Neal's Soapbox

In 2016 San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick raised the ire of people across the country when he refused to stand during the playing of the National Anthem at the beginning of games. While I didn’t fully support his reasons for doing so, I fully supported his right to do so. At the same time I also realized that the 49er franchise is a business that relies upon ticket sales to make a profit, and if the actions of one player on the team had a negative impact on ticket sales the team was within their rights to take whatever actions they felt were in the team’s best interests.

What gets me is how people reacted negatively to Kaepernick’s actions without fully realizing what it was they were claiming to be defending. I am constantly bombarded by people who want me to share things on Facebook, or some other social media platform, that either display the flag, support the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, or respect for the National Anthem. It’s almost as if those three things are the measure of a person’s patriotism, and anyone who does not do them is unpatriotic.

What is the National Anthem, or the Star Spangled Banner, if it is not a song about the flag? What is the Pledge of Allegiance if it is not a person pledging their allegiance to that flag? Both of these acts, repeating the pledge and showing respect during the playing of the National Anthem, are people’s way of showing support for, and allegiance to the flag and the country; not necessarily the principles this country was originally founded upon.

I’m sure most have repeated the Pledge numerous times, but I’ll repeat it here to refresh your memory: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. While the Pledge has undergone alterations since it was originally established, (the inclusion of the words ‘under God’), that is how it is currently recited.

My biggest gripe with the Pledge is its reference to the fact that America is one nation, indivisible; I simply don’t believe that to be the case, not at all. If you actually believe that, then you believe that with the ratification of the Constitution each State surrendered its sovereignty and independence and formed a consolidated union; inseparable and permanent; that the creators of government, or the Union, could never again decide to sever the ties that bind them to that Union and regain their sovereignty and independence.

If you believe that, then you also believe that the created is superior to its creator, that the Union is superior to the will of the individual States, or the people living within them. If you believe that then you are a statist who believes that the will of the Union, or government, is superior to the individual liberty and freedom of choice inherent in each and every one of us.

That is why I do not recite the pledge, nor stand with pride when the National Anthem is played; for the flag is representative of the nation, and the nation has lost my respect because IT has lost its respect for liberty and justice. Oh, people make a great fuss about how free they are, how this is the land of the free and the home of the brave; but as my dad used to tell me, “Actions speak louder than words.” You can say you support and defend liberty all you want, but if your actions do not support your words, well there is a word for that too; it’s called hypocrisy.

I am truly tired of hearing people talk about freedom, when they don’t know the first thing about what freedom is. For instance, people often proclaim they support freedom of speech; until someone with an opposing idea comes along, then they have no qualms about denying the freedom of speech of those they disagree with. It is this pervasive lack of understanding about rights and liberty that causes me to lose my temper with people; for they claim to love and cherish those things, yet turn around and support a government, or the passage of laws that turn around and chip away at them.

If people truly understood what liberty was, and where it comes from, they would not sit idly by while a government that supposedly derives its just authority from their consent goes about destroying the very liberty it was supposedly instituted to secure with every act they take. Yet in today’s modern political climate, those of us who stand in defense of the very thing government was instituted to secure are treated as enemies of the State; which is a correct assessment; for we are enemies to those who seek to deny and abolish individual liberty.

The way I look at it is that any people, any system, any nation is worthy of my support if it, in turn, supports and defends my rights and my liberty. However, the moment that changes, the moment my rights and liberty come under attack, all bets are off and those doing the attacking become my enemies. I refuse to support a system because it is the only one we’ve got, or to vote for the lesser of two evils because they are better than the other option. If a candidate, or a system does not exert all their energy towards preserving my rights and liberty, then fuck em, they aren’t worthy of my support!

My God people, how many of you have ever actually read the Declaration of Independence, and thought about what it says? Jefferson’s words stand as a reminder, and a course of action, should government ever become something that seeks to deny and abolish our rights and liberty. Here, read it for yourself: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Isn’t that perilously close to treason Neal? Well if treason is defined as resisting the unlawful infringements upon my rights, about not bowing down and kissing the feet of those who would enslave me, then yes it is…but then again those who fought for America’s independence were also guilty of treason in the eyes of King George III.

People accept their pitiful state in life because it is all they know; not one of us has ever tasted true freedom; we were all born into bondage to a system that cares little about preserving and protecting our God-given rights and liberty. Our school systems, had they been actually educating the people, would have taught us what liberty was, and how we should constantly be aware of our governments attempts to restrict and deny it. Yet being as they are funded and run by the very entity that seeks to deny our rights and liberty they have become systems of indoctrination that produce generation after generation of obedient little drones; who think that by voting their voice matters, that they have a say in what government does.

How did that premise work out for the people of Virginia this past week when their voice told their State Legislators to back off on their efforts to push forward restrictive gun control laws, and their Legislators laughed at them and went ahead and did it anyway? How did it work when the people rose up and flooded the mailboxes and switchboard at our nation’s capitol in opposition to Obamacare, yet Congress went ahead and passed it anyway?

At what point in the game are the people going to realize that their voice does not matter; that their rights and liberty do not matter to government; that it will do what it wants, when it wants, regardless of what you say about it? At what point in the game, if ever, are people going to tell government, “You know what, we don’t need or want you anymore; pack your bags and go home, and take your oppressive bullshit laws and your jackbooted thugs with you?”

I’m betting if that time ever comes, the people will see the true nature of those they elect; for they will not willingly relinquish the power they have amassed over us; they will use whatever force they can muster to retain control over our lives, our property, and our liberty. Hell, the Civil War should have proved that to be the case when Lincoln refused to allow the South to secede in peace, and used overwhelming force against it to compel their allegiance to the Union.

The purest definition of liberty is the ability of each individual to live their own life, make their own choices free of restraint or restrictions, so long as in so doing they do not restrict the rights of others. Liberty begins to die the moment it is considered that society, or the needs of others takes precedence over the rights and property of the individual. From that point forward plunder becomes the rule and purpose of law; either one’s property is plundered to satisfy the needs of others, or their rights are plundered to appease those who do not like the free exercise of them.

There are so many books, written by men far wiser than me that explain this in great detail – so many in fact that I hardly can decide which one to quote from to prove my point. Yet I’m guessing that at least 90% of the people of this country have ever even heard of them, let alone read any of them and sought to make sense of the words they were reading.

For instance, in Frederic Bastiat’s book The Law, one finds the following:

Life, faculties, production–in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right—from God—to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?

If every person has the right to defend—even by force—his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force—for the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Then in Lysander Spooner’s book No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, one reads:

It is no answer to this view of the case to say that these men are under oath to use their power only within certain limits; for what care they, or what should they care, for oaths or limits, when it is expressly provided, by the Constitution itself, that they shall never be “questioned,” or held to any responsibility whatever, for violating their oaths, or transgressing those limits?

Neither is it any answer to this view of the case to say that the particular individuals holding this power can be changed once in two or six years; for the power of each set of men is absolute during the term for which they hold it; and when they can hold it no longer, they are succeeded only by men whose power will be equally absolute and irresponsible.

Finally, in Etienne de la Boetie’s book The Politics of Obedience, we read:

A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it. If it cost the people anything to recover its freedom, I should not urge action to this end, although there is nothing a human should hold more dear than the restoration of his own natural right, to change himself from a beast of burden back to a man, so to speak. I do not demand of him so much boldness; let him prefer the doubtful security of living wretchedly to the uncertain hope of living as he pleases.

Those are just a few short passages taken from books that have taught me that the government I live under is not worthy of my support, or my respect; and I haven’t even quoted from those men we call our founders.

Although it was written 200 years before the American Revolution Boetie’s book describes perfectly the current state we as American’s live under; even though we claim to be free and have a government that supports and defends our freedom:

Can that be called a happy life? Can it be called living? Is there anything more intolerable than that situation, I won’t say for a man of mettle nor even for a man of high birth, but simply for a man of common sense or, to go even further, for anyone having the face of a man? What condition is more wretched than to live thus, with nothing to call one’s own, receiving from someone else one’s sustenance, one’s power to act, one’s body, one’s very life?

What can we, as private citizens do, that does not have some tax applied to it; some rule regulating how we must do it, or require a permit or license? Sure, we can eat, sleep and fornicate; but so can the animals we keep in pens to provide us with our meat…and they are anything but free. Yet millions of people support the very engine that denies them their freedom; while others are so pitifully apathetic, occupied with sports and other means of entertainment, that they have no clue as how pathetic their existence truly is.

Boetie describes these people as well, saying, “Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives.”

Boetie also writes, “It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”

And how Neal, may we ask, did we win our enslavement? Well it’s quite simple actually, we agreed, gave our consent, to a system of government that is capable of limiting and restricting it; one which we have no means of recourse, or means of punishing those who abuse their power and deny our freedom. Yes, I’m talking about the Constitution; for I believe it was through its adoption that the gateway to tyranny was opened, and all manner of evil has subsequently followed.

In 1788 Patrick Henry bemoaned the willingness of some to adopt a system which had so many inherent flaws that it was destined to destroy the liberty the people had so recently won, “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 Henry could say that then, before our government had amassed all the power it currently wields over our lives, our property and our liberty, what do you think he would say now?

Liberty never really dies, it is merely forsaken by those who should preserve and protect it with every ounce of their being. You may not have liberty, but that is only because you do not have the courage, or willingness to rise up and oppose those who restrict it. If the people of this country would stop fighting each other over who gets to control the system that denies them their liberty, they could rise up with a united voice and tell government that, NO, WE WILL NOT COMPLY WITH YOUR LAWS, YOUR TAXES AND YOUR REGULATIONS THAT RESTRICT OUR LIBERTY. NOT NOW, NOT EVER!!!

But since the people do not know what true liberty is, they mistake the breadcrumbs of a few paltry privileges that are given them and then call themselves free. As long as the people are given bread and circuses; meaning they have food to eat and things to keep them entertained, they believe they are free; especially since they get to choose who runs the system that enslaves them. As my friend Mike Gaddy said yesterday, “Voting in an election is analogous to being allowed to choose the members of the firing squad for your execution.” I think that is a pretty apt description of the whole process; particularly so since no matter which side of the political spectrum wins an election our rights and our liberty continually diminish.

Lysander Spooner described the process of electing people to office as follows, “… it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave.”

Bastiat describes the basis of a system which would support liberty, and how that system could be perverted to serve an ulterior purpose, “It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.

But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.

This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder.”

The question is, which system do you support and defend; one which punishes plunder, or one in which the law condones it? If you believe that the coercive lawmaking power of government can take from others that which is rightfully theirs; including their income or their rights, then you support a system that condones the legislative power to plunder; which is exactly the way our system operates today.

Bastiat also describes the 3 ways in which a political system may exist:

-The few plunder the many
-Everybody plunders everybody
-Nobody plunders anybody.

If I can’t take away your life, your property, or your rights, then we don’t have the second option. If anyone’s rights or property are taken away by the legislative process, then we certainly don’t have the last option either. So we must have the first option; the few plunder the many – which can also describe an oligarchy. The only thing about our system is that the few keep changing hands every time power shifts between the Republicans and the Democrats.

Plunder continues to take place; it is just who is plundering whom that changes with each election cycle. All the while, liberty is sitting on the sidelines wondering who will take a stand for her.

You may not know what liberty is, or care that it is being stripped away from you, but I, as do most of those I call my friends, do. Although we had not yet been born when Boetie wrote his book, he still mentioned us by our characteristic love of liberty, saying, “There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off: these are the men who never become tamed under subjection and who always — like Ulysses on land and sea, constantly seeking the smoke of his chimney — cannot prevent themselves from peering about for their natural privileges and from remembering their ancestors and their former ways. These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition.

These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it. For them, slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.”

In closing, I would like to turn for a moment to Sir Isaac Newton and his 3rd Law of Physics, which states, “For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.” Now how in the world does that tie in to what you’ve been talking about Neal? Well it’s simple, for years, decades even, those of us who love and cherish liberty have sat back and protested against each and every infringement upon our rights and our liberty – that is the action.

Well the reaction is coming, and it will be as equal and intense as the actions which spurned it. We may not win, liberty might perish with us, but you can rest assured we won’t go down without a fight; and we’ll take as many of those we hold responsible for the tyranny we suffer under with us. As Tony Stark tells Loki in the first Avengers movie, “When they come, and they will; they’ll come for you. … maybe your army comes, and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth you’ll be damned well sure that we’ll avenge it.” Just replace Earth in that sentence with Liberty and you’ll get my drift.

So you just may want to tip toe a bit more around our rights and our liberty; otherwise you may reap some very uncomfortable and unintended consequences if you don’t.

There is a scene in the film Gods & Generals which shows Thomas Jackson, before he acquired the nickname Stonewall, inside a classroom of cadets at VMI, (Virginia Military Institute), where he tells the cadets, “I had hope you’d see that with a proper grasp of the artillery principles I’ve laid before you today, you would learn to apply these principles with great effectiveness in your field experiences. But since you seem unable to grasp these principles I’m forced to conclude that I must repeat this lesson tomorrow, word for word…word for word.”

I can relate to the frustration Jackson must have felt at his cadets being unable to learn the basic artillery principles, as I too have been trying to educate people regarding the structure and powers given their system of government, and certain events that have caused America to go from a country founded upon the principle of individual liberty to a collectivist nightmare where the will of the people, (or their elected representatives) is sufficient to deny our most basic rights.

I once read somewhere that the best way to ensure your beliefs are resting upon solid ground is to constantly test, or question them. If you can take historical fact and compare it against what you believe, and if the two are in perfect alignment, then your beliefs are sitting upon solid ground and can stand challenges made against them by others. However, if you do not challenge your own beliefs, or if your beliefs are not founded upon historical fact, then they are easily disproved, and your only recourse is to reply with an emotionally based answer; typically insulting towards the person armed with facts.

I have been studying, and sharing the things I’ve learned for somewhere around 20 years now; that’s 7300 days; having written nearly 3,000 commentaries; I am friends with people who have been at this for much longer than I have. How many times must we repeat the basic facts before people can grasp them so that they can move on to a discussion of more in depth material?

I frequently hear people say that our public school systems are failing our children. I disagree; they are doing exactly what they were created to do, create a nation filled with people who do not have even the most fundamental understanding of their system of government, or what their rights are. Our schools haven’t failed; they’ve been a resounding success!

