don’t feel left out, what about your belief that America has the right to protect its borders, but have no qualms about our military invading other countries and bombing them back into the Stone Age. Yet you hypocrites call those who attack our fighting men and women terrorists, and you say I am unpatriotic because I say they have every right to defend their country against ANY foreign invaders…even when those foreign invaders are US soldiers.

I bet if China or Russia were to invade the US that there would be freedom fighters, ala the type found in the movie Red Dawn, who would be planting IED’s (improvised explosive devices) to fight them. Yet when Iraqis or Afghani’s do that to fight against our fighting men and women who have invaded their country we call them terrorists.

Let us not forget the fact that there are those who are calling for the deprivation of the Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms; just so that they can feel safe and free from the fear of becoming a victim. Yet what do they do when they feel threatened or in danger; they call people with guns to come protect them. But let someone with an ounce of self-reliance and personal responsibility defend their home or property with a gun and they are lambasted by the public as a vigilante; someone who has taken the law into their own hands.

Well excuse me, if you had but an ounce of intelligence you would know that the first law of nature is the law of self-preservation; that any species, be it man or animal, has the right to defend both their life and their property. Yet you dimwits call us criminals and vigilantes, and the media portrays us as murderers when we use deadly force to defend ourselves and our property. You say we have taken the life of an innocent person when we should have just called the police and let them handle it. Well, if they were so innocent, why were they breaking into my home or attempting to rob me of my possessions?

Okay people, can we all say it together…H Y P O C R I S Y!!!

Yet people wonder why I rarely smile anymore. I’ll tell you why, it is because I am drowning in an ocean of stupidity and ignorance; and no matter how loudly I scream, or how much evidence I provide, people just won’t accept the fact that their beliefs and opinions, aren’t entitled to squat unless they can be supported by facts and evidence.

I am more than willing to debate people; so long as they provide facts to support their position and not emotional taglines and feel good about themselves sentiments. I am even man enough to accept when I am wrong if provided with enough evidence to convince me of my errors…are you?
Well there you have it. You wanted to know why I’m so pissed off all the time; now I have told you.

I have always been, and I suppose I will always be a rebel. I rebelled against my parent’s authority, I rebelled against the standards imposed upon me while serving in the military, and I continue to push the boundaries of company policy at work by bringing articles that many find offensive and disagreeable. I suppose it is just part of my DNA to wave the middle finger at anyone who attempts to dictate how I should live my life.

But you wanna know something? I bet if you were to look back through history you will find that many of the changes that we accept as commonplace today were brought about by people like me; people who rebelled against what was commonly accepted belief. Jesus was crucified for upsetting the status quo. Galileo was accused of heresy for proposing that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. Our Founding Fathers upset the status quo when they revolted against established authority; believing that people did not exist to serve their government, that governments exist to serve the people.

It is a sad commentary on both the people and their educational system that many graduate from high school not knowing who our Founders fought against, or why they fought to gain their independence. There is a guy named Mark Dice who does these YouTube videos where he goes out and asks people questions about American politics and American History. The answers he gets are absolutely mind boggling.

For instance, on July 4th a few years back he asked this one young man the following, “What country famously broke away from England to start their own country in the late 1700’s?” In answer to his question the man said, “I have no idea man, I don’t know.”

Then he asked an older woman, “What are we celebrating on the 4th of July?” To which she replied, “Our independence.” Then he asked her to be, “A little more specific.” Then she said, “It’s the day that we overtook the South.”

I have no idea if these answers are due to the fact that most of the people he interviews are from Southern California, of if this is a symptom of nationwide ignorance, but I find it unfathomable that these people can be so ignorant, yet think that they are informed enough about the founding of their country to make an intelligent decision at the voting booth.

I wonder how many people realize that the American Revolution and the War for Independence were two distinctly different events? I am more inclined to believe, as did John Adams when he wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1815, that the revolution itself “…was in the minds of the people, and this was effected … before a single drop of blood was shed.”

The Revolution itself was a change in the mindset that government is absolute and arbitrary to the belief that government should exist to serve the people and protect their rights. The war itself was fought because government resisted these ideological changes and tried to maintain the status quo and its authority over a people who sought to be free of its oppressive authority.

I have heard it asked, and I have asked myself, what side would most Americans take if they were suddenly transported back in time to 1776? Would they align themselves with the patriots who rebelled against established authority, or would they be Loyalists who sought to remain under British rule? Would they fight to maintain a system of government that provided them with comfort and security, or would they take up arms to defend their liberty?

After all, their government did protect them – it had recently done so when it sent an army to keep them safe in the French and Indian War. All it asked in return was a few paltry taxes to help pay for the expense of keeping them safe; kind of like the taxes we are asked to pay for all the government services we receive today. So what were those blasted patriots griping about?

If you were to read the Declaration of Independence you would not find a single mention of the King not providing benefits or security for his people in the Colonies. What you would find is a long list of encroachments upon their liberty and their fundamental rights as human beings.

We call the Revolution the War for Independence, and we now celebrate July 4th as Independence Day but it would be more aptly titled if we called it Liberty Day or the War for Liberty; for that is what they ultimately sought. Independence was simply the last resort for a people who had tried every other means of obtaining that one precious commodity; liberty.

You have to understand, at some point in human history there must have been a time when government simply did not exist. I don’t know if you understand the implications of that, but let me explain them to you. First of all, it means that any government, be it a Republican form, a democracy, or a dictatorship, is a creation of man. But more importantly, prior to the establishment of the very first form of government mankind lived in a state of perfect freedom.

Locke calls this a state of nature in which men are in “… a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”

That is what we call liberty, and each of us has an equal right to it so long as in exercising it we do not prohibit others from enjoying the same rights as we do. Therefore, for any government to be just it must seek to ensure that the people it governs enjoy the most liberty possible, while at the same time maintaining order and securing that liberty for all those it governs. Any government that does not do that is unjust, and should be opposed. It’s as James Wilson wrote in 1791, “Government … should be formed to secure and enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind.”

So I suppose we should all be asking ourselves now, for what purpose was our system of government established; was it to secure liberty, or was it to destroy it? The only real way to know for sure is to study both the creation of our system of government and then the ensuing arguments between those who supported its adoption and those who opposed it.

I’m going to tell you right now, you aren’t taught these things in school. Hell, I was barely taught how what our Constitution and Bill of Rights said, let alone the why they were established or the restrictions they imposed upon our government. So, if you want this information you are going to have to do as I did; research it for yourself.

The first step of this process would be to study the things proposed during the convention which ultimately produced the Constitution. Unfortunately, the only record we have of those proceedings are Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention. I say unfortunately because they were not released until Madison’s death, and I fear he probably edited them; particularly as it pertains to his own comments so as to make himself appear in a good light for posterity. Yet they still shed a lot of light on the various plans and ideas the delegates had for a system of government for America. They are also a base point for comparing later comments and arguments against, and they can show you that although the Constitution may have been written a certain way, one implemented those inside the government it created sought to subvert the power reserved to the people and the States and assume many undelegated powers…which is exactly what they had proposed during the convention.

The next step in your education would be to study the ensuing argument over whether to adopt or reject the plan the Convention of 1787 gave to the States for their consideration. On this subject there is plenty of reference material. First there are the Federalist Papers; 85 essays written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, in support of the Constitution. On the other hand there are over 150 documents from those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Some of them were written under pseudonyms; such as Cato, Centinel, The Federal Farmer and Brutus, while others were public speeches given by men like Patrick Henry and George Mason.

It is only by doing this that you can begin to get an idea of the dangers the proposed Constitution posed to State Sovereignty and to the liberty of the people. You simply cannot view government from the perspective of one who has lived under tyranny all their life; you must view it from the perspective of those who were deciding whether or not to change their system from a Confederation of sovereign states to one in which you have a much stronger centralized government. If you cannot view it from that perspective you are wasting your time studying this period of American History.

One thing you have to understand, those who supported ratification of the Constitution would do and say almost anything, even lie, to get it ratified. They promised all manner of things just to calm the fears of those who felt threatened by the system they were proposing. Unfortunately, people believed them; while many of the predictions of those who opposed the Constitution have proven to be true.

For instance, in Federalist 45 James Madison promised, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

Does that even remotely sound like the separation between federal and state authority we accept and tolerate today? I couldn’t even begin to list all the federal agencies which intrude upon either State authority or deprive you of your liberty, but I can name a few of them. What about the DEA, the FBI, the BATF, the Bureau of Land Management, the DHS, the TSA, so on and so forth; all of whom exert authority within the State, in direct contradiction to what Madison promised would be the limits to federal authority.

Then there is the forgotten fact that a President has absolutely no lawmaking authority; that is the domain of the Congress. Yet we have people voting for presidential candidates based upon all the promises they make during the run up to a presidential election. If people really want these things done, why don’t they focus their attention upon the body in government that has the authority to enact law, not some elected administrator or glorified CEO?