In 1788 Noah Webster wrote an essay discussing his thoughts on education in America. Here is an excerpt from his essay:

But every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty, and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen, who have wrought a revolution in her favor.

A selection of essays, respecting the settlement and geography of America; the history of the late revolution and of the most remarkable characters and events that distinguished it, and a compendium of the principles of the federal and provincial governments, should be the principal school book in the United States. These are interesting objects to every man; they call home the minds of youth and fix them upon the interests of their own country, and they assist in forming attachments to it, as well as in enlarging the understanding.

I wonder what the results would be if I were to ask random people to tell me how many articles there are in the Constitution, and give a brief explanation of each one; or how many amendments there are in the Bill of Rights, and which rights are listed within each of them. From what I’ve seen and heard from people I’m guessing that less than 5% of the people could come even close to answering those questions; most likely closer to 2%.

Yet these people think they’re qualified to make an intelligent choice when they vote…make an informed decision when they don’t have the foggiest idea as to how their system of government is supposed to function!!! Yet people ask why our country, and our government, is so screwed up.

Go figure, when ignorance and apathy have become the norm…

Liberty cannot last long in a nation filled with people who don’t even know what liberty is, or who think that it can be sacrificed to serve the overall public good. I have no qualms with anyone seeking to become a slave; to sacrifice their most basic human rights and liberty for the false promises of comfort and security. The problem is that I’m chained to the same ship they are, and when liberty dies it affects me too…and THAT pisses me off.

Even among those who claim to understand what their rights are, or the powers delegated to government, I see a great deal of acquiescence when it comes to laws that violate their rights and liberty. They may bitch and moan when their legislators propose laws that violate their rights, but once those proposals obtain the force of law they comply for fear of what may happen if they don’t.

In 1943 Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson made the following comments in the case of West Virginia Board of Education vs. Barnette, “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

Does that make any sense at all to you? What it means is that my rights are not up for grabs by those you people vote for, or to appease your distaste for those who choose to exercise them. It means that I don’t need a permit to exercise my rights, and it means that no elected official, or society for that matter, can decide to what extent I may do so. It means that the government cannot define what those rights are, or how I may exercise them; and it means that some Congress filled with power hungry bastards cannot define the meaning of words such as arms.

For crying out loud people, we created government, and if anyone has the right to define what is meant by the word arms, and place limitations upon what types of arms shall be kept and borne, then it is we the people in regards to our government; not the other way around. We should be able to tell Uncle Sam and his minions, “Hey, you guys can’t own automatic weapons, or weapons with detachable magazines.”

Instead, due to the overall ignorance of the people they allow that role to be reversed and let their government tell them what kinds of guns they can own; when and where they can bear them; while require permits and licenses for the privilege of doing so.

Yet our schools, either by omission or by intent, have not taught entire generations of American youth the nature and purpose of their rights. The narrative taught in schools is reinforced by the media and our elected officials; who are far too willing to pass laws restricting those rights.

Two things MUST happen if we wish to remain a free people. First we must become educated as to what our rights are, what the purpose of and powers delegated to our government, and then we must resist, I repeat, RESIST any encroachments upon them.

I’m not talking about voting; for I think the past history of things proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that voting has done absolutely nothing to secure your rights or your liberty. I’m not talking about writing or calling your elected representatives; for that too, typically garners nothing more than a form thank you letter for participating in the democratic process; while they go ahead and move forward against your desires. I’m also not talking about peaceful protests; for as recent events in Virginia have shown, legislators don’t listen to the protests of their constituents.

If we wish to remain, or regain our freedom, we must resist all laws that restrict it. By resist I mean we must simply choose not to comply; to tell Uncle Sam and his minion enforcers to go fuck themselves; their laws hold no authority over us.

The Sixteenth American Jurisprudence states, “The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it.”

I hate to tell you this but the police are going to enforce the laws passed by government; even if those laws are unconstitutional, or if they violate your rights. The courts, well they are going to apply those laws which deprive you of your rights. So if you want your rights back you’re just gonna have to exercise them in violation of the law.

Those who gained America’s independence from Britain didn’t get a permit to resist tyranny; to bear their arms against their government; to tar and feather tax collectors; to dump all that Tea into Boston Harbor; to tear down the offices of tax collectors, or to raid and ransack the homes of their governors who enforced tyrannical laws upon them. They knew that their rights come from their Creator, not some government official, and when that government official sought to undermine or restrict them that it was their right to resist; forcefully and with violence if necessary.

I’ll never know the answer to this, but how many of you are familiar with Patrick Henry’s famous line, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I’m sure if you’ve read my articles you’ve at least seen it once or twice. Yet how many have read the speech that line comes from in its entirety? In that speech Henry states, “If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!”

That was Henry calling upon his fellow Virginians to rise up and fight against their system of government; even though the few paltry laws imposed upon them by King George III pale in comparison to the heavy yoke of tyranny imposed upon us by OUR CURRENT system of government. Yet to talk about things like that are dangerous in today’s political climate; they get you put on a government watch list, or flag your name so that government can come and confiscate your guns; not to mention scare the living shit out of statists who love and worship government as a means of imposing their will upon others.

It is my belief that it is far too late in the game to vote our way out of the mess we, and the generations that have preceded us, have gotten us into. It is far too late in the game to work within the system to correct the abuses that have been heaped upon us by the system itself. It is far too late in the game for peaceful protests to have any effect upon those making our laws; for they watch, and laugh at us, then proceed forward with more unconstitutional laws that restrict our liberty.

Yet far too many people still have faith in the system; thinking that they need but elect more ‘good’ people to office and all will be well in America again. Yet these same people can’t tell you the first thing about how that system was constructed, or what powers it was to possess. If they can’t tell you the most basic of principles about their system of government how are they to be expected to know the intricacies of how that system was implemented; the intent of those who established it?

I hate to sound insulting, but I’m tired of repeating myself as to the basics of our system of government, and how that system has abused its authority; so if the understanding of our system was to be compared to the learning of English, most Americans are still trying to grasp the pronunciation of their A, B, C’s while those of us who have studied these subjects extensively are writing full length essays; you’re way behind the curve in the learning process, and too late in the game to catch up, if you ask me.

I fear that a shit storm is coming to America, and coming much sooner than people realize. When it comes the people won’t be worrying about who makes it to the Super Bowl, who advances to the next stage in American Idol, or what video is garnering the most hits on YouTube.

When it comes, just as it did in 1776, there will be those who side with tyrants, there will be those who do their best to stay neutral and out of harm’s way, and there will be those fighting for their rights and liberty; which consequently are everyone’s rights a liberty as well.

The outcome of the coming struggle will determine the future of America; whether your children and their children will live in a land where they are free to live their lives as they please, or be under the heavy thumb of an all controlling government that cares nothing about the people other than making sure they pay their taxes and obey the law.

This is what our ignorance has wrought, and we only have ourselves to blame; for we have place entertainment and self-gratification over the quest for knowledge and truth…and it makes me sick to my stomach.

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Oh, and being the honest kind of guy that I am, I will take the time to answer that little quiz I gave early on in this essay about how many articles there are in the Constitution, and what rights are listed in the Bill of Rights. Hopefully you’ll learn something…

First off, there are 7 Articles in the Constitution, and here is a very brief description of each of them.

-Article 1 outlines the structure of our Congress, the powers delegated to it, and the mode of choosing members to it.

-Article 7 outlines the process by which the Constitution was to be ratified, (which in and of itself was a violation of existing law as it only required approval by 3/4 of the States rather than the unanimous support as required by the Articles of Confederation).

Now let’s take a quick look at the Bill of Rights.

-The 1st Amendment lists 5 rights that government shall not infringe upon: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, and freedom to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

Finally, the 10th Amendment is supposed to be a guard which protects the States and the people from abuses and usurpations of power by the federal government; limiting the power of the federal government to the powers found in the Constitution. (Yet by Madison’s refusal to include the word EXPRESSLY in the wording, taken in conjunction with the inclusion of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the 10th Amendment has all but been nullified.)

There you have it, a kindergartener’s explanation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If you’ve read this, you’ve just elevated your knowledge of our system of government and the Bill of Rights above 95% of the American people…you should be proud.

I’d like to conclude this piece with a quote my friend Mike Gaddy shared with me this morning, as I think it is an apt description of the overall American public, “Historical truth matters: As a nation, we care little for it, much preferring simplistic distortions that sustain our national myths about ‘freedom’, ‘opportunity’, and ‘democracy.’ You can’t grow into adulthood when you’re fed pabulum all your life. And that’s why we remain a nation of adolescents, with a culture concerned far more with celebrityhood than with suffering.”

And who suffers more than a people who know what their rights are, yet have been powerless to see them deprived them by their government and the ignorant teeming mass of people who blindly support that government?

Which is why I’ve decided to no longer argue/discuss politics with fools. If you know what the Constitution says, and how badly it was written, and oppose this system of government, and the laws it enacts, with every beat of your heart, you can count me as your friend.

If, on the other hand, you don’t know, don’t care, or worse, support this system that has a proven record of a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, I don’t want to hear your thoughts, argue/debate with you, or have any political discussion whatsoever with you, for you are the ultimate reason why we have a fucked up system of government; for comfort, security, and entertainment are of more importance to you than the animating contest for liberty.

I no longer wish to waste a moment of my time discussing things with people who cannot, or will not listen to facts, and who are intent upon relinquishing their God given rights to a man made entity intent upon enslaving them.

The renowned science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

I’ve never claimed to be the smartest person on the planet, even about political issues. Yet I constantly have people come up to me and ask me what I think about this or that current event, or worse, try and show me how politically savvy they are by making some comment that disparages either the Republicans or Democrats. It’s almost as if they know that politics and history interests me, so they want to inject their two cents into a discussion; even if it proves that they don’t have the foggiest idea what they’re talking about.

What really irks me is when I hear people say that President Trump should, and then they mention some law he should enact, or some act he should undertake to solve an issue. I only mention Trump because he is the current president; I’ve heard the same thing from supporters of every president going back as far as I can remember. It doesn’t matter who the sitting president is, people become upset when I say that the only thing a president should do is adhere to the Constitution and respect my rights.

It is at that point in a discussion that people either get very angry, calling me a liberal or a fascist, or they start stuttering and stammering, saying things like, “Yeah, but….” My God people, every president going back as far as Washington placed their hands upon a Bible and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution; don’t you think that it just MIGHT be a good idea if they actually did that…support the Constitution I mean? Don’t you think that it also might be a good idea that those who support a president learn what that Constitution says?

Yet whenever I bring up the specifics as to what the Constitution says, or what those debating the merits of the Constitution promised would be the powers exercised by the government, people become angry, or disregard these facts; as if they were meaningless, insignificant.

It never seems to cross people’s minds that the only reason we have this system of government is because the Constitution was adopted in 1789; that had the Constitution been rejected instead of ratified, this government would not exist. Unfortunately, what the Constitution actually says is of little concern to those who support the existence of this system of government; and God forbid one even hint at the fact that the Constitution itself sucks.

I’d be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that the majority of those who hold political discussions across this country could not tell you how many Articles there are in the Constitution, or give you a brief description of what each Article does. I’d also be willing to bet that a great many people couldn’t even tell you how many rights are listed within the Bill of Rights; and if they did they would probably say 10 – one for each amendment. Hell, the 1st Amendment by itself lists 5 rights that government has no authority to infringe upon.

Yet these same people think that their political opinions should matter, that they are informed based upon the fact that they are aware of the positions on the issues held by those on either the left or the right, or what the news media is reporting on. God forbid you ask them to learn what powers our government was supposed to be allowed to exercise on their behalf, and one is way out of line if they expect people to undertake a study of how many prominent men in this country opposed the ratification of the Constitution; what their arguments against it were.

But by God these people will tell you they are informed, and then call you a radical, an extremist, or even un-American when you provide evidence which shows just how uninformed they really are. What really cracks me up is how people will support the Constitution against those who point out its flaws, even though they have never taken the time to read it themselves. These same people will tell you the men who drafted it were inspired, that they created the perfect document, establishing the best system of government the world has ever seen.

Well gee whiz, excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but if these men were inspired, if they truly created the ‘perfect’ system of government, how come our government is so screwed up, so corrupt, and show so much disregard for our rights and liberty?

Could someone please answer that logically for me?

A perfect system of government would not seek to worm its way into every aspect of our lives; micromanaging our daily affairs as if we were a bunch of children who were incapable of deciding for ourselves how to live our lives, while at the same time accepting complete responsibility for them. A perfect system of government would manage a few general concerns of the country as a whole, while leaving the people free to live their lives as they please; to prosper or fail based upon their own efforts and talents.

If the people of this country truly believe that the framers of our Constitution were such great and inspired men, they would do well to read the notes Madison took during the convention that produced that document. These men proposed some pretty radical and, if I do say so myself, tyrannical ideas. Yes, those radical ideas were not introduced into the document; not directly. However, the way the document was worded, the inability of the people to punish those who overstepped the few limited powers originally delegated to government, has allowed for the government it outlines to amass all kinds of powers it was promised it would not be allowed to exercise; and the people concern themselves only with the fact that they stop the ‘other’ party from gaining control of those powers.

Today the hearings in the U.S. Senate began in the impeachment of President Trump. I’m sure that people who call themselves politically astute will be watching intently; offering up their thoughts on the matter. Truth be told, every person involved in this process, every person elected to office for that matter, should be impeached and either sent to prison for the rest of their lives, exiled to some shithole 3rd World country, or strung up by the neck for their infringements upon our rights and liberty…EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!!

This whole impeachment is a fiasco, a circus designed to support and maintain support for the two party paradigm. The Democrats gotta do whatever it takes, (including fabricating false charges), to get rid of Trump, and the Republicans gotta support and defend him so that the Democrats don’t stop him from making America great again. The whole thing is to keep people at each other’s throats so that they don’t focus their attention on the fact that their government sucks, and the document that established it is to blame.

Our country is in such sad shape not because of some law Trump or Obama signed; it is in such sad shape not because of some law enacted going back to 1913, or because the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. The truth is our country is in such sad shape because the Constitution was ratified in 1789; for whatever problems have arisen because of abuses of power by both Democrats and Republicans could have been prevented had this system of government never been adopted in the first place; and if the government sucks, it is only because the document that established it was flawed and not able to restrain government against abuse and tyranny.