The sad truth is that the people of this country enter their children into the public fool system with the hope that they will be properly educated; taught how to think. What is happening is that our children, (and probably most of us as well) are being indoctrinated; taught what to think, not how to think. That is the only explanation I have for why mountains of evidence have absolutely no effect on changing the opinions of people…they simply have not been taught how to process information and form intelligent opinions based upon that information.

I’ll admit, there were times in my own personal journey for knowledge that I encountered information that caused me to pause and ask myself if I wanted to continue. I learned things which threatened my entire belief system; but I was the one who started this journey and I would have considered myself a coward if I just gave up because the things I learned made me uncomfortable. Regardless, if you choose to go down this path there will be times when you too discover things that make you want to quit. If that happens you will have a choice to make; you can either swallow the blue pill and go on believing whatever you want to believe, or you can take the red pill and see how far the web of deceit you have been fed extends.

Regardless of which choice you make as an individual the charade that we have a constitutional form of government will continue; and there will be those who believe it. Yet it is all a charade, with all manner of tools being utilized to keep people from seeing the truth.

First off people are told of how great our democratic process is; how we get to elect candidates to fill the various offices created by our Constitution. That would be all well and good if the people we elected stuck to the few limited powers originally granted them and left our liberty alone.

Then we are told that the duty of a patriotic American is to obey the law; regardless of whether those laws violate our rights or oppress us. Of course the government has created all manner of agencies whose sole purpose is to create these laws, then enforce them upon the people…some of which I already mentioned a few paragraphs ago.

Your patriotism is also played against you by questioning it if you do not support the troops or law enforcement; even though they are being used to further the American empire or deprive you of your rights. Now I’m not saying cops and our servicemen are evil; I’m only stating that they are probably just as ignorant as to the reason government should exist and the powers that were given it. They are just pawns being used by the government to further its agenda. They probably have/had good intentions when choosing their career paths, but their ignorance blinds them to the fact that they are working for tyrants.

And I won’t even begin to discuss the United Nations and how it is trying to impose its vision of a world government upon America through its Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development Plan. They, in no way, represent either you or I; and let me tell you something, if I see UN troops marching down my street I’m opening fire upon them. It’s as simple as that.

Next, they keep us divided amongst ourselves by offering up the choice of candidates between the two political parties; each of which has a distinctly different vision for the direction America should take. Unfortunately, neither party has a vision towards a more limited government with more freedom for the people it represents. All they really seek is control of an apparatus which has gone from servant to slave master.

And finally, they maintain control over us by depriving us of the truth. The media, as many believe now, is fabricated and scripted news; not the truth about events. On top of that, our schools do not tell us the whole story, only the government’s version of the story. Orwell would be proud, as our school systems are the living embodiment of his Ministry of Truth in his novel 1984.

As I have mentioned, our schools do not teach our children to research and analyze data, they teach them what they should think; thereby becoming more akin to indoctrination centers than centers for education. What boggles my mind is why otherwise intelligent people cannot see the truth once it is presented to them. It’s almost as if the section of their brain responsible for critical thought has been switched off.

I hear all this talk about how government should ensure that we are all equal in all things and I want to puke. There is a guy named Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who was a Russian born historian and novelist who was critical about the Soviet government in Russia. Solzhenitsyn once said this about equality, “Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.”

The only equality our government was established to ensure was the equality of rights and of liberty; that and nothing more. To explain this, allow me to quote Ben Franklin, “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” But to achieve happiness means work, and some people, as I have found, are averse to working for anything; they want success or riches handed to them on a silver platter.

That isn’t liberty, at least not according to the definition I am familiar with; especially when the cost of providing comfort and security to others comes at the price of taxing me, or depriving me of my rights.

Maybe liberty has all but died in America, maybe Emma Goldman was right when she said, “Most human beings only think they want freedom. In truth they yearn for the bondage of social order, rigid laws, materialism. The only freedom man really wants, is the freedom to become comfortable.”

But you know what, our country wasn’t founded by people who sought comfort and security, it was founded by people who sought liberty. After all, Patrick Henry is probably only known because he uttered the following words, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

It’s up to you. you can keep on participating in your own enslavement, [voting], or even ignore the fact that you are a slave, that’s your choice. You can call me a radical if you want because I stand for the same things those who sought their independence from a tyrant stood for. You can call me whatever you want, just know this, I will stand for liberty until they day they put me in the ground. However, until that day comes, I will continue to try and break you of your conditioning; knowing full well that until I succeed you are as much a part of the problem as is our government.

Which is just one more reason I love the first Matrix film; for there is a scene in it which is best understood by the following quote from Morpheus:

“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.”

Like I said at the beginning, I have always been a rebel, so I think you know what position I take on this. The question is, what position are you going to take? Are you going to continue to be a slave to system that seeks to control and enslave you, or are you going to free your mind and seek out the truth?

The ball is now in your court…

The other day I was engaged in an interesting debate on Facebook over the question of: Has the Constitution and Bill of Rights failed the people or have the people failed the ideals expressed in those documents? It was so interesting that my mind wouldn’t let go of the subject; it kept tossing ideas around and coming up with alternative ways in which I could have answered questions posed to me. It was during this process that the idea for what you are about to read began.

During the debate I stated that it was my belief that the answer to the question was a little bit of both; the Constitution and Bill of Rights failed the people and the people failed the ideals expressed in those documents. I know that sounds like typical doublespeak to avoid giving a definite answer, but if you keep reading I think I will be able to explain why I said that.

First of all, there are two periods of American History that absolutely fascinate me; the period which saw our nation gain its independence and establish its own system of government, and the period leading up to, including, and following the Civil War. As it pertains to the establishment of our system of government I find Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention and the writings of the anti-Federalists; authors like Cato, Centinel, Brutus, the Federal Farmer, John De Witt, and Patrick Henry to be particularly interesting.

Now you might say, “Why not just read the Constitution and be done with it?” I suppose that is a valid question, so allow me to provide an answer. While I could do that, I like to read the arguments that took place both during the process which produced the finished document, and the resulting argument over whether to accept or reject the plan proposed by the Philadelphia Convention. Doing that provides me with much more insight into the thoughts of those who sought to shape our system of government into their vision of what a government should be, and the warnings of those who sought to prevent this system of government from being implemented.

Had I not studied these documents I would probably have been of the opinion that there is not a damned thing wrong with our Constitution, or in this country for that matter. But, having read them I realize that our Constitution isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, and that our government certainly doesn’t adhere to the few limits it does impose upon it. Now that is primarily due to the fact that people, more often than not, choose to vote for candidates according to their party loyalty than they do vote for candidates who campaign on a purely constitutional platform; which means that, yes, the people have failed the Constitution.

Had the people, (and this goes way back in our history), been kept informed, and adhered to the limits the Constitution imposes upon our government, I believe that more than half the problems we face today as a country would not exist. But, because the voters themselves do not know, or care, what the Constitution says, they elect candidates who have no intention, or desire, to support and defend it. It is a vicious cycle that repeats itself every election cycle and won’t stop until the people take the time to learn what the drafters of the Constitution intended when they wrote it.

So, as Lysander Spooner so aptly said, “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorizes such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.” I could almost stop right there, saying that is how I feel about our system of government, and the document that established it…but I won’t.

You see, even though the Constitution outlined a fundamentally sound system of government – in theory, the problem is that it was the creation of a group of men who held differing views on what government should look like and what powers it should hold. I think Ben Franklin explained it best when he said, “For when you assemble a Number of Men to have the Advantage of their joint Wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those Men all their Prejudices, their Passions, their Errors of Opinion, their local Interests, and their selfish Views. From such an Assembly can a perfect Production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this System approaching so near to Perfection as it does…” (Source: Franklins Final Address to the Constitutional Convention)

But, could that, in and of itself, have been the fatal flaw in the whole process; the willingness to settle for something not quite perfect just so they could have a system of government to call their own? Not to be an armchair quarterback or a back seat driver, but I have over 150 documents from authors who expressed their concerns over what would happen if the system of government outlined by the Constitution was put into operation.

There were many concerns expressed by these patriots who opposed the Constitution, but the underlying theme that can be found in most of their writings is that the Constitution created a consolidation of the States into a Union under a strong centralized government.

One of the questions I was asked by a person saying we failed the Constitution was, what is a Republic. Simply stated a Republic is a system in which the ultimate power in government is held by the people; which is then exercised by elective representatives. One could also add, ‘according to the rule of law’ as well.

At the time I answered I was giving the textbook definition; something that could have been found had one simply Googled the word Republic. Later I did some research of my own and found this, taken from Vattel’s Law of Nations, “Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted.”