Spooner was right when he said, “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

But as long as people disregard the fact that government, as an entity, does things it is not supposed to be doing, nothing will ever change; only control of a corrupt and despotic system switches hands between those intent upon imposing their vision of tyranny upon the people.

When control of a system of government becomes the primary focus of a people, rather than opposing the systems attempts to restrict their rights and liberty, tyranny always follows. Those who support the system are the enemies of liberty, and those who stand for liberty are the enemies of the system; it has always been that, and always will be so. Christ told us we cannot serve two masters. Well the same goes for government, you cannot say that you are a defender of liberty when you support the very entity that, with every law it enacts, it destroys liberty.

You must make your choice, be a defender of liberty or be, as Vladimir Lenin said, a useful idiot that supports the entity that is, and has been, destroying liberty since it was first put into place in 1789.

All I know is that I grow weary of discussing politics with people who have such severe tunnel vision that they cannot see beyond their political party allegiance and see that the other party is not their enemy, government is; and by default the document that has proven incapable of establishing a system that would secure to all men the ability to enjoy the full exercise of their rights, and rightful liberty.

I’m tired of arguing with people who refuse to admit that the Constitution does not authorize government to do 99.999% of the things it currently does; and based upon that the Constitution itself is insufficient as a document designed to preserve our liberty and establish a truly limited government. For if the Constitution had been the great document people claimed it was, then their government would not be doing all these things…and the facts would prove this to them if they would only put aside their prejudices and biases and examine them.

So go ahead, keep spewing your opinions about politics and government, as if you were an expert on the subject. Just don’t be surprised if someone who is actually knowledgeable on the subject comes along and exposes the fact that you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!

I know it won’t happen, people will resort to name calling and insults, but I ask of you anyways, when that happens that you pause and examine your premise. Throughout the book Atlas Shrugged the theme of ‘check your premises’ runs rampant. What this means is that if you are confronted with contradictory beliefs you should check the premises which form your beliefs and change them to conform to the facts.

I am not a radical, I am not an extremist, and I’m certainly not the enemy of your rights and your liberty. I may be the enemy of your beliefs; if those beliefs are founded upon falsehoods and lies, but I am not YOUR enemy; and I certainly do not hate my country, as some have claimed. As H.L. Mencken once said, “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”

My despair comes when I am confronted by people whose beliefs and opinions are not based upon fact, and when the people refuse to either consider, or use facts when forming their opinions. When I hear people argue about why their party is better than the other one, or why our country is in such a sad state, it makes me want to tell them that the reason their favorite football team loses so much is because their uniforms aren’t pink. That’s how idiotic their opinions sound to me; because they have no basis in fact.

If the truth does not matter, then what’s the use in even debating with people? If the truth does not matter, then the only thing that does is who is the most convincing liar; and if that’s the case, then America is screwed and I may as well just put my head between my legs and kiss liberty goodbye forever; leaving the ignorant to suffer the consequences of their ignorance.

All I know is that I’m tired beyond my years of arguing with fools who can’t even tell me what the founding document for their system of government says, while these people claim the moral high ground and tell me that I’m an enemy to what America stands for.

My friend Michael Gaddy keeps telling me that you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit; meaning you can’t talk sense to a fool. It’s time I start taking his advice and to stop trying. So screw you all, I’m have had about all that I can stand when it comes to discussing politics with people whose minds are so trapped in the indoctrination they have undergone that they are incapable of an intelligent discussion on the subject.

So if you can’t even explain what the founding document for our system of government says, then I ask that you take your political thoughts elsewhere, for I don’t want to hear them. If you can prove me wrong with facts, then by all means do so. Otherwise keep your idiotic thoughts to yourself; or better yet, share them with someone who thinks you’re a genius; but I don’t want to hear them.

From what I’ve been able to read, yesterday’s pro-gun protest in Virginia went off without a hitch, with only one woman being arrested for refusing to remove a bandana that was covering her face – I suppose it was interfering with the facial recognition software that was most likely collecting images and names of every person in attendance

The funny thing about the whole event was, the crowd was protesting to a pretty much empty building; with most of the legislators and the governor having taken off; either out of fear or due to the fact that it was a holiday – (Martin Luther King Day). I suppose all we can do now is sit back and see if the Virginia State Legislature backs down from its plans to push for the laws that sparked this protest; which I’ve heard they have no intention of doing.

Donald Trump, in typical fashion, did however Tweet that this is what happens when people elect Democrats, they lose their rights; diverting the focus away from the fact that both Democrats and Republicans across the country, and in the federal government, have supported similar gun control measures, going back as far as 1934. So as far as I’m concerned, neither Trump or the Republicans have no moral high ground to stand upon; especially considering Trump did say that the government should take the guns first and give people due process later.

The news media is reporting that around 20,000 people showed up for yesterday’s rally, but I’ve heard that number falls well short of the actual number of people who were there; which according to some ranges almost as high as 55,000 people. That is a pretty respectable number of people, yet it is less than 1% of the people; actually it is around .58% of Virginia’s 8.5 million people. In fact, the number of people who attended yesterday’s rally falls short of the estimated 65,000 people who will attend the Super Bowl this year in Miami.

Even yesterday, while the rally was still in progress, I was hearing congratulatory comments from some regarding how peaceful and festive the atmosphere was; showing the world that those who cherish their right to keep and bear arms are not the raving madmen/women that people make them out to be. That’s a two sided coin that I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss.

First of all, it does kind of disprove the argument that people with guns are dangerous; as an estimated 90% of those in attendance at yesterday’s rally were armed; some of them with the very ‘assault’ weapons people claim cause mass shootings. I mean, gee whiz, if guns kill, or if people with those dangerous ‘assault’ rifles kill, how come nobody was killed yesterday? Not saying I wish somebody had been killed, I’m just saying that if guns are the cause of all this murder and mayhem as people claim, then why was nobody killed yesterday when there were all these people walking around carrying guns?

That said, I’ve read around about a dozen or so news reports on yesterday’s rally and the terms I’ve read used to describe it range from peaceful to festive. There is a lot of subtext to that; meaning that the people in attendance, although they may have been upset over the proposed legislation being considered by their legislators, there was no hint of any danger towards them; aside from the inference implied by those who brought a guillotine to the rally, (which from what I hear, the police dismantled).

I’m not saying it isn’t a good thing to see people standing up for their right to keep and bear arms, because it is certainly better than the alternative; bending over and taking it up the ass while your government deprives you of that right. Believe me, as a resident of California I am all too familiar with that mentality. As far as I’m concerned liberty is a lost cause here in California. Sure, there are a few scattered here and there who understand what it is, and are willing to defend it; but for the most part I think 99% of the people living here would stand in line to sign a form surrendering all their rights if they were promised a free iPhone and a year’s worth of unlimited wifi. I can’t imagine a mere 10,000 people showing up at a pro-gun rally in Sacramento, let alone 50,000 of them. So yeah, liberty here in the Golden State is pretty much gone forever; which I why I frequently tell people I’m trapped here behind enemy lines.

So with all that being said, yesterday’s rally had about what, about 1/2 of 1% of the total population of Virginia showing up to protest their State’s attempts to further infringe upon their right to keep and bear arms. That’s just one State out of 50; where were the people of the other 49 States?

Yes, I’d both seen and heard a groundswell of support for those who attended yesterday’s rally, but why didn’t we see a huge movement in which the supporters of our right to keep and bear arms showed up armed at OUR State Capitols, telling our legislators, “Don’t you dare try to pull this shit in OUR State!”

I still think Virginia is a testing ground, a place where the anti-gun lobby can see if they can get away with enacting restrictive gun control legislation without any real opposition to it. If they can get away with this in Virginia, I fear we’ll see a sudden increase in strict gun control legislation being introduced in the legislatures of other strong pro-gun States.

Like I said, California is already a lost cause; we’re already far worse than what the Virginians are currently being threatened with; but States that have a large number of pro-gun citizens may face the same kind of laws Virginians are now being threatened with if they do pass those laws, and they go unchallenged.

So what is happening in Virginia right now, especially with yesterday’s rally, is being watched by both sides of the issue, and it is only the first move in a nationwide chess game; with the ultimate goal either being an end to any further gun control laws, or the complete and total disarmament of the American people. So yeah, they had a rally yesterday; they spoke their minds and told their legislators to back off – but will their legislators listen, that is the question – and if they don’t, what will happen next? This isn’t over, not by a long shot, and sorry for the unintended pun.

I want y’all to read something now, written by James Madison back in 1785, “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties–we hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.”

Now compare that to what is happening now in Virginia. I mean it’s all well and good that Virginians are protesting against the proposed laws coming out of Richmond, but why did they wait as long as they have to protest; and why have the people of other States sat back and allowed their right to keep and bear arms be whittled down to a useless little stub?

Think about it for a minute, (and let’s keep the discussion on Virginia for right now). Virginians already live under a plethora of laws that restrict and infringe upon their right to keep and bear arms. For instance, the automatic weapons ban affects them as much as it affects those living in the other 49 States. Virginians also have to obtain a permit to concealed carry; and the last time I checked the exercise of a right does not require permission from your government.

I don’t know, but it sure seems to me that the people of Virginia, as well as those living in the other 49 States have waited until usurped power has ‘…strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents.’ Did you know that the first real nationwide gun control law went into effect nearly 100 years ago, and they have been restricting that right, a bit at a time, ever since? So why have we waited until now to begin protesting against these infringements? I’ve been asking myself that question for the past 20 years, and have yet to get a satisfactory answer from anyone.

Another thing, why is it just our right to keep and bear arms that we are suddenly so concerned with; why haven’t we raised our voices in protest over the infringements upon all our OTHER rights; rights our government has steadily been encroaching upon? The rights shielded against governmental infringement by the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th Amendments have all but been erased. Yet suddenly we’re upset over the attacks upon one single right, when all of our rights have been under attack for over a century and a half? C’mon people!!!

You know what that makes me think of? It makes me think of someone who’s house catches fire, but they wait till the entire house is engulfed in flames before breaking out a fire extinguisher to try and put it out; by then it’s too late. Our freedom of speech; our freedom of religion; our freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; our right to privacy have been under attack for almost as long as I’ve been alive, but NOW WE’RE SUDDENLY PISSED OFF? So it’s okay that they violate all our other rights, just don’t come after our guns. Do people even know that the reason they maintain the right to keep and bear arms is so that they can defend all their other rights?

I do not oppose protests and rallies as they are part of the process of letting our elected representatives know that we don’t like what they are doing; in fact they are listed as one of the rights our government shall not seek to restrict or infringe upon. (See the 1st Amendment). At the same time, when our legislators have a proven track record of violating our rights, there comes a time when assembling peacefully and carrying signs becomes an exercise in futility; since they sit back behind closed doors and do whatever they want to do anyway.

I know I keep harping on this, but this is exactly why a thorough understanding of history, (or at least the history of this country), is essential if we are to understand how to combat the growing tyranny of government; both State and federal.

How many of you, (and my friends in the Founding Era Study Group need to keep quiet), know about the history of what happened after Parliament enacted the Stamp Act in 1765? Yes, the people protested; they assembled; but they did not mill around carrying banners and signs. For instance, in Boston Andrew Oliver was the King’s man assigned to collect the taxes imposed by the Stamp Act; what we might call today a federal official, or employee. Well Oliver was hung in effigy from the Liberty Tree; an act that today would be considered a veiled threat against the life of a federal agent. Yet law enforcement dismantled a guillotine brought to the Virginia protest yesterday for that very reason; it was a veiled death threat against the elected representatives of the people of Virginia. So right there we see which side the police are on in this debate.

But the Son’s of Liberty did not stop with hanging Oliver in effigy, they tore down the office that had been built to house the tax collector; and in other States similar occurrences took place. Then, dear me, they marched to Oliver’s home, threatened him with execution, and when they found he was not home, they destroyed the interior of his house. The very next day the mob found Oliver at his home and threatened him with much worse if he did not resign his position as tax collector; which Oliver decided was in his best interest to do.

Then, when the governor, Thomas Hutchinson defied the mob, they turned their anger upon him; destroying the interior of his home as well, while forcing him to flee for his own life along with his family.

Similar instances of unruly opposition occurred throughout the Colonies. For instance, tax protestors in New York stole the carriage of the Lieutenant Governor, Cadwallader Colden’s (yes that’s his real name) and chopped it up into firewood and used it to burn him in effigy.

We all know the story of the Boston Tea Party; how Son’s of Liberty disguised as native American Indians rowed out into Boston Harbor and dumped all that tea into the water, but do you know about how tax collectors were tarred and feathered by mobs who were angered over the taxes being levied against them? And then of course there was Lexington and Concord, where armed citizens stood up in defiance to the gun control measures being imposed upon them. This was not a peaceful protest by any definition of the word; this was people intent upon defending their right to keep and bear arms; even if it meant opening fire upon law enforcement to do so.

So while I’m all for peaceful protests, I think they have come at too late in the game to be an effective means of preserving what little liberty we have left in this country. We protest, we write and call our elected officials, and we even vote those we don’t like out of office, but it seems that no matter what we do government just sits back and laughs at us, while it steadily encroaches upon our freedom; for it knows that the will to resist it with the same degree of violence exhibited by our founders does not exist. Had that same love of liberty been present we would not have waited this long, until ‘…usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents.’

Our governments, both State and federal, have grown cocky, arrogant, and confident that we do not retain the will to resist their authority and their steady encroachments upon our rights and our liberty. If we want to retain, or regain what we have lost, we must prove that they are wrong in that assumption; we must be ready to stand up and declare, as did Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death.” More importantly, we must mean it.

That’s what it will take to make America great again, and that is why they are watching closely to see what happens in Virginia, to see if that spirit of resistance to tyranny still lives, or if all that we have to offer them in opposition to their tyranny is a few thousand ‘peaceful’ protestors

It does not matter which side of the political fence you fall upon, left or right, most people in this country believe that they hold the moral high ground; that their views and opinions are the best course of action our government should undertake to make America their vision of a great country. The two sides battle each other on the news, and in public debates; each explaining why their course of action is better than their opponents; hoping to convince enough people to vote for them in an upcoming election.