Now that might seem a bit complicated, so let me endeavor to explain it a bit more. At the end of the Revolution there was not a United States of America; at least not as we know it today. At that point in our history each State was sovereign and independent from the others, with a Congress having been established to act as sort of an intermediary for the common needs and security of them all.

This is what is known as a Confederation, or a federal form of government; where the States retain a majority of the sovereign power; giving only a few delegated powers to the central government. At the same time, each State had already established a republican form of government for themselves by their having written constitutions, framing a system of government that was duly ratified by the inhabitants of each State.

In essence, at the end of the Revolution we had 13 independent republics in America which had a central government whose authority extended only to the States as political entities; while the States held all the power over the lives and liberty of the people.

One of the primary concerns of the anti-Federalists was: Did the Constitution do away with the status quo and create a consolidation of the States into a single, indivisible Union; or Republic, or did the States still retain all powers which were not expressly given; allowing the government to intrude into and interfere with the lives and liberties of the people?

In a speech opposing ratification of the Constitution, Patrick Henry expressed those exact sentiments as follows, “I rose yesterday to ask a question which arose in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious: 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.”

You see, the people had ALREADY established republics by their having created their own State Legislatures, so why would they need to create another Republic which would govern them all? The purpose for which the delegates were sent to Philadelphia was so that they could come up with suggestions for amendments to make the existing Confederation Government adequate for the needs of the country; not to toss the existing form of government in the trash heap and replace it with one of their creation.

If the powers given to this new form of government were to be exercised primarily upon the States, then why did the drafters of the Constitution demand that it be ratified by the voice of the people; as it was the States whose authority would be further restricted, or usurped, by the creation of this new form of government. However, if this new system of government was, in fact, a consolidation and a diminishing of the sovereignty of the States, then it would make sense that the people must give their consent to it.

Yet, in Federalist 45 James Madison attempted to ensure the people that the States would retain their authority over the lives and liberties of the people by saying, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

I think if you were to be honest with yourself, then you will be forced to admit that the Constitution ended up creating a system of government that has not respected the boundaries which separate its authority from that which was supposed to be reserved to the States.

This intrusion upon State sovereignty is even more apparent when one looks at the Bill of Rights. There is a huge misconception that the Bill of Rights applies to the States as well as the federal government; which simply is not true.

What does the Bill of Rights do? Now some of you may answer, “It protects certain rights against governmental interference.” That is only partially true; for you leave out which government it protects them from. The Bill of Rights are amendments to the Constitution which created our federal government; not the constitutions which framed the various State governments. Therefore, technically they only apply to the federal government. Yet an argument can also be made that, since the Constitution itself is the Supreme Law of the land, any amendment to it could be implied to apply to the States as well.

But to keep things simple, let’s just say that the Bill of Rights only applies to the federal government. How is it then that the government can dictate what kind of guns private citizens may own; how is it that the Supreme Court, (which is PART of the federal government) decide whether a State may display the Ten Commandments, or that children be prohibited from praying in school; how is it that the federal government can violate the 4th Amendment by spying upon the private conversations of every man, woman and child in this country…just to keep us safe from terrorism?

I could go on and on, listing a whole list of things the federal government has done which are not among the powers listed in Article 1, Section 8 as those powers given to Congress; which in case you have forgotten, is the lawmaking body of our government; not the President as so many seem to think.
This has all been done because of the concept of implied powers; something introduced while George Washington was President. That occurred because the Constitution itself did not provide specific enough limitations upon the powers it was granting government; leaving loopholes by which government has expanded its power well beyond those originally intended.

So, if that is true, then the Constitution itself failed the people as it did not provide sufficient means for the people to resist the encroaching powers of government and to ward off tyranny and oppression.

Now you might say, but we can vote them out of office; but is that punishing them? When we violate the law we are either fined or sentenced to jail time for our having violated the laws enacted by government. When is the last time you recall hearing an elected official being fined or jailed for violating the Constitution? I’ll give you a minute to think about it.

I can’t recall a single instance of it; and that includes the Watergate Scandal which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. You see, Nixon never served a day in jail, nor was he fined for his crimes. Impeachment is not punishment, it is merely removal from office.

Returning to Patrick Henry and his opposition to the Constitution, we see that he made two important statements regarding this flaw in the Constitution. On June 5, 1788 Henry stated, “The Honorable Gentleman who presides, told us, that to prevent abuses in our Government, we will assemble in Convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. Oh, Sir, we should have fine times indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people. Your arms wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical; no longer democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?”