Millions of dollars are spent upon these ‘campaigns’, hiring staff members to run switchboards, mail out campaign flyers, run TV ads and generally promote their candidate as the ‘best’ choice for the voters. The voters then turn around and run all this propaganda through their political party filter; eliminating anyone or anything that does not conform to their party’s platform, then make the best choice from among those running for office under ‘their’ party’s banner.

I don’t really care which political party you align yourself with, does that sound like a pretty accurate description of the process by which you make your decision as to who gets your vote? If so, then regardless of which side of the political fence you stand upon, you are a Statist.

A statist is defined as one who is an advocate of a strong political system which gives the government massive power to enact laws affecting both economic and social concerns. A statist is one who thinks the government knows better how to run their lives than they do. A statist is diametrically opposed to individuality; to liberty.

Therefore, the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is the degree to which the people are infected with Statism; the belief that government should solve all our ails; take care of our every need; and decide for us how we should be able to exercise our rights and our liberty. Statism is a cancer that eats away at liberty, and it does not matter if it is Stage 1 or Stage 4, it is still a cancer that threatens the very existence of that which governments are instituted among men to secure – individual liberty.

Yet people across this once great country are so caught up in the two party paradigm; arguing as to which party has the best agenda for America, that they fail to recognize that government, as an entity, is guilty of denying the very principles it was established to secure and defend. All people see is how evil the other side is, while failing to acknowledge that their side is guilty of evil as well.

The system gives us these ‘issues’ such as gay rights; illegal immigration; abortion; foreign enemies to defeat; higher/lower taxes; the economy, and a whole slew of others to argue about, while the real infringements upon our rights and liberty go un-discussed in political debates. How each individual feels about these ‘issues’ determines which political party they support.

I have had numerous debates/arguments with those on both sides of the political spectrum regarding my refusal to support ‘their’ candidate. Many have told me things like, “Well my candidate is much better than the other one.” or, “You can’t criticize my candidate until you’ve given them the chance to see how effective they are at solving all our issues.” In every one of these debates/arguments I’ve asked, “Does the things your candidate promise to do violate my rights or overstep the powers delegated to government by the Constitution?” Almost every single time I ask that question someone will say either, “I don’t know what the Constitution says” or worse, “There you go again, getting all technical and bringing up the Constitution again.”

Well excuse me, but our government only exists because the Constitution was written, and then ratified; without that document this government you love so much wouldn’t even exist! So don’t you think it would be wise to learn what that document says, and maybe think about only voting for candidates who promise, upon forfeiture of their life, to support and defend it?

How many of you have watched the film Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox? Do you recall how he went back in time and altered the Space Time Continuum and that his parents are not going to meet and fall in love; meaning that Marty, (Michael J. Fox) won’t be born? Well if someone today were to travel back to 1787 and prevent the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention from meeting, therefore preventing the Constitution from being written, this system of government you so love would simply vanish overnight.

This Constitution was an act of a people, (even though they did not represent even a fraction of the common people at the time), constituting a system of government. The government, therefore, is likened to a child born of the Constitution; subject to the will of the people, and restrained in its actions by the limits imposed upon it by the document itself, and all amendments made to it after it had been ratified.

The overall ignorance of the American people; and this goes back many generations, is what has allowed our government to amass powers those who supported it promised it would never have the authority to exercise. What is the use of having a Constitution, outlining the powers delegated to a government, if the people refuse to learn what it says, and hold those they elect accountable for violations of them? What good is having rights listed as being beyond governments ability to infringe upon when the people don’t know what those rights are, and allow/ask that government restrict them just to keep them safe?

Can you answer those questions for me?

If you don’t know what the Constitution says, what it means; if you don’t know what the Bill of Rights says, or why those rights were specifically chosen to be of such importance that restrictions be placed upon our government’s ability to infringe upon, then your allegiance is not to the principles this country was founded upon, it is to a political party that seeks to use government as a tool to impose its vision upon the segment of society that disagrees with you.

If you believe that government can violate the rights of people you disagree with, start wars without America being attacked or invaded, tax people to fund programs you support, then you are a Statist and your devotion is not for liberty, it is for political parties and big government. The only difference between YOU and the THOSE YOU DISAGREE WITH is how government is used to encroach upon the liberty of others. Republicans force their ideas upon Democrats and Democrats force their ideas upon Republicans; meantime those who only want to live their lives free of government get stuck between a rock and a hard place; we get screwed no matter who wins an election.

What it boils down to is that if you are a Statist you see things through the perspective of the two party paradigm; left vs right, Republican vs. Democrat. But, if you are a lover of liberty, such as I and many of my friends are, you see things through the perspective of Statists vs. Anarchists; either you support government, and the subsequent loss of liberty, or you oppose government and defend liberty. There is no middle ground in this, you can’t half way defend liberty; it’s all or nothing; and I’ve taken the side of liberty.

The unfortunate thing is that the moment you mention anarchy people think of the movie The Purge; where people are free to commit whatever violent crimes they want for a 24 hour period. That’s not anarchy, that’s utter chaos and lawlessness.

You see, a true anarchist doesn’t believe in lawlessness; they just don’t like the laws that government enacts that restrict their liberty. A true anarchists holds to a higher law; Natural Law. In his Second Treatise on Civil Governments John Locke explains this Natural Law as follows, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

It’s fine to have laws that punish those who violate our Natural Rights, but when laws punish you for doing things that others find offensive, or disagree with, then those laws violate the rights of the individual to live their life according to the dictates of their own hearts; not the whim and will of any majority.

Liberty, and by that I mean, true rightful liberty means that each person is free to do as they please as long as their actions do not interfere with anyone else’s ability to do the same. Fear does not come into play when it comes to a person’s freedom to exercise their rights. So if I have the right to keep and bear arms, the fact that others are afraid of guns is not sufficient justification to deny my right to keep and bear them. If some people think marijuana, or any other drug for that matter, is bad for you, or sinful to use, it does not justify laws being passed that deny someone the right to use them.

An anarchist believes that they are free to live their lives as they see fit, so long as they allow others to do the same. An anarchist does not seek to transfer the responsibility for the bad choices they make onto others, or society in general.

I see and hear so many people today espousing ideas and beliefs that are not based upon rational thought, rather they are based upon emotional reactions to the issues they face. People vote based upon how they ‘feel’ about a candidate. People support the passage of laws because they ‘feel’ that these laws will make the world a better place. But with each and every law that is passed, a small piece of our liberty is surrendered in the process.

When government says you can’t do this, you can’t do that; it is A RESTRICTION OF YOUR LIBERTY! And what is people’s answer when the laws do not solve the problem? Why, it is to enact more laws, impose more restrictions upon liberty. It’s like those drug ads you see on TV to treat some ailment; the side effects are sometimes so severe that you need to take other drugs to treat them; which in turn cause more side effects; until you’re taking 10-20 pills a day to treat something a simple life style change might have cured.

People today are addicted to laws, they are addicted to government deciding for them how they should be allowed to live their lives; without accepting full and complete responsibility for it themselves. In no definition I’ve ever read is that the description of freedom; rather it is the definition of slavery.

When people make political decisions based upon feelings, upon emotions, they are not making decisions based upon critical thought; an examination of all the pertinent facts…the whole picture. If our government is limited in its authority by both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and if the people refuse to take those limitations into consideration when deciding who to vote for, or which laws to support, how can they honestly say they are thinking; making ‘informed’ decisions?

In the book Atlas Shrugged there is a lengthy passage in which the main protagonist, John Galt, delivers a speech to the people. In that speech Galt speaks about thinking, stating, “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron—without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.

But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call ‘human nature,’ the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival—so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to’ think or not to think.”

I think that the vast majority of American voters are loathe to think; they would rather react emotionally; or what we call having knee jerk reactions, to the many problems this country faces. When people say, “I think government should pass a law doing….” they are not thinking about whether or not the laws they are calling for are within the power of government in the first place, or if the passage of these laws violates someone’s rights; all they know is that there is a problem, and to them government is the only place they can find a solution.

The truth is, for those who care that is, our government has overstepped its authority so much, and the people have become so dependent upon it to solve all their problems, that there is no solution to them other than to tear the government down and teach people to live without relying upon it to help them live their lives. This won’t happen; primarily because as long as they have the choice of either being totally free of government or having their rights taken away from them for promises of comfort and security, people will always choose the latter.

People will reject the truth so long as their slavery remains comfortable, and for the same reason they will continue to support those who enslave them. For America to once again strive to defend liberty the mask hiding the evil which is their government must be rent asunder so they can see government’s true nature; and that will only happen when those who love liberty have been denied the means of opposing them; meaning our right to keep and bear arms is totally denied us.

Once that happens, and if you’ll notice I did not say IF THAT HAPPENS, for I believe it to be a foregone inevitability at some point in our future; then government will be seen for what it truly is, and only then will people realize that those who warned them of the danger of unconditional support of it were right. Only then will they learn that liberty comes at a cost; that cost being constant vigilance and a willingness to fight to retain it.

I think there is a cycle that repeats itself; a cycle which was best explained by something written by Alexander Fraser Tytler, “Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”

I think America is in the latter stages of that cycle, somewhere between dependence and bondage. I also think that if liberty is to be reborn in America there must first be great suffering; as the people experience true tyranny and despotism. Only then, can they learn the spiritual truths Tytler spoke of and once again find the same courage that led men like Patrick Henry to say, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Our nation was founded by men who were willing to gain their liberty; even if it cost their lives to do so. It began it’s downward slide into tyranny when it adopted a flawed Constitution that did not put ironclad restrictions upon governmental authority, nor provide an effective means by which tyrants could be punished. So while tyranny has gained ground, supported by Statists who care nothing about individual rights, liberty has lost ground, with anarchists fighting a losing battle to retain what little freedom they have left.

You may not care about the fact that your government is depriving you of the very liberty it was supposedly instituted to secure, but there is something you should concern yourself with. In 1775 Thomas Jefferson wrote, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

So if you are a Statist, and if you believe that the individual rights and liberty of others are subject to the whim and will of you, or a majority, then you should be very concerned as to how you are going to answer God when He asks you why did not do more to defend His gift to you.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that…

Have you ever been doing something and tried to recall what point in your life you first began doing that thing, and finally realized you’ve been doing it for so long you can’t remember when you first started? That’s how I feel about these rants, commentaries, or articles I write; they’ve become so big a part of my life that I can’t recall when I first began writing them. That said, I have no difficulty remembering what topic led to me begin this journey of self-education and political commentary – the right to keep and bear arms.

In June I’ll turn 62 and in all my years of life I can’t recall a time when I haven’t been around guns. I grew up around guns with both my parents having guns of their own; and my father having more than just one. I played with cap guns as a child, I was given toy guns made by Mattel that shot actual spring fired plastic projectiles as I grew a bit older, I was given a bb rifle as a birthday or Christmas gift, (can’t recall which), and I learned to shoot real firearms at a pretty young age. So guns are as natural to me as are my fingers and toes; I would feel incomplete if my right to own them was taken away – which it seems our government is intent upon doing.

While this may not be true about many people today, I was not alone back then in thinking that the right to own guns was as natural as the right to breathe air; there wasn’t this climate of fear regarding guns and gun owners. When I was a kid nobody thought that anything was amiss if some guy was driving down the road in a pickup truck with a fully loaded rifle rack hanging in the rear window of his truck; unlike today, when people would say, “Oh my God, he’s got a gun!” In fact, I recall my time in high school, seeing pickup trucks in the school parking lot with either a hunting rifle or a shotgun prominently displayed on a rack in the rear window – yet we NEVER had a school shooting, or no one even thought about carrying a gun onto the campus proper.

So it was with great trepidation that I began noticing how people’s attitudes towards guns began changing, and how our government seemed intent upon restricting our right to own guns. It was this change in attitudes towards guns, and gun ownership that led me to begin writing letters to my elected officials, protesting against the laws they sought to enact that restricted my right to own guns. I began to notice that, if I even got a reply from them, they went ahead and voted in favor of laws that violated my rights anyway; which led me to undertake a study of this country’s history and its system of government to learn how it came into existence, and what powers it was actually supposed to be exercising.

And now it seems like I’ve come full circle; for here I am focusing a lot of my attention upon the steady attacks by both the federal and State governments upon our right to keep and bear arms.

Now this may seem like I’ve gone off on a tangent, discussing an entirely new subject; but bear with me and I think you’ll see who it relates to the subject of the right to keep and bear arms. I have heard many people say we need to reassert the right of the States to determine for themselves what laws passed by the federal government they will abide by, and which ones they will nullify by non-compliance. I’ve also heard many say that they are strong supporters of State’s rights, or that they are strong supporters of the 10th Amendment. On the surface that sounds all well and good, but if you scratch beneath the surface just a bit you’ll see that those things wouldn’t make much of a difference in today’s political climate.

Yes, we have a federal government and we also have our individual State governments, but are these State governments any more friendly towards, and respectful of our rights than the federal government is? I can say without hesitation that MY State government here in California is not; that it is very anti-gun in its attitude; therefore any attempt by Californians to impose the 10th Amendments restrictions upon the federal government would do nothing to halt the attacks upon my right to keep and bear arms by my State Legislature.

The problem is that, regardless of whether we are talking about government at the federal or State levels, government itself is populated by what? Why, it’s populated by Republicans and Democrats; that’s what. While there may be moderates and extremists on both political parties, the problem is that the party’s dictate the policy of government. The Democrats have their own playbook and the Republicans have theirs; and for a candidate to get the support of their party they have to abide by what that playbook says is their party’s platform. Look what happened to Ron Paul at the national level; he ran as a Republican, but since he did not abide by the Republican Party Platform, the party refused to endorse or support him; even though he had a massive grassroots following.

So, in theory a strong support of State’s Rights would be an effective check upon the abuse of power by the federal government; but it becomes entirely ineffective if the State governments are just as corrupted by the two-party ideology that corrupts the federal government. The only way in which our State governments could serve as a barrier against federal encroachments upon our rights would be if the people of the States only chose strong supporters of individual liberty and unalienable rights to sit in their State Legislatures; not the same corrupt two party hacks that they currently vote for…and I don’t see that happening to the extent that it would make much of a difference – especially here in California.

My point is saying all this is to explain that if you want to retain your right to keep and bear arms, you as an individual are going to have to defend that right yourself; you can’t expect that the people you vote for are going to defend it for you; for they are part of the machine, and the machine seems to be intent upon totally abolishing the right of private gun ownership. Sure, you may find a few black sheep in the State governments who vote consistently against proposed gun control measures, but they are drops in the bucket compared to those who support tougher gun control laws. Their existence is like putting a few drops of pure water into a vat of acid; you wouldn’t want to drink from that vat just because you added some pure water, would you? So a few good pro-gun candidates are not going to make a bit of difference when government, as an entity, is intent upon abolishing our right to keep and bear arms.

Months ago I was at my local WalMart shopping and there were these guys out front collecting petitions for ballot measures. One of the ballot measures was for reciprocal concealed carry; meaning that if you have a permit to carry a concealed gun in one State, it would be valid in all the other States. I refused to sign the petition; which angered those collecting signatures.

They tried explaining the importance of the 2nd Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms, and I cut them off; saying I probably understood the importance of an armed citizenry better than they did. They then asked why, if I understand the importance of the right to keep and bear arms, why I refused to sign their petition? I told them that I don’t agree with the idea that I need a permit to exercise a right, and by signing their petition I would be agreeing that I need permission from government to exercise that right.

One guy who had gathered there to sign told me, “Baby steps my friend, baby steps.” To avoid further confrontation, plus the fact that my wife was growing impatient, I simply said no thanks and walked away. However, I wanted to say, that if you believe you have to petition the government, or pass a ballot measure so that you could exercise a natural right, you’ve already lost; that rights are not dependent upon laws being passed to protect them, or that they require a vote of the majority for people to exercise them. But that since the guys collecting the signatures were ignorant of that fact, they had already lost their rights. Had I been alone, I may have told them that; but since I had a shopping cart full of groceries and an impatient wife, I didn’t.

I’ve been giving the right to keep and bear arms a lot of thought lately, and I mean A LOT OF THOUGHT!!! I came to the realization that I’ve been wrong in thinking I need to send my elected officials letters asking them to oppose gun control legislation. While it probably would have generated a visit by the FBI, my local sheriff, or in today’s climate, added me to a Red Flag list, the truth is I should have been sending them letters saying, “If you pass this law, and someone comes to take my guns away, I will fucking shoot whoever you send to take my guns away.”

That is the true nature of rights, and something that few people understand. They beg their government to leave their rights alone, or to restore them after they’ve been diminished or denied. The fact is, they don’t need government’s permission to exercise or restore those rights, and they damned sure don’t need, (and aren’t going to get) government’s permission to defend those rights.

Gee whiz, can you imagine what it would have been like in 1775 if the people back then had the attitudes of people today?

Patriot #1: Did you hear, King George is thinking about enacting new gun control laws and that he’s gonna send his cops, (Redcoats), to come take our guns?

Patriot #2: Yeah, I heard. I think I’m gonna sit down and write him a letter begging him not to do so.

Patriot #1: But if he does it anyway, I hope you got your CCW up to date so that you can show up and protest when the Redcoats arrive to take our guns.

Yeah I know, it sounds pretty funny when you put it that way; but that’s the kind of attitude I hear from a great many people; let’s protest to let our lawmakers know that we oppose their attempts to take away our right to keep and bear arms. Instead they should be saying, “Who cares if they pass a law saying they will confiscate our guns? If they do, and someone comes to do so, we will mass together and use whatever force is required to prevent them from doing so.” After all, that’s what the Colonists did at Lexington and Concord; they didn’t write letters, they didn’t protest; when the King sent his men to take away their guns they amassed and resolved to use force, (if required) to prevent those guns from being confiscated.

Yes, that started a revolution; but if defending your rights against a government that is intent upon denying those rights is what happens, then maybe that government no longer deserves to exercise any authority over you anymore, and a revolution is what is needed to purge the system. After all, Thomas Jefferson did say that the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Listen, I’m not telling anyone to just pick up their guns and go out and start shooting cops or elected officials; that’s stupid. But, each of us has to think long and hard about what we want out of government, and how many infringements upon our rights we are going to take before we say NO MORE!

You’re not going to see your lost rights restored, or your liberty retained by voting, by writing letters, or even by these commentaries I write. The only thing our government understands is the use of force and coercion; and so far they’ve had a monopoly on it. If we want our freedom back, we’re going to have to retake it from those who have stolen it from us; and it won’t come without bloodshed and heartache; but such is the price a free people must be willing to pay if they wish to remain free.

The people of the patriot State of Virginia are coming to realize that fact now. With the election of a Democratic controlled State government, Virginians are being hit with a full frontal attack upon their right to keep and bear arms, and on Monday they are planning a protest at the State Capitol in Richmond; where many of them will show up with privately owned arms.

The governor, Ralph Northam, possibly fearing for his life, has undertaken steps to establish a gun free zone around the capitol building; in clear violation of the Virginia State Constitution and laws passed in pursuance of it.

Title 44 of the Code of Virginia declares:

Nothing in this chapter is construed to:

(3) Empower the Governor, any political subdivision, or any other governmental authority to in any way limit or prohibit the rights of the people to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia or the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, including the otherwise lawful possession, carrying, transportation, sale, or transfer of firearms except to the extent necessary to ensure public safety in any place or facility designated or used by the Governor, any political subdivision of the Commonwealth, or any other governmental entity as an emergency shelter or for the purpose of sheltering persons;

Furthermore, in 2012 Virginia passed a law in which the right to carry arms was further reinforced and protected. This bill, HB 20; constitutional rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, states, “Provides that nothing in the Emergency Services and Disaster Law shall be interpreted to limit or prohibit the otherwise lawful possession, carrying, transportation, sale, or transfer of firearms. This bill is identical to SB 245.”

Yet Governor Northam, in violation of Virginia State Law, has declared the State Capitol to be a Gun Free Zone during the 3 day period surrounding the scheduled protests over the anti-gun laws the State government is considering for passage. Not only that, they have erected a fence surrounding the capitol building with only one entrance, where metal detectors and wands will be used to ensure that nobody carrying a gun can enter the capitol grounds.

I don’t know what is going to happen come Monday when thousands of protestors show up; possibly bearing arms to protest the laws being considered by the Virginia Legislature. I have a few thoughts as to what may happen, but I’ll keep them to myself for now. I do know that Governor Northan probably did not expect the sudden, and firm resistance to his efforts to pass gun control laws that rival those passed here in California for their severity. I also believe he is probably shitting bricks in fear that he might become a martyr for the anti-gun lobby because he pushed too hard too fast to take away the rights of a people not accustomed to having their right to keep and bear arms attacked as it has been since the election of the new governor and State Legislature; which is decidedly anti-gun.

Among those I call my true friends, all eyes have been focused on what is happening in Virginia; the rest of this country seems to be painfully ignorant of the fact that anything at all is happening there. I can’t speak for all my friends, so I’ll give you my thoughts on what is happening in Virginia right now.

I know that there are other States that have drastically worse laws on the books that restrict the right to keep and bear arms; such as my home State of California. However Virginia is different; it has always been thought of as a bastion of liberty; being the State that gave us men like Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E Lee. So I think Virginia is a testing ground to see if government can enact Draconian Gun Control Laws without the people resisting them. I think that if the Virginia government is able to enact these laws, and they go unchallenged, that the floodgates will open and bring about the end of our right to keep and bear arms, as State governments in other pro-gun strongholds will enact similar laws. So, even if you don’t live in Virginia, if you value your right to keep and bear arms, you should be paying very close attention to what is happening out there.

Secondly, this is just a protest against the laws working their way through the legislative process; it is not a revolution or an armed uprising; although there may be paid agent provocateurs among the protestors hoping the incite a violent confrontation so as to paint gun owners in a bad light. However, at this stage this is just a peaceful protest in which armed citizens are showing up telling their elected officials that they do not like the laws they are considering; that’s it, just a protest.

So, if the Virginia Legislature and its Governor ignore the voice of those protesting, and enacts these gun control measures, then the next step will come when those laws are enforced upon the people of Virginia. I may be wrong, but this is when I see the greatest chance of this whole scene shifting from one of peaceful opposition to armed conflict. After all, a law is only a piece of paper saying this or that; it takes LAW ENFORCEMENT to give it any teeth.

So, either one of two things could happen should these measures actually become law. Either law enforcement will simply refuse to enforce them, or they will just do their jobs and enforce the law regardless of whether the law they are enforcing violates an unalienable right. If they choose Option B, then I fear someone is going to pull the trigger, (regardless of whether it is a cop, or a citizen defending their rights), and that is when the whole thing could blow wide open and consume the entire country; as people will see this as the time and the place to shake off the chains that have bound them to government that doesn’t give a rats ass about securing our rights and our liberty.

But then again, these are just my thoughts on it, and I could be wrong. And finally there is one more thing I want to talk about; and this is directed primarily towards all those who still believe that Trump is a great president; a protector of their rights.

Where the hell has Donald Trump been while this whole thing was playing out before our eyes? I mean, come on, with Trump’s propensity to voice his opinion on whatever inane thought crosses his mind, and his adolescent use of Twitter to voice his thoughts; where has he been while Governor Northam and his Democratic cronies launched a full scale attack upon the 2nd Amendment?

The only thing I’ve heard Trump say is, “Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s what happens when you elect Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!”

That’s all I’ve heard Trump say on it, diverting the focus away from the fact that government across the country, (regardless of whether R’s or D’s control it) have been attacking the 2nd Amendment for decades. What Trump has done is shift the focus away from our right to keep and bear arms to the same tired old two party paradigm bullshit that has gotten us to where we are today; Don’t vote for Dems, or they’ll take your guns.

Really Donald; from the man who signed the law banning bump stocks and who said take the guns first and give them due process later…REALLY???

Yes, the Democrats have been at the forefront in proposing and enacting almost every single gun control law on the books, but why haven’t the Republicans repealed those laws when they held a majority in both Congress and the Executive?

Honestly, if a Republican, be it a Senator, Congressman, or President, truly understood the 2nd Amendment, they would stand up and say, “The 2nd Amendment was written and ratified to give you, the American people, the right and power to resist us should we ever make a tyrannical use of our power and authority. No law shall be passed which inhibits or restricts that right in any way, shape or form. Your right as guaranteed under the 2nd Amendment is not limited by magazine capacity, mode of fire, or whether the weapon is of the same type as used by our armed forces; the 2nd Amendment was written, in fact, to provide you with the arms that could match those carried by any standing army raised by us to use against you and your liberty. Your right’s do not come from us, the come from your being human beings, and are the gift of a benevolent Creator; therefore no permits are required for the keeping and bearing of arms; and all attempts to enact such requirements are, in fact, a violation of the intent and spirit of the 2nd Amendment, and will be opposed by me in the strongest of terms.”

THAT right there is what an elected official who understood our rights would say about the 2nd Amendment, and until I hear any of them speak out in such terms I will consider them an enemy to my rights and they will not have earned my respect or support…and this includes your beloved President Trump!

Since I reluctantly entered into this world, (I had to be pried out of my mother’s womb with forceps; perhaps realizing the world was a fucked up place), I’ve sat back and watched as the people of this country have bent over and taken infringement after infringements upon their rights right up the ass, without nary a whimper of resistance. I’ve seen the people support measures that abolished their rights and their liberty, (such as the Patriot Act and the expansion of the TSA and NSA’s attacks upon the 4th Amendment) and I’ve wondered how and when the people will realize that government, (both at the State and federal levels) is not to be trusted to secure and defend their rights; that the people themselves are the only true defenders of those rights; and that if they refuse to do so they will lose those rights forever.

I have done my best, over the course of 20 some odd years, to speak out, to educate the people regarding government and the steady loss of liberty that has come by their trust and support of it; all to see my efforts falling upon, mostly, deaf ears. I have felt despondent, angry, and frustrated because I’ve not seen any change in the way people think; and I’ve been tempted to say screw it, let the people suffer the shit storm they have created by their ignorance and apathy.

What’s happening in Virginia has given me hope that liberty is not yet dead in America; and though I fear what may happen should things turn violent out there, I cannot but help the desire to climb up upon my rooftop and scream, “It’s about fucking time people; I’ve had enough of this shit! Let the chips fall where they may, but either we will restore liberty to this so-called land of the free and home of the brave, or we will die trying.”

In any case, my interest in politics and history began with my love of, and defense of my right to keep and bear arms; and here I am, come full circle, thinking that maybe liberty will live or die based upon the outcome of events unfolding right now in Virginia. Funny how that worked out, but maybe it was destined to be so; for a people who wish to be free must be willing to stand up and fight those who seek to deny them their freedom.

If it happens, and if those who love liberty lose, well then, the rest of you will experience the consequences of your ignorance and apathy, and those of us who could have saved you from it will be long dead. I hope you’ll be happy with your lives once the last defenders of liberty are gone and government can do whatever it wants to you without resistance.

Because in the end, that’s what this is all about; whether liberty will survive in America, or if it will perish…ponder that if you will…

Every year the American people sit with baited breath, awaiting the rulings handed down by the Supreme Court as if they were gods come down from on high to bestow upon us a portion of their almighty wisdom. The esteem which is given the Supreme Court is also evidenced in presidential elections, when one of the arguments either for or against a presidential candidate is the fact that they may get to choose a new Justice to the court; shifting the balance further to the left or to the right.

Excuse me for not buying into this idolatry but to hell with the Supreme Court and their ‘rulings’; especially as it pertains to what government can and cannot do, or the extent to which we are allowed to exercise our unalienable rights. I hate to come across as insulting, but it almost seems as if people are saying, “Gee, I’m too stupid to understand what the Constitution and Bill of Rights say, so I’m going to let the Supreme Court, (which is part of the government), tell me what they think they say.”

It is truly a sad statement about the people themselves, and the educations they have received at the hands of the public fool, (school), system, that they know so little about the Constitution; especially Article III which outlines the Judicial Branch. People seem to think that, “Well, we have judges, and they know the law better than we do, so whatever they say must be true and we are bound to abide by their decisions.”