Then on June 7th Henry rose up again and said, “Where is the responsibility — that leading principle in the British government? In that government a punishment, certain and inevitable, is provided: But in this, there is no real actual punishment for the grossest maladministration. They may go without punishment, though they commit the most outrageous violation on our immunities. That paper may tell me they will be punished. I ask, by what law? They must make the law — for there is no existing law to do it. What — will they make a law to punish themselves? This, Sir, is my great objection to the Constitution, that there is no true responsibility — and that the preservation of our liberty depends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to make laws to punish themselves.”

I defy anyone to sit down and actually read the Constitution, and then provide me with the Article and Clause which grants any of us the authority to arrest and charge any of our elected officials for the crime of violating the Constitution. Such a clause simply does not exist within that document; and that is why I say that the Constitution failed the people; because it did not provide them the means to oppose a government that no longer adheres to any kind of limits upon their power and authority.

It took me a long time to accept this, but the Constitution isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. However, once I came to accept that, it opened my mind to the realization that voting is not the answer to our country’s problems; not that there is an answer when the majority of the people still place their faith and trust in lawmakers who refuse to adhere to the limits imposed upon their power.

But, as one who has more than a rudimentary understanding of how their system of government was supposed to work, and the reasons for which certain rights were protected by Constitutional Amendment, I cannot consent to a government that refuses to do the job it was established to do; that and NOTHING MORE!!!

I don’t care which party is in control of our government, I only care whether the party that is in control adheres to the Constitutional limitations imposed upon them and seeks to protect and defend my rights…that and nothing more. If government does not do this, then I revoke my consent to being governed by it.

Sure, I may obey the laws they impose upon me just to stay out of prison, but I do so in protest and I certainly do not support it simply because it is run by the person I voted for.

And that is why I quoted Lysander Spooner earlier, and why I will quote him again right now, “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorizes such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

I honestly cannot say what would have happened had the Constitution been rejected by the people and the Confederation continued on as it was. I can only say that the government the Constitution outlined and established has proven to be far worse than the one our Founders fought a war to free themselves from; of that much I am absolutely certain.

My question for you is; why do you support it or ignore the fact that your government no longer resembles or represents the ideals and beliefs which led our Founders to seek their independence from a tyrant. Why do you so meekly submit to tyranny and oppression today? Is there not a drop of patriotic blood in your bodies?

If there was, you would certainly not be supporting the crooks who seek your vote. If there was you’d be marching upon our nation’s capital, with guns in hand and 12 foot lengths of rope so you could string them up from the lamp posts.

All I see is a nation of sheep who meekly obey the commands of their masters. What has become of the land of the free and the home of the brave? LaVoy Finicum was brave and he was gunned down in cold blood; with the media and the people calling him an extremist. Edward Snowden was brave, and the people called him a traitor; forcing him into exile in Russia.

I think were Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams alive today they would either have fled the country, or be serving time in Guantanamo Bay as domestic terrorists. That’s because the people of this country no longer care about limited government or individual liberty; all they care about is comfort and security; and which party can best provide it for them.

And it makes me sick to my stomach to watch…

I know I’ve spoken of this before, but the human brain is an amazing organ. It consists of a mix of water and fatty tissue. Yet within that gelatinous mass there are over 100 billion neurons that gather and transmit signals. Within each human brain is the recollection of every event that shaped that person’s life; both knowledge and personal experiences.

When a person is born their brain is basically empty, aside from the basic operating system which performs the functions of breathing, eating, sleeping, and ridding the body of waste; as well as the stored memories from the time spent in the womb.

It is what we learn in life; either through the educational process or by personal experiences that shape us into the people we grow up to be as adults. What we put into our brains, or what is put into them by our parents and our teachers, is, typically, what causes us to form the opinions and beliefs that guide us later in life. If faulty or inaccurate information is inputted into the brain, then it follows that the opinions or beliefs based upon that information will be faulty as well.

I was born in 1958 and made my way through the same public school system as did all the other so-called Baby Boomers who were born after the end of World War II. I was taught the same things as they were, and I grew up having many of the same personal experiences they did. But, for some reason, when I reached the age of 40, my brain suddenly developed an interest in learning more about the history of this country and the establishment of its system of government.

Now, 20 years later, I am told by some that I am very smart; which I find ironic because if I’m so smart why is it that very few utilize the information I’m attempting to pass on to them? Besides, I don’t like being called smart, because I’m not; I’m passionate about learning and devote a great deal of my spare time towards the acquiring of new knowledge. As Alexander Hamilton, (a man I despise), said, “Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this. When I have a subject in mind I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it… the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”

Albert Einstein purportedly once said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” Now whether he actually said that is beside the point, because, as I have found, the sentiment is true; the more I learn the more I realize how little I actually know.

As an example, recently I found a website with tons of material relating to the Founding of our country and its system of government and I boasted on Facebook that by the time I’m done putting all those documents into Word files I will probably have around 2,000 documents. My friend Michael Gaddy quickly told me that he has over 10,000 documents stored on his; so compared to how much he knows I am just beginning my educational process.

Then there is another friend of mine, Jeffrey Bennett, who began publishing a series of books entitled, America: The Grand Illusion, which were chocked full of documents and speeches dating back to before the first settlers ever set foot upon American soil. So compared to him, I am but a relative newcomer to the quest for knowledge.

But there is one thing that I have found in my own personal quest for knowledge; that being that what I was taught in school was either an outright lie or that it was lacking in certain aspects of the topic of study and therefore incomplete.

For instance, I was taught that the Constitution was written in the city of Philadelphia in 1787, and was shortly thereafter ratified by the States. But that is only part of the story. I was NOT exposed to the process of producing the Constitution; which can only be discovered if one were exposed to Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention. I was NOT taught that ratifying the Constitution was not a cake walk; that a long and heated debate ensued between those who supported its ratification and those who opposed it.

In that instance the information I was given was lacking in its coverage of the pertinent information. Now whether this was intentional, or whether it was due to the faculties belief that there simply was not enough time to cover the subject thoroughly is up for debate; although I am inclined to believe it was intentionally done so as to produce graduates who did not grow up questioning the things there government was doing.

I would call that a lie of omission; because relevant facts were omitted from my education. Then there is the Civil War; where most of what I was taught about that subject was an outright lie. Sure, the War happened, the South lost, and the battles discussed actually took place; but that’s about all they got right. I was taught that the Civil War was fought to end slavery; and it wasn’t until I began my own personal investigation into the war, and the causes for it, that I discovered I had been lied to.

Yet how many people in America still believe that the Civil War was fought to end slavery? I would say quite a few; otherwise we wouldn’t see these Civil War monuments being taken down at an alarming rate. In fact, if the people of this country truly understood the causes behind the Civil War, and the consequences of its outcome, they would be calling for the removal of Lincoln’s face from Mount Rushmore and the destruction of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

One of the fatal flaws in the mindset of the average American is that they see those they elect as being superior to them; when in fact the reverse is true. We elect them, they are our representatives, we are the masters and they are the servants. They cannot simply enact laws just because they think these laws are in our best interests. They cannot enact laws simply because the majority of the people support their passage. They are confined to certain specifically enumerated powers; found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution; nothing more, nothing less.

James Madison is considered to be the Father of our Constitution, as it was due to his pushing for a convention to amend the Articles of Confederation that we even have a Constitution. So it would be prudent so see what he has to say about a loose interpretation of what is meant by the General Welfare. In a speech opposing bounties, (subsidies), for Cod Fisheries in New England, Madison stated, “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress… Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.” (My emphasis)

Then of course there is this; while serving as Vice President under President John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following in opposition to Adams signing into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, “…whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. . . . that the government created by this compact [the Constitution for the United States] was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers…”

It is my belief that we are not taught these things in school because it might instill in the minds of those they are seeking to control the knowledge that they have the right to resist the enforcement of laws that violate the Constitution. Our public school systems are no longer institutions of learning; they are indoctrination centers where we are taught to comply with whatever laws our government enacts; for they have our best interests in mind when they pass these laws.

The problem I have encountered is that is next to impossible to break through years of conditioning; years of indoctrination. It seems that once people have established certain beliefs they are reluctant to let go of them when introduced to information that contradicts those beliefs.

I hate to bring a movie scene into a serious discussion, but it reminds me of the scene in the Matrix after Neo discovers the truth and refuses to accept it; telling Morpheus to get him out of the construct. As Neo staggers to the floor, Cypher says, “He’s gonna pop”; meaning his brain is going to shut down because it is not capable of handling the truth. Later Morpheus apologizes for freeing Neo from the Matrix, saying, “We have a rule. We never free a mind once it’s reached a certain age. It’s dangerous, the mind has trouble letting go.”

However, later, after Neo has accepted the truth, Morpheus tells him, “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around. What do you see? Business people, 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.”

That’s how I see most people today, part of the system that enslaves them. They will argue and fight with anyone who threatens their belief systems regardless of whether or not they are confronted with incontrovertible facts. Most either believe in the two party system, or they simply don’t care one way or the other who runs their government.

On the one hand you have those who refuse to see that no matter which party is in control of government, government itself continues to grow in size, in power, and in the process, creates more debt. Their allegiance is to party instead of the fundamental principles that established America as an independent country at the end of the Revolution.

Then on the other hand you have those who care more about their sports, their video games, their Reality TV, or whatever other form of entertainment they enjoy. These are the people who probably couldn’t name the current Vice President, or list 5 of the rights protected by the Bill of Rights.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know which of the two is more dangerous to liberty; the ignorant apathetic masses, or those who believe in a system that destroys the liberty it was established to secure for us.

In 1822 James Madison wrote a letter to W.T. Barry in which he stated, “…a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” But that knowledge is of no use if it is faulty or incomplete. Those who seek to keep you ignorant, keep you enslaved to them, are not going to impart this knowledge to you; you are going to have to seek it out on your own. Whether you choose to do that or remain ignorant is your choice; but you cannot avoid the consequence of whatever choice you make.

For you see, Madison also told Mr. Barry, “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.” If you want my honest opinion I’d have to go with Option 3…both; as our government is both a tragedy and a farce.

It is a tragedy in that it does things it was never intended it be allowed to do, and it is a tragedy in that it destroys the liberty it was established to protect. It is a farce because the two political parties only differ in how they seek to use the coercive power of government to impose their agendas upon the people; and the people fall for it; flocking to the polls to vote for their flavor of servitude and bondage.

I believe the extent to which a person seeks out, and accepts knowledge is directly proportional to their patriotism; the less one is patriotic the less they care about learning the truth about the how and why their government was established; and are less concerned when their government does things it was never authorized to do.

I have chosen to acquire as much knowledge as I can, and to try and share it with those who are open minded enough to consider it. I have chosen to change how I think and feel based upon the knowledge I have acquired. What this means is that I cannot support this government we have today until it starts repealing laws and begins to return to the one envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, one which is “…a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”

If that makes me an outcast, a pariah, a threat to the status quo, so be it; so where our Founders; men like Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. I’d rather have my name go down in the history books alongside theirs than be listed among those who meekly accepted the bondage which was imposed upon them by their government.

However, like I said at the beginning, what we put into our brains is what causes us to form the opinions and beliefs we hold. If you want to keep putting garbage into your brain, then your opinions and beliefs will be garbage as well.

You have a choice to make America; wake the hell up and start learning the truth, or accept that your government is tyrannical and that you are slaves. Knowledge is the key, and as they say on the TV Show the X-Files, “The truth is out there.” All you gotta do is look for it, and be willing to accept it once you find it.

But, as von Goethe said, “Knowing is not enough, we must apply.” That means, if you don’t see a candidate who runs on defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights then you should withhold your vote. Otherwise, as Lysander Spooner so aptly states, “A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”

Jefferson told us that the spirit of resistance to government is so valuable that he’d rather see it exercised when wrong than not at all. I don’t see much resistance among my fellow countrymen; all I see is blind support and compliance.

Had that mindset existed in 1776 we’d still be eating Fish and Chips instead of burgers and fries, and our national pastime wouldn’t be football, it would be rugby or cricket. America was founded by lawbreakers and rebels, and it was due to their persistent refusal to bow down to a tyrant that we became a free country.

The Boston Tea Party was not peaceful compliance to the law. The tarring and feathering of tax collectors was not peaceful obedience to the mandates of their government. The refusal of the Colonists to surrender their arms at Lexington and Concord certainly wasn’t peaceful obedience either.

America will only become free again when freedom becomes the number one priority for people; replacing comfort and security. Freedom is not free; it comes at the cost of eternal vigilance and a steadfast desire to defend it from all who would threaten it; including your government.

America may once again become a great and mighty empire, but what good is all of that if the people who occupy it have no freedom? Knowledge is the key that will unlock the door and open your minds to the truth that your government seeks to keep you in a perpetual state of servitude and dependency upon the things it does for you. Freedom means taking responsibility for your own life, and accepting the consequences of the choices and decisions you make.

And maybe that’s why no one cares about it, because they’d rather have someone take care of them than accept that responsibility for themselves.

And that’s all I have to say about that.