If that statement reflects your attitude, aren’t you admitting that you are ignorant of the law? If that is true, then why do you remain ignorant when to remedy your ignorance all you have to do is undertake a study of the origin of laws? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot; to study would mean you must put aside all your preconceived notions, turn off your TV’s, your smartphones, and your social media and actually use your brain for its intended purpose. My bad; I shouldn’t expect so much out of people.

Do you know what judicial review is? Judicial review is a courts ability to determine the validity of a law under the Constitution; either being in accordance with, or in opposition to the powers delegated to legislatures by a constitution. What this does is it gives to judges the power to ‘interpret’ a constitution according to their understanding, or bias; meaning they get to decide what a constitution says, or means.

How many of you have ever sat down and read a decision handed down by the Supreme Court; especially a more recent one, or how many of you have watched one of those crime drama shows such as Law & Order when the attorneys quote this ruling or that ruling in support of their arguments? In almost every instance what you’ll find is that the decisions are based upon precedential law. What that means is that, often, a court will base their decision upon the decisions of past courts; or precedents.

So if a judge in the 1800’s said this is what the law means, then a court in the 1900’s might refer to that decision, and a court in the 2000’s might refer to both decisions; firmly fixing the fact that, ‘well these other judges said this is what the law means, so that much be what the law actually means!’

Precedent does not always mean that something is correct, or right. Let’s say you’re doing something and someone tries to correct you; to show you how to do it properly. If you tell them that you are doing it the way your father taught you, and how his father taught him, you are basing your actions upon precedents established before you were born; but it does not necessarily mean that those before you were doing it correctly. So, just because past judges have ruled this way, or that way, upon the law doesn’t necessarily make their decisions correct.

Let me ask you another question. If the law is the law; firm and inflexible, then why should it matter if a Republican or Democratic president gets to pick a Justice to the Supreme Court? Allow me to rephrase that; if the Constitution says what it says, and means what it means, then how can a panel of 9 Justices alternate between this interpretation of its meaning and that interpretation of its meaning?

What that implies is that the Constitution is not a law, in and of itself; that it is a, (and God how I hate this term), living document open to the interpretation, (or construction as our founders called it), of whoever is given the authority to make decisions based upon it. More often than not a court’s decision upon the law is based upon previous decisions by other courts; or precedents long established as judicial fact.

Please, for a moment can you put your thinking caps on and pay close attention to what I’m about to say? The courts uphold the law, do they not? They make sure that justice is served in their courtrooms, correct? The police enforce the law, right; meaning they make sure that people obey the law; often based upon the decisions handed down by courts based upon THEIR interpretation of the law. Then we have our lawmakers who write the laws; laws that are written based upon THEIR understanding, or interpretation of the powers delegated to them to write law.

So where did all these people; these judges, these police, and these legislators, get their power to decide for us what we can and cannot do; what the law is, and what it means? After all, they are just men and women like you and I; what makes them so special that they get to decide how we must live our lives? Didn’t we, as individuals, consent to establishing governments, courts, and police departments, grant them the authority to do these things on our behalf? If that is true, then WE, as sovereign individuals, are the source of the law; for without our consent, none of these entities would even exist.

Therefore, shouldn’t we, as individuals, at least have a working knowledge of what the law governing our government’s actions says? Shouldn’t we, as individuals, be capable of determining for ourselves when our government, our courts, and our police departments are violating the law, and our rights, and act upon the premise that an unconstitutional law is no law at all; and therefore need not be obeyed?

But Neal, we can’t be expected to understand such lofty principles; to understand the law. Speak for yourselves; that is if you want to be a slave to those who you allow to do so in your stead. If a people refuse to become informed as to the intent, meaning, and origin of the law, then they become slaves to those who get to determine what the law says for them. It’s that simple. When that happens, the law becomes something pliant, or as Jefferson said, “…a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

In recent years the courts have upheld decisions banning prayer, or a discussion of the Bible in public schools; basing their decisions upon the premise that it violates the wall of separation between church and state. Sounds logical at first, but just hold on a second there Sparky, I’ve got more to say on it. Did you know that in 1844 the Supreme Court held that schools could teach the principles found within the Bible? In the case of Vidal v. Girard’s Executors the court held, “Why may not the Bible and especially the New Testament be read and taught as a divine revelation in school? Where else can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?”

So if the Supreme Court, in 1844, said that the Bible could be taught in school, and the Supreme Court, in recent years, has held that the Bible isn’t even allowed in schools, which decision is correct? The same thing goes for any of the Court’s decisions; such as their decision in Roe v. Wade; how can one court overturn the opinion of a previous court; unless they do so based upon a constitutional amendment that modifies, or alters the powers delegated to government?

Please, could someone answer that for me; I love watching people perform mental gymnastics while trying to justify an illogical premise.

It all boils down to the fact that people believe that the Justices of the Supreme Court, or any judge for that matter, should have the power and authority to determine for them what the law says; what it means. But, as the source from which the law comes, that simply is not true.

Have you ever heard of jury nullification? Of course you haven’t; not if you’re a product of the public school system. Jury nullification is the principle that, regardless of the instructions given by a judge on the law, the jury has the right to acquit if they believe the law itself is unjust, or a violation of the rights of the individual.

So wait a minute Neal, you’re saying that 12 common men and women, like you and I, get to decide what the law means, or whether it violates someone’s rights? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying; and why the hell not if we are, in fact, the source of all laws. Why should we allow some clown in a gown to tell us what the law means when we are fully capable of determining, (if we have spent the time educating ourselves that is) what the law means.

The very first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, stated this as fact when he declared, “The Jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.” So, we may sit as jurors, hear evidence proving that someone violated the law, then render an innocent verdict simply because we have determined that the law itself is a violation of the Supreme Law of the land, or that it violates our rights as individuals.

That is the power that we, as individuals, have. And if we can exercise that power in a court of law, then why can’t we exercise it in our daily lives by refusing to obey laws that overstep the duly delegated powers of government, or laws that violate our rights?

When discussing what powers the government is allowed to exercise on our behalf most people today base their opinions upon what they hear on TV or read in the papers. Yet in determining the intent, or meaning of the document that established our system of government there is hardly any mention; let alone the thoughts of those who argued both for and against the adoption of the proposed constitution.

Yet it is in those debates that we will find the true intent of the document, not from what people living 230 some odd years later think it means. Just 34 short years after the Constitution was ratified Thomas Jefferson told William Johnson that to determine what the Constitution meant he must go back to the period in which it was written and ratified. Jefferson’s exact wording was, “On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

So, in determining what laws are just, what powers government can exercise on our behalf, are we going to take the word of a bunch of politicians seeking power; a bunch of cops who only care about ‘ENFORCING’ the law, or a bunch of judges who twist and mold the law based upon their interpretations of it; or are we going to pull our heads out of our asses and learn what those who actually wrote and ratified the Constitution said it means?

I know; it’s a rhetorical question; most people will just go on taking the word of those who seek to control and enslave them. It is simply too much of me to ask that people actually try learn something that might lessen government’s control over their lives.

Almost immediately after the Constitution was adopted the government it established sought to expand its powers beyond those outlined by the document that had created it, and the powers those who ratified it were promised it would exercise on behalf of its creators. To paraphrase an argument between Thomas Jefferson, (who sought to retain a strict interpretation of the powers given government) and Alexander Hamilton, (who sought to expand the powers of government beyond those specifically enumerated), Hamilton told Jefferson that he must read between the lines to see the hidden, or implied, powers. Jefferson told Hamilton that he had read between the lines, and that all he found was empty space; meaning nothing.

Yet America, the people; the courts, and our elected representatives have sided with Hamilton; meaning the Constitution is not a law, fixed in stone, that sets firm limits as to the powers given government; and especially as it pertains to restrictions upon governments ability to legislate away, or infringe upon our unalienable rights. Furthermore, as the Supreme Court is the final arbiter in all things constitutional, the people must adhere to their interpretation of the Constitution.

Or do they? Can we not, as individuals, or at least as States, decide for ourselves whether the government is acting within its delegated authority, or whether it has crossed beyond is authorized power and usurped powers it was never intended it possess?

From 1798, once again quoting Jefferson, we read, “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.” (Source: Kentucky Resolutions)

The problem is that the judiciary, as final judge in all matters of a constitutional nature, has been allowed to decide for us what the Constitution says and what it means. Now that might not have been as large a problem as it is now had the judiciary been confined to the Supreme Court itself. However, one of the very first laws passed by Congress was the Judiciary Act of 1789 which basically rewrote Article III of the Constitution and established a system of federal courts within the States.

These District and Circuit Courts are all staffed with Justices who render decisions based upon their interpretation, or construction, of the meaning and intent of the Constitution. It is accurate to say that the decisions handed down by these courts can vary from State to State, making understanding what the Constitution actually means next to impossible; unless you have a firm understanding of what was said during the debates both for and against its adoption.

As much as I’ve grown to despise James Madison, he did say this, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.” I can guarantee you that government run, i.e. public schools, are not going to provide you with the knowledge that allows you to limit their powers, or retain your rights; you are going to have to get off your butt and learn these things for yourselves; as I have done.

Will you have trouble understanding some of these principles? Yes, at first; while your mind once again becomes accustomed to actually thinking instead of reciting the talking points spoon fed to you in school. But once you get the hang of it, things become much easier to understand, and your thirst for knowledge will become almost unquenchable.

One of the most comprehensive books I have in my possession regarding the relationship between the State and federal governments, and the nature of the federal government was written by a Supreme Court Justice in 1840 as a rebuttal to Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution. There is one passage in this book, written by Justice Abel Upshur, that is germane to my discussion on the judiciary being the ultimate decider in all matters of a constitutional nature. Justice Upshur writes, “It is admitted on all hands, that when the federal government transcends its constitutional power, and when of course it is not acting within its obligations, the parties to that government, whoever they may be, are no longer under any duty or respect to obey it.”

Whether we the people created our system of government, or whether the States, acting as sovereign political entities, created our system of government, we get to decide what it can and cannot do; and we get to decide for ourselves if the laws it enacts are in the true spirit and intent of the purpose for which all governments should exist-the preservation of the liberty of the people.

We get to decide that fact for ourselves, not 9 clowns in black robes calling themselves a SUPREME COURT.

Once you learn that ideal, the rest becomes easy…

On April 19, 1775 armed citizens rallied together and faced off against government agents near the towns of Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts, and shots were exchanged; sparking the American Revolution. This wasn’t a peaceful protest gone bad, it was a case of people picking up their privately owned guns and rushing out to defend their rights; particularly the arms and ammo they had stockpiled; arms that the government agents, (Redcoats), were intent upon seizing.

This ‘shot heard round the world’ is something that was taught when I was making my way through the public school system; but very little attention was given to the events that lead to the Colonists and British forces standing on opposite sides of Lexington Green on that fateful day. Yet that day, America was forever changed; for regardless of how the revolution may have turned out, the Colonists had fired shots at agents working on behalf of their government to impose its will upon them.

However, there is another instance in American History where shots were fired; shots that sparked another war, which forever altered America; and once again very little is taught regarding the events leading up to those shots being fired. Almost 86 years to the day after Lexington and Concord the Confederate States of America opened fire upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

No one really knows who fired that first shot at Lexington and Concord, yet history is very clear as to who fired the first shot that sparked the Civil War; or War of Northern Aggression as I like to call it. Yet if you were to be asked why the Civil War was fought, I’d be willing to bet that many would answer that it was fought to end slavery.

Let me ask you something. Where there any slaves at Fort Sumter; and if not, why did the South open fire upon it? There is a lot about this event that your history books don’t tell you, and to understand it all requires a bit of background.

During the American Revolution the 13 State governments had chosen to ratify the Articles of Confederation; placing them into a Union, or Confederation for their mutual assistance and security. Although these Articles of Confederation established a central Congress to represent them all, for all intents and purposes they States were still not politically tied to each other as an inseparable entity.

During the Revolution they had banded together with the unilateral signing of the Declaration of Independence; for they realized that divided they could not defeat the might of the British Army. Yet never did they consent to relinquishing their sovereignty and independence; a fact that was made perfectly clear in Article II of the Articles of Confederation, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”

It was by the sovereign will of the States that the Confederation came into existence, and any changes, or modifications to that Confederation could only be made by the will of those who had established it; the individual States. In 1789, even though it went against the specific instructions given the delegates to the Convention of 1787, the Constitution was ratified; replacing the Articles of Confederation as a charter for an American system of government. Yet, again, it was by the will of the States, (even though few within the States had any real say in the matter), that the Constitution was given life and our current system of government was born.

In both instances one must realize that there was a creation, and there were the creators; meaning there was an instrument created by those who had the sovereign authority to create a system of government and delegate it with whatever powers they deemed necessary for the overall welfare of all the parties involved.

There was a great deal of opposition to the proposed Constitution, (another thing that isn’t taught in school), and even when it was ratified there were 3 States that declared that they did so retaining the right to withdraw from the Union of States should the government they were consenting to become abusive or tyrannical. Those States were New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island.

Here is how New York worded their statement, “That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness.” Virginia’s statement was much lengthier, and says, “We the Delegates of the People of Virginia duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly and now met in Convention having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us to decide thereon Do in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.”

There are a few things about those statements you must understand if you are to understand the rest of what I need to tell you. The first thing is, if Virginia, New York and Rhode Island all said that the powers delegated to government could be resumed by the people should it become necessary to their happiness, then it was universally held that any State had the authority to revoke their consent to being governed by the entity established by the Constitution.

The second, and possibly more important, thing is that there was no mention made of any criteria which would justify their withdrawing from any union under the federal government; merely that it be felt that to remain under the authority and jurisdiction of the federal government was no longer beneficial to them.

So, when the States ratified the Constitution they were basically saying, “Listen, we consent to the establishing of this system of government but, should it ever do things which harm us in any way, we reserve the right to withdraw our consent and to resume our natural status as free and independent states.” In other words, they were reserving the right to secede.

Sixty years before the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter Thomas Jefferson was elected as the 3rd President of these States united. In his Inaugural Address Jefferson states, “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.”

What Jefferson was saying is, “Although they might be wrong in their reasons, foolish even, but if any State wants to dissolve the bonds that hold them to the Union, let them do so; I will not stand in their way and force them to remain in a Union they no longer want to be a part of.”

It took me a long time to wrap my head around this belief; that the States created our system of government, and that they retained the right to either dissolve the bonds that held them to it, or abolish it altogether if they could unanimously agree to do so. This is why I refuse to recite the pledge of allegiance; for it contains the words, “…one nation, under God, indivisible…”

We are not, or at least we weren’t, one single nation, indivisible; we were 13 independent States united together by our own consent, with a system of government delegated with certain powers to exercise on our behalf; and that when that system should prove to be oppressive we could simply issue a declaration stating our revocation of consent and resume our status as free of its authority.

The Civil War changed all that. What the Civil War did was establish the principle that an entity created by the States could tell its creators that they had no authority to dissolve its hold over them. In essence the Civil War changed the relationship between the States/people and the federal government. Prior to the Civil War the government was the servant and the States/people were the masters. After the Civil War those roles were reversed; the States/people became servants, subsidiary to, the federal government.

As the American Revolution officially began at Lexington and Concord, the Civil War could said to have started at Fort Sumter; although an argument could be made that it did not start until Union forces invaded the South to compel their allegiance to the Union. Regardless of when the Civil War officially began, a look at the timeline of events is necessary to understand that the South did not instigate it.

Having already established that a State could, at any time, revoke, or withdraw their consent to their membership in any Union, on December 20, 1860 South Carolina did exactly that; issuing its Declaration of Secession. As a sovereign State it did not need to explain, or justify its decision to withdraw from the Union; it only needed to believe that to remain in the Union was injurious to it, or would place them under the subjugation and oppression of others.

It is important that you understand that the States were not required to justify their secession; meaning it could be for any number of reasons that they might choose to do so. They could choose to secede because of continued attempts by Abolitionists in the North to abolish slavery, they could secede because of the oppressive tariffs that were draining them of their wealth, or they could simply say that they no longer liked being a part of the Union. It didn’t matter the reason; they retained the right at any time to withdraw from a Union they had voluntarily agreed to be a part of; and there wasn’t a damned thing the government could lawfully do to stop them!

Shortly after South Carolina issued its Declaration of Secession the States of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit and issued their own Declarations of Secession. By March of 1861 the Union was quickly dissolving, with 7 Southern States having seceded; even going so far as to ratify their own Constitution, establishing their own system of government.

You have to realize, the Civil War had not begun yet; all that had happened was that 7 States had peacefully withdrawn from the Union; establishing their own system of governance. Some of the newspapers in the North sought a peaceful coexistence with the newly established Confederacy; going so far as to praise their Constitution. For instance, the New York Herald published an editorial that stated, “The [Confederate] Constitution is the Constitution of the United States with various modifications and some very important and desirable improvements. We are free to say that the invaluable reforms enumerated should be adopted by the United States with or without [reunification with] the seceded States, and as soon as possible.” (My emphasis)

That editorial brings up two important points. The first is that it recognized that the States had, in fact, seceded, and it recognized that they had established their own system of government. In fact, it went so far as to say that the improvements they had made in their Constitution were so desirable that they ought to be adopted by the United States regardless of whether the South was ever reunified with the North. In essence, they were giving legitimization for the existence of the Confederate States of America as a sovereign and independent nation; free of the authority of the federal government of the Northern States.

As sovereign States everything that fell within their borders was free of federal control; meaning the federal government could not tax them; it could not enforce laws upon them; and most importantly, it had no claim to any land falling within their borders – which means Fort Sumter was no longer a possession of the United States government, it belonged to South Carolina.

As I’ve said, at this point there was no Civil War yet; just a dissolving of the bonds which held 7 States of the South to the Union. Whatever perverted reasoning led Lincoln to act the way he did, he felt that the South had no authority to withdraw from the Union; that the Union was established way before the Constitution, the States even, and that they had no authority to dissolve the bonds holding them to it.

Yet Lincoln realized that if he raised an army and invaded the Confederacy it would be seen as an act of war against a sovereign nation. Lincoln knew that for any invasion of the South to be morally justifiable it must come in response to an attack by the South upon the North; or its interests. This all boils down to the fact that Lincoln, somehow, needed to provoke the South into firing the first shot; thereby giving him ample justification for invading them. Fort Sumter was that excuse for a Northern invasion of the South; but the thing is, all we are taught about Fort Sumter is that the South opened fire upon it; we aren’t taught about the events leading up to it.

First and foremost, Fort Sumter was the property of South Carolina; as they were no longer a part of the Union. Therefore the North, and its system of government, had no authority to maintain a military fort upon their native soil. Yet the South did not demand that the federal troops at both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens leave, they merely stopped providing them with food and supplies; hoping that they would simply abandon the forts of their own volition.

More importantly though was the fact that any attempt by the North to resupply either of those two forts could be seen as an act of aggression; which is what Lincoln wanted. Lincoln wanted to force the South’s hand by sending more troops and supplies to forts he had no authority to maintain in the first place; causing the South to shoot first; giving him the excuse to start a war with them.

What we are taught in school is that, on April 12, 1861 South Carolina opened fire on Fort Sumter; igniting the Civil War. The remainder of this article will be devoted to filling in a few things that you weren’t taught in school.

As I’ve said, Lincoln needed an excuse to send troops into the South to compel their adherence to the Union, and the only justification that would be agreeable to Northerners would be if the South attacked them first. In a message to the Confederate Congress, President Jefferson Davis made it clear that he did not want hostilities between the Confederacy and the Union, only that the Confederacy be left alone, that “…those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms.” (April 29, 1861)

Although Davis spoke those words after the attack upon Fort Sumter, it had always been the hopes and desires that the Union would just allow the seceded Southern States to live in peace; but such was not to be the case; thanks to Abraham Lincoln.

Almost from the moment Lincoln took office he sought to find a way to use force against the South to compel their adherence to the Union; actually believing that they had never actually left; that they were only in rebellion against the authority of the federal government. The provoking of the South by the resupplying of Forts Sumter and Pickens was the provocation that Lincoln felt would best create the response he wanted; the first shot being fired by the South.

Various plans were discussed in Lincoln’s cabinet meetings with the ultimate goal of provoking a war against the seceded Southern States. Salmon P. Chase, who was Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, argued against provoking a war with the South, saying, “If the attempt will so inflame civil war as to involve an immediate necessity for the enlistment of armies and the expenditure of millions, I cannot advise it in the existing circumstances of the [Federation] and in the present condition of the [Federal] finances.” Chase was not saying he opposed war, only that the Union could scarcely afford to fund one.

At the same time Lincoln was plotting to instigate a war, the South was seeking to establish peace. In February Confederate President Jefferson Davis sent 3 men to Washington to discuss a means of diffusing the situation so as to avoid war. Abraham Lincoln refuse to meet with them. However, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, through intermediaries in the Supreme Court; Justices Samuel Nelson and John Campbell, kept reassuring the 3 peace commissioners that no attempts would be made to resupply or reinforce the troops stationed at both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. Yet the whole time Lincoln was plotting to do just that.

Even General Winfield Scott, of the Union Army, recommended a peaceful evacuation of Fort Sumter, proposing, “You will, after communicating your response to His Excellency, the Governor of South Carolina, engage suitable water transportation and peaceably evacuate Fort Sumter…” Yet Lincoln also disregarded that plan, continuing to plot to provoke an attack by the South upon the fort. While all this was going on William Seward continued to promise that the evacuation of Fort Sumter would begin soon.

On March 25th Senator Stephen Douglas, who had ran against Lincoln for the presidency, declared to Congress that unless the object was to subjugate the South, Fort Sumter should be abandoned, for it rightfully belonged to South Carolina.

While there were some in the North who favored a forceful reunification of the two segments of the Union, there were some who were in favor of recognizing the Confederation as a sovereign and independent nation. Among them was the editor of the Hartford Daily Courant, who wrote, “Public opinion in the [northern states] seems to be gradually settling down in favor of recognition of the new Confederacy by the Federal Government.” Lincoln ignored those sentiments as well and continued his attempts to instigate a war against the South.

By this time federal ships were already on their way to Fort Sumter, even though the Lincoln administration had repeatedly reassured the South that no attempts to resupply it would take place. The Davis administration had decided that enough lollygagging had gone on, and with federal ships on the way, decided to send a message to the federal troops at Fort Sumter demanding they evacuate.

When they refused, and with federal ships in Charleston Harbor, the batteries opened fire upon Fort Sumter at 4:30 a.m. – the Civil War had begun. The barrage of cannon fire upon Fort Sumter was terrifying to watch, yet it resulted in not one single casualty among the federal forces assigned there. It is interesting to note that the only death and injuries sustained by the federal forces came as a result of friendly fire. When the Confederate barrage upon Fort Sumter had ended, and the commander surrendered, the federal forces were given permission to fire their cannons in honor of the flag as they prepared for their evacuation. On the 50th firing of the cannons, one of them exploded, killing one and injuring 5 others.

Lincoln had gotten what he’d wanted, the South firing the first shots. It could very well be that the whole thing, the whole plot to provoke the South into firing first had come from one of Lincoln’s friends, Orville Browning, who had written Lincoln, stating, “In any conflict … between the [Federal] Government and the seceding States, it is very important that the [Secessionists] shall be [perceived as] the aggressors, and they be kept constantly and palpably [allegedly] in the wrong. The first attempt … to furnish supplies or reinforcements to Sumter will induce [a military response] by South Carolina, and then the [Federal] Government will stand justified, before the entire [Federation], in repelling that aggression, and retaking the forts.” Lincoln would later write his friend, “The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter – it fell, and thus did more service than it otherwise could.”

This is why an accurate and honest rendition of historical events is crucial if we are to understand the how and why of the events being discussed. If all we are taught is that this, this and this happened; without the why they happened, then our understanding of those events will be skewed; biased.

The Civil War could have been avoided. The loss of over 1/2 million lives could have been avoided; the destruction and devastation wrought upon the Southern economy and infrastructure could have been avoided, all if Lincoln had simply allowed the South to live in peace as a sovereign and independent nation. But Lincoln sought empire over peace; he sought to maintain federal authority over a people who no longer wanted to be under that federal authority. Lincoln chose war, and America has never been the same since.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We
didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for,
protected, and handed on to them to do the same.”
~Ronald Reagan~

If I were to ask you to name the one thing that you would risk your life defending, how would you answer? It is a serious question, so take a few moments and ponder it before answering.

Now some of you may have answered that your life is worth defending; or the lives of your family members. Some may have answered that their homes are worth defending, or maybe even their car or truck. Some may even have gone so far as to say their liberty is worth defending at all costs.

Now I’m not saying those are bad answers; your answer depends upon what is of importance to you. However, if you want my opinion, the single most importing thing to me is the ABILITY to defend all those other things. If you are defenseless then it becomes an easy task for someone who isn’t to deprive you of whatever you care about. So to me, that ability to defend what is rightfully mind is the one thing I will never surrender; which means my right to bear arms against any, and all, who would threaten all that I hold dear.

I want you to think about something, and think about it long and hard. What is the nature of government; by that I mean what is government in comparison to the people who it supposedly represents. Is government your master; something than hands down decrees that you are obligated to obey regardless of how egregious they are? And what about those, whose job is to enforce the laws that government enacts; are they superior to you; meaning you are obligated to obey their every command?

I think, and I truly believe this with all my heart, that there is this pervasive attitude about government in which people think that it should do things that somehow benefit them; even if doing so screws someone else out of their income or their rights. However, the best way to determine if what government is doing is wrong is to ask yourself if you would go to jail for trying to do what government does to someone else; another individual.

There is a book I wish every student in America would read; that book being The Law, by Frederic Bastiat. It’s not a long book; not by most standards; only being about 40 pages long, but it contains a great deal of information that might help people understand how bad, how evil their government, (at both the State and federal levels) has become.

I see this as clear as day, but I also see many who can’t see it due to the haze induced by a public education: Any government that seeks to expand the exercise of our unalienable rights and our liberty is good, while any government that seeks to limit or restrict those things, even in the slightest degree, is bad.

People seem to be of the opinion that government is superior to them; that it has unlimited and arbitrary powers, and can do whatever it, or a majority of the people, thinks is in the overall public interest. Yes, government was created by the people; or at least that is what we are taught; but it was not given a blank check as to the powers it could exercise on our behalf. Our government was delegated with certain specific powers; found in a written constitution; which when it exceeds its acts become criminal.

Not only does the Constitution outline the powers our government can lawfully exercise on our behalf, it places further restrictions upon its power to take any action that can violate, or infringe upon, certain unalienable rights. These rights, some of which are outlined in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, were not granted the moment the Bill of Rights was ratified; they were pre-existing and the Bill of Rights was only the effort of the creators of government to place restrictions upon government’s ability to violate them.

But the Bill of Rights is just a piece of paper; having no more ability to stop infringements upon those rights than the paper this article is written upon. It is up to each and every person living in this country to defend those rights against attack; something most people seem unwilling to do. All I hear from people is; follow the rules, pay your taxes, get the proper permits, pay the proper fees; obey, Obey, OBEY! All the while your rights are being infringed upon and taken away from you.

In that book I mentioned, The Law, Bastiat defines the law as, “… the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.” Now moments ago I mentioned that our rights pre-date the Bill of Rights; well let me prove that to you.

The Bill of Rights was written AFTER the Constitution was ratified. Yet almost 20 years before the Bill of Rights was written Samuel Adams wrote the following in a report for the Boston Town Meeting, “Among the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First. a Right to Life; Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can–Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature.”

The laws of man may change, but the laws of nature remain constant. So if the rights to Life, Liberty and Property, along with the right to defend them, existed in 1772, they still exist today; and if government, in any way, shape, or form, seeks to limit or restrict them, government no longer serves the purpose it was created for and should be opposed.

In 1943 Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote an opinion in the case of West Virginia Board of Education vs. Barnette in which he explained the nature of our rights; ALL OF THEM, “”The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

Therefore, if our rights pre-date the Bill of Rights, if they pre-date government, doesn’t it make sense that the purpose of government is to better secure those rights to us; not find ways in which to infringe upon and violate them? Doesn’t it make sense that if a government does not serve that purpose that it should not be supported; and that it, and those who enforce the laws which violate our rights are…TYRANTS?

Getting back to Bastiat’s book, he continues by saying, “Each of us has a natural right—from God—to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.”

Read that again, EACH OF US HAS A NATURAL RIGHT―FROM GOD―TO DEFEND HIS PERSON, HIS LIBERTY, AND HIS PROPERTY! What that means is, I can’t take those rights from you, and you can’t take them from me. This is why I asked you earlier to ask yourself if you would go to jail for trying to do what government does to someone else; another individual; for if government denies any of those rights to one group, simply because a much larger group does not like them, than the larger group is violating the rights of the smaller group; or minority.

Then Bastiat lays out the reason and authority by which government derives its power, “If every person has the right to defend—even by force—his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force—for the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.” (My emphasis)

Read that emphasized section again if you must, but plant it firmly in your minds. If each of us, as individuals, has the right to defend our life, our liberty, and our property; and if government acts solely as a body to exercise the collective right of all the individuals, it can only exercise the same power that we, as individuals had prior to government being instituted. Furthermore, if government oversteps that power and deprives a single person of their rights, government is no longer worthy of your support.

It doesn’t matter if it is a Republican controlled government, or a Democratic controlled government; if government as a body, an entity, denies your rights, it does not deserve your respect and support; let alone your obedience.

Oh, you think I’m wrong; that regardless of whether a law is unjust we must obey it? Well then, why did Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas state, “When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen’s constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.” (My emphasis, Dissenting opinion in Poulous v. New Hampshire, 1953)

Then of course there was this, delivered by Justice Potter Stewart in 1967, “The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it’s invalid on its face.” (Source: Walker v. Birmingham)

Then of course there is this, taken from 16 American Jurisprudence, 2d, Section 177, Sec 256, “The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:

The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since it’s unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.”

Then it goes on to say, “Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies not acts performed under it…

A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statue runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.

No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.”

Yet under the authority of these ‘unconstitutional laws’ offices have been created, and power given to demolish the rights and liberty that government was instituted to secure. I can think of a few federal agencies right off the top of my head whose sole purpose is to enforce unconstitutional laws; the DEA, the BATF, the FDA, the EPA, and the BLM; just to name a few.

Then of course there are all the subsidiary ‘law enforcement’ agencies who also participate in depriving us of our rights and liberty. Under what authority do they act if the laws they are enforcing are null and void from the get go; certainly not MY authority!

Then of course there is the court system itself, where the only law that matters is the law passed by those in power; not the Supreme Law of the land, and certainly not Natural Law. I tell you, it’s hard to obtain justice when those who write the law, those who enforce it, and those who uphold it from the bench, have no regard for fundamental, or Natural Law.

In 1785 James Madison, (as much as I’ve come to despise the man) wrote something you ought to consider, “The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be universally maintained but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them and are slaves.” (My emphasis, Source: A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785)

The only means by which our rights and our liberty can be preserved is if we know what those things are; what they entail, if we care that our lawmakers are doing things which infringe upon them, and if we care enough to rise up and oppose those who would deny us our rights and our liberty. We cannot vote to secure them; recent history surely has proven that to be true.

And the only means by which we can defend our rights and our liberty is if we are armed; and not just revolvers and single shot rifles either. We need to be sufficiently armed to pose a threat to those who would deny us our freedom; and now government, (at least in 13 States), is increasing its efforts to deny that right as well.

You may not care about that; your only concern might be keeping you and your family safe from the bad guys out roaming the streets seeking to do you and your family harm. Me, I care, for those bad guys on the streets are of far less concern to me than the bad guys roaming the halls of our State and federal governments. Those are the bad guys I worry about, and they want to take away my ability to defend myself against them?
Well, I’ve got but one thing to say to them; and to YOU if you support them in their efforts to take away my guns:

No matter who you are, there are two things that begin happening the day you are born. The first is that you begin the process of dying. Once you take your first breath you begin the inevitable journey that leads towards your eventual death; there’s no avoiding it. For some the process can take nearly 100 years, and for some it’s much quicker – but we all die eventually. The second thing that begins happening is we begin the process of learning things; and it is upon this subject that I would like to devote my thoughts to today.

Our ability to think, to reason, is what separates us from the beasts of the fields; and yet I sometimes wonder if the beasts aren’t smarter than a vast portion of society. We human beings are capable of amazing feats; we have invented machines that take us from one place to another in comfort and style; we have invented devices that allow us to communicate instantly with people on the other side of the planet; and we have produced musical and artistic masterpieces that take the breath away. Yet regardless of all we have accomplished as a species, we still commit acts of great evil against one another.

As I said though, from the moment we leave the womb we begin the process of learning things. At first they are merely the recording of sensations; sound, colors, hunger, comfort, and sometimes pain. Eventually we move on to higher functions, such as learning to stand, and then, to walk. We also learn how to speak by listening to the words spoken to us by our parents and assigning those words to objects; such as mommy, daddy, cat, food. However, unless our parents teach us the alphabet prior to our entering school, our communication is limited to vocal interaction; it takes someone to teach us how to read and write.

Almost everything we have learned in our lives began with the simplest of things. I mean, c’mon, you wouldn’t plunk War and Peace, or The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire in front of a kindergartener and expect them to read it; let alone make sense of it, would you? Of course not, you would start at the beginning by teaching them the alphabet. After they had learned their A, B, C’s you’d move on to forming words, then sentences, then paragraphs; and only then would you hope that they’d be ready to tackle a full length book.

It’s the same with math; you wouldn’t try teaching a kindergartener calculus would you? No, you start with numbers, then simple addition and subtraction, then you’d move on to multiplication and division; fractions, and then possibly algebra and geometry or calculus.

The thing about it is though, is that each skill we learn has to have a solid foundation upon which to build upon. You couldn’t expect someone to do well in a Creative Writing class if they had been taught to spell cat RFX, would you? You wouldn’t expect someone to become a math major in college if they had been taught that 2 + 2 = 19, would you? So the process of learning is a process that consists of learning the basics, then building upon them with further knowledge; but it all depends upon the basics being accurate and truthful.

There’s something else about learning that many fail to realize; it never stops until we take our last breath. You may stop attending school, but you never stop learning new things. After you graduate you may take a job where you are taught new skills. Isn’t that learning? You also might travel to another State, or country, and learn something new about the people living there; isn’t that expanding your knowledge as well? So to think that the process of learning ends when you get your high school, or college diploma shows me how little you’ve actually learned about life; and sorry for the pun.

So far I’ve discussed the process of learning as it applies to math and reading and writing, but there is one other area, two actually, that I’d like to spend the remainder of my time discussing; history and civics. The ability to read and write, and perform simple day to day math calculations are essential for us in our lives; the study of history and civics aren’t. Yet they are of immense importance for they form the basis of our understanding of the country, and world, we live in, and our systems of government. So, as with math and English, if the foundation is not truthful, or accurate, then the opinions we form on those subjects will be faulty as well.

We trust the school system, our educators, to teach our children the truth; yet how can we know if they are doing a good job of it if we ourselves are ignorant of the truth? I, just like most others, am a product of the public school system; meaning I was taught the same curriculum as millions of others were during the time I made my way through the school system; ending when I got my high school diploma.

Although history and civics were at the very bottom of the list of things I felt was of any importance to me, I still felt I’d been taught all there was to know about them; at least enough to make me capable of holding a half-assed intelligent conversation on the subjects.
Boy, how wrong I was!!!

About the only thing the public school system got right was that certain events happened; either a constitution was written, or a civil war happened. However, they failed to teach my why these events happened, what happened when those events took place, and the consequences of those events happening. I have learned, over the course of the last 20 some odd years, that it isn’t that the events happened that is of importance, it is why those events happened, and the consequences of those events happening that is of much greater importance.

Sure, you may know that the Civil War took place, but do you know why it happened and how it fundamentally and irrevocably altered the relationship between the States and the federal government? You may know that a Constitution was written, but did you learn the motives of the men behind it, and how it put us on a course towards an arbitrary and despotic government? Where you taught anything at all about what your rights are, and where they come from?

No, you were probably taught that this is how things are, and that this is how you must act if you are to fit into society; be a good, law-abiding, productive member of society. In short, you were probably taught to obey the rules, follow orders, and to not rock the boat. If you ask me, that sounds like the indoctrination a slave would undergo, not the training of a mind to resist authority that poses a threat to their rights and liberty.

Just look at society today if you don’t believe me. We have people across the country that say they disagree with what our government does; the laws it passes and the taxes it imposes upon them. Yet do they resist the authority of those who enforce those laws upon them or do they drive around with stickers on their cars saying “Support Law Enforcement”? Do they refuse to file a 1040 every year, or do they meekly submit to having upwards of 40% of their income stolen from them by their government because they are afraid they might get audited or have their assets seized by agents of the IRS?

Yet year after year people go to the polls and cast their votes for candidates, thinking that their voice matters. If you ask me, voting is the most futile thing a free people can do when, regardless of who they vote for, government continues to deny their unalienable rights and confiscate their wealth to spend upon things government has no authority to do.

You see, it’s all part of the education, or indoctrination we have undergone at the hands of a system, (from the schools to the media) that teaches us we have to work within the system; that system being voting for people in a two party system. You know what I think about voting? I think voting is like me coming up to someone and saying, “Since you’re right handed I’m gonna let you punch me in the face with your left hand, because it isn’t going to hurt as much.” It doesn’t matter that I’m still getting punched in the face, I’m saying that I’ll stand there and take it because I got to make the choice between the lesser of two evils.

That’s what I think voting is like; your casting your vote for someone to place them into a system in which the damage they inflict upon your liberty, or your income, will be less severe than the guy from the other party. Pardon the language, but it’s fucking ridiculous thinking your vote matters!

Think about this people, if government truly did what it was supposed to do; which is very little actually, while at the same time leaving us free to live our lives as we choose, there would be no need for political parties. Why would you need a political party to tell you, “Hey buddy, I’m not gonna help you out in life, you’re free to make your own choices and deal with the consequences of those choices on your own.” Why would you need a Republican or a Democrat to tell you that?

The two party system exists because there are two differing ideologies as to how government can use the coercive power of lawmaking and law enforcing to tyrannize and oppress the people. Regardless of which party gains control of the machine, the machine still tyrannizes and oppresses you. Can’t you see that?

I did not learn this in school, I learned it because I chose to study history and civics. I chose to study the document that established our system of government. That was the foundation upon which I then built upon. I then studied what people thought about that document; The Federalist Papers and Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution. Those taught me what the supporters of the Constitution thought, but it was only half the story. I then began to study the writings of those who opposed the Constitution; and I began to see that many of the things they feared would happen have happened.

I began to question my faith and allegiance to a document that was so fatally flawed; one which produced a system of government that provided its creators no real means of fighting back against it when it exercised powers it wasn’t supposed to, and began infringing upon my rights and liberty.

Then, with a great deal of help and guidance from my friend Mike Gaddy, I began learning about who the men behind the Constitution were; what their goals were; the character and integrity of those we call the framers of the Constitution. This is an ongoing process, as I learn more almost daily about the men behind the curtain; those who put us on the pathway to where we are today.

But you see, none of this would have happened if I had remained content with what I’d been taught in school; I had to expand my knowledge beyond the bullshit the school system shoved down my throat; passing it off as an education, to get to where I am today. In short, I’ve progressed, evolved in my thinking – while the vast majority of the people I meet have remained stagnant; either not advancing in their knowledge, or worse, not caring.

For many years of my life I was as apathetic as are the people who care more about football and Reality TV than they do about politics. Then I grew and began to believe in the Republican Party; how only it could fix all the problems this country faced. Then I grew some more, and became more libertarian in my thinking; believing that the Libertarian Party was what was needed to make America great again.

But I didn’t stop there; now I’m a full-fledged anarchist; believing that the only solution is to kill the beast that is behind all our problems – government. I truly believe that the moment you mention anarchy people get into their minds scenes from movies like The Purge; where chaos and violence runs unchecked. That isn’t anarchy; that is chaos. Anarchy is defined as: absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual as a political ideal.

Simply stated anarchy is the perfect state of liberty where each individual is free to live their life without others telling them what to do. Yet liberty is not a state in which a person can infringe upon the rights of others. Thomas Jefferson described rightful liberty as, “… unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

Then Jefferson adds, “I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” And what is it that government does if it is not enact laws the deprive us of our liberty? So to me the answer is simple, to regain our liberty we must get rid of the system that seeks to deprive us of it – government.

However, for anarchy to succeed the people must be moral and virtuous; they must accept complete responsibility for their own lives, their own needs, and their own safety and security; and they must not be envious of others and seek to plunder their wealth.

Anarchy could succeed if people would just adhere to the Ten Commandments; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not covet. If we would just obey those anarchy could work. Anarchy does not mean that we should not help our neighbors, our friends and even complete strangers; it means we should be free to choose to do so, not mandated by law through confiscatory taxation.

Thomas Paine was right, society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; and in its worst state an intolerable one. I am at the point where government has become intolerable, and the only solution is to get rid of it. Voting won’t work, as the machine keeps chugging along no matter who gets elected. Our petitions to those we elect fall upon deaf ears, while our rights keep diminishing at an alarming rate.

The only answer is to rise up and tell them that they are not our master, they have no power other than that which we consent to; and by their past record, they have forfeited their right to act on our behalf and we have chosen to return to our natural state of being freemen.

It’s what the founders did in 1776…until James Madison and his cronies in Philadelphia came along and fucked everything up by writing that damned Constitution. That’s where it all began to go wrong, and it is only by undoing the damage done back then that we can have any hope of regaining our liberty.

Does that sound drastic, does it sound rash? Well, Patrick Henry once said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” But then again, when Henry saw the proposed Constitution, and the threat it posed for liberty, he said, “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.”

So you’ve got a choice America, remain in bondage to a system that cares nothing about your rights and your liberty, or rise up and throw off the chains that bind you.

If the words I have just spoken cause you discomfort, or frighten you, then I don’t know what to say other than you’re beyond hope; you’re too comfortable in your servitude for the truth to change your mind. But if what I’ve said causes you to pause and say, “Neal might be on to something here” than maybe liberty still has a chance. I suppose it all will boil down to the numbers; how many people fall on either side of the fence; willing slaves or freemen.

But I know that if men like Patrick Henry were alive today, they’d be asking: