Neal's Soapbox

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.” ~Edmund Burke~

“…or that people ignore the fact that the evil exists.” ~Neal Ross~

There are a great many things which bother me with people today, but at the very top of that long list is the fact that very few people are willing to consider any facts which may shatter the illusion that the government we have is benevolent and has their best interests in mind. When people align themselves behind political parties, or more specifically, agendas, they become blind to the atrocities committed by their party and government as an entity.

Take for instance the endless push to find some proof that the election of Donald Trump was the result of Russian interference in the election process itself. Those on the left who oppose Trump push this as their mantra while the news media gives the story credence by their endless reporting on it.

It’s funny that at the end of the day on 9/11 we knew more about who committed those terrorist acts than we do now after 6 months of investigating the Trump/Russia connection. Yet a great many people still continue to believe that some connection exists, and that Hillary lost the election to Trump due to Russian interference in our election process. I don’t know if these people are simply sore losers or if they are truly upset that the possibility exists that our election process was tampered with by outsiders.

I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate for just a minute and pretend that I believe that Russia somehow hacked into the DNC servers and released damaging info on Hillary to Wikileaks that caused her to lose to Trump.

So what! You heard me, so what. First of all, if the info was so damaging, then maybe the Clinton camp should have kept their affairs above board in case they became public knowledge. Secondly, even if the means by which this info was released to the public was illegal, does that negate the fact that it was so incriminating that it caused enough voters to switch over and vote for Trump? If someone were to break into your house and discover evidence that your spouse was cheating on you, who would you be upset with more, the person who broke into your home or your spouse for cheating on you?

Finally, and this is what really gets me, America itself is not innocent in regards to our involvement in the internal politics of other countries. How many times has the U.S. sought to topple dictators who were unfriendly towards our business interests, or who was considered a threat to national security. If the claim that the Russians stole the election from Hillary is true, at least Russia allowed Americans to vote; how many times have we ousted duly elected leaders from other countries, on invaded them to topple dictators?

Going back in history we have the CIA led coup which saw the duly elected Prime Minister of Iran ousted from office, to be replaced by a more U.S. friendly Shah; who went on to brutalize his own people during his time in office. We have the failed Bay of Pigs fiasco where the CIA sought to oust Cuban President Fidel Castro. There is the Second Gulf War which saw the U.S. led invasion result in the overthrow of the administration of Saddam Hussein. There was the invasion of Panama to oust Manuel Noriega; who at one time was once a staunch ally of the United States. There was the U.S. involvement in the Arab Spring movement which led to the death of Libyan President Moamar Gaddafi. Then there is the continued U.S. support for Syrian rebels seeking to oust President Assad.

These are probably just the tip of the iceberg as it pertains to U.S. meddling in the internal politics of OTHER countries. What is clear is that the hands of the United States are certainly not clean when it comes to interfering with the internal politics of other nations. Yet Americans cry foul when there is the hint of Russian involvement in OUR internal politics.

You want the definition for hypocrisy; that’s it right there. But I’m not done yet; in fact I’ve barely gotten started. I mentioned 9/11 a few moments ago, and I did so intentionally to tie into what I’m about to say.

I can make no claims as to who orchestrated the events that transpired on September 1, 2001. What I can claim is that I believe the official story to have been concocted to lead us into war in the Gulf and the Draconian Police State designed, not to keep us safe from terrorism, but to control us and diminish our rights.

Just as American political leaders knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor, leaders in our government knew that something was going to happen on 9/11, and they either allowed it to happen or they facilitated it to benefit themselves and/or certain special interests. The amount of evidence which supports the idea that those towers came down, not due to the planes that struck them, but by controlled demolition is too strong to deny the possibility that 9/11 was pre-planned and carried out to enrage the American people and garner support for the U.S. led war on terror.

Yet when I tell people this the first thing that happens is that they pull out the old tin foil hat conspiracy theorist label and pin it on me. Then they inevitably say that our government isn’t capable of that kind of evil.

Really… you honestly believe that?

Have you ever heard of Operation Northwoods? Of course you haven’t. Operation Northwoods was a plan proposed by the Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff in which CIA operatives were to commit acts of terrorism against both American civilians and U.S. military targets, and then blame them on Cuba to justify a U.S. led invasion to topple Fidel Castro.

Although the Kennedy administration rejected the plan, the fact that there existed people in positions of leadership within our government who would come up that kind of a false flag event prove that the idea has at least once crossed their minds. Who is to say that the events on 9/11 were not a similar event orchestrated by certain people within our government to garner support for everything from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of all these Draconian laws to fight terror?

Not enough to convince you? You still believe our government is not capable of committing such an evil act upon the people of this country. Let’s see what I can do to change your minds…

Ever hear of the Tuskegee Experiments? Between the years 1932-1972 the U.S. Department of Health conducted experiments on African-American men in Tuskegee Alabama to study the effects of syphilis on males. The men who underwent these studies were not told they had syphilis, nor were they given the cure when it was proven that penicillin would cure it. The subjects of these experiments were simply guinea pigs for the Dept. of Health. And in case you didn’t know, the Dept of Health is PART OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Have you ever heard of Operation Sea Spray? Once again, I doubt you have. Operation Sea Spray was an experiment conducted by the United States Navy in 1950 where Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii bacteria were sprayed over the city of San Francisco to see how it affected the people of San Francisco.

Later, in Senate hearings, the military admitted that it had conducted up to 239 open air tests of biological agents within the United States; subjecting untold numbers of Americans to pathogens. Yet people laugh at me when I suggest that our government is doing similar experiments now; experiments which people see with their own eyes every day in the form of chemtrails.

How about Operation Top Hat, ever hear of that one? Operation Top Hat was a 1953 exercise conducted by the United States Army in which unsuspecting soldiers were exposed to biological and chemical agents to test methods of decontamination.

But that’s not all our military has done in the name of science and experimentation. For years the military conducted scores of tests on the effects of radiation on human beings. Purposefully infected radioactive food was fed to mentally disabled children or conscientious objectors in the military; radioactive radium rods were inserted into the nasal passages of schoolchildren to monitor the effects; and radioactive particles were intentionally released over both U.S. and Canadian cities to study the effects of radiation on human beings.

In 1986, years after these experiments ended, the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a report which sums up what government had been doing; American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens.

The of course there was MK Ultra; certainly you’ve at least heard of that one…haven’t you? MK Ultra was a CIA run program to study mind control. It used many methods to achieve its goals; including hypnosis, sensory deprivation, as well as the administering to unwitting subjects of the drug LSD. The Mel Gibson movie Conspiracy Theory is based upon the MK Ultra program; yet people see it and think it is pure fiction.

Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke were similar CIA run programs which tested the use of drugs and other methods to conduct interrogations. Yet lest people forget, the CIA is also PART OF THE GOVERNMENT.

People focus on issues like universal health care, illegal immigration, gay rights, abortion and all other manner of ‘issues’ when considering who to vote for. They refuse to even peer into the dark side of our government; which is its belief that we are subjects and guinea pigs to be used, tested upon, and controlled to achieve its goals.

Yet I am laughed at because I believe our government is capable of orchestrating 9/11 to manipulate the sentiments of the American people to support its desire to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and further its goal of a massive police state where the rights of the people are further diminished.

History proves that our government is not only capable of committing atrocities, but that it is willing to do so if it furthers their goals. Why is it so hard to believe that it would use a false flag event such as 9/11 to do the same? If you cannot accept that 9/11 may have been staged then I suppose you believe that the Bay of Tonkin event actually happened according to official reports, that the USS Maine sunk according to the official reasons given, and that the U.S. was surprised by the attack upon Pearl Harbor.

I don’t know about you, but a government that uses its people as guinea pigs, and one which actively seeks to deprive us of our liberty is NOT one that I care to throw my support behind. A government which would do things like that cannot be called benevolent and kind; it can only be called evil. And it doesn’t matter who sits behind the Resolute Desk, government will continue to be evil until we have the courage to admit that this kind of evil exists, and then to stand up and fight against it.

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Coercion is defined as the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats; the use of power to impose one’s will on another. Rape, armed robbery, and blackmail are all scenarios in which a person may be coerced into doing something against their will. Yet those three things have something else in common as well; they are all crimes.

When one is coerced into doing something they would not normally choose to do, it is not so much the thing they are forced to do which makes coercion a crime; it is the loss of free will by the victim that makes any form of coercion such a heinous offense.

True, absolute freedom is defined by Locke as “…a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”

I understand that in establishing a form of government to govern over the people that those who are governed must surrender a bit of that freedom, or their sovereignty to use another word, for the government to be able to enforce the laws; that is a given. But the thing is that the government, especially one such as ours, can only exercise that power which is specifically granted it; anything beyond that is coercion.

Government can exercise power over those it governs by two means and two means only. In his book The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine states it thusly, “All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must either be delegated or assumed. There are no other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.” Our government derives its power through consent.

Before I go any further I need to explain what a fundamental principle is, as I believe that there are many out there who do not truly understand what fundamental principles are. A fundamental principle is a truth or basic principle upon which other truths and principles are built upon. As our government is one which was created by man, it is logical to conclude that there must be some underlying fundamental principles upon which its power and authority rest.

The first principle is that our government derives its power and authority from the consent of the people. This principle is found in the document which gave birth to the United States as we know it; the Declaration of Independence, “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Although it may have been drummed into your heads since you were children, we are not a democracy. A pure democracy is a form of governance where the people gather together to enact the laws which shall bind a political society. In a pure democracy all it takes for something to become law is a simple majority vote. We may elect our representatives by way of democratic elections, but even then the Electoral College buffers the effects of democracy on the election of our presidents.

What distinguishes us from a democracy is that we have elected representatives who enact laws on our behalf. Yet these representatives are not free to enact whatever laws they deem necessary; they are bound by certain laws which govern their actions. Were you to take the time to research these things you would find they describe, not a democracy, but a Republic; a system of government with elected representatives which are governed by the rule of law.

This law that governs the actions of our government is called a Constitution. Our Constitution is not a list of suggestions or recommendations it is a law which binds both our government, and those that government represents. Article 6 of the Constitution states, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

This fundamental principle was upheld by the Supreme Court as far back as 1866, “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.” (Source: Ex parte Milligan)

Yet the Court did not stop there. In their ruling they also stated, “No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of men than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.”

Our Founders realized that times change and that governments need to change with the times. Why else would they have included a means to amend the Constitution unless they realized that times change and that government needs to change with them as well? Yet there are two quotes that I need you to read, and understand, before I go another step further.

The first quote comes from George Washington’s Farewell Address to the Nation, “If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” (My emphasis)

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

This corruption of principles which Jefferson spoke of is what has led us to the government we have today; all our woes come from a lack of knowledge, or concern for the purpose for which our government was established. Had we stayed true to those principles we would not be in the mess we are today; it’s that simple.

Our government was established to be one of limited power and authority; with most of its influence to be felt by the States, not the people. Federalist 45, written by James Madison and published on January 26, 1788 states, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

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

Does that even remotely sound like the state of affairs in America today as it pertains to how much power and influence our government holds over our lives?

If our government was to be a limited government; and if the limits upon its powers are found within the Constitution; and if the Constitution is, in fact, the supreme Law of the Land; and if those we elect take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, what do you call them when they enact laws which go beyond the specific powers granted them? The word escapes me…oh, that’s right, criminals.

And what would you call a government that uses the threat of force or penalties for disobedience to the laws it passes which exceed the specific powers granted it? I don’t know about you, but our Founders would have called it tyrannical and oppressive; especially if any of the laws it passes violate any of our unalienable rights.

Next up on my list of questions is; what would you call those who enforce these unconstitutional laws upon the people; whether they be employees of the federal government such as agents of the BATF or FBI, or if they are local law enforcement? Again, I don’t know what you would call them, but I would call them tyrants; and I believe our Founders would have sided with me on that.

And finally, what would you call a people who submit to such laws without the slightest whimper of protest? What would you call a people who willingly surrender their most sacred rights for the promise of the protection doing so might provide? What do you call a people who allow a ‘supposedly’ limited government to micromanage their lives down to the minutest detail? What would you call a people who ignore the fundamental principles this country was founded upon and care more about which party gains control of this monster we call government?

It angers me beyond words how little concern people have for the very thing our government was instituted to protect; their liberty. Liberty is defined as: the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views; the power or scope to act as one pleases.

Liberty is not a gift granted us by a benevolent government; it is the reason for which our government was created. Liberty existed long before government did, and therefore government cannot diminish it without becoming oppressive.

Patrick Henry once said, “Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings-give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else…” Henry also stated, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Our Founders risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to secure that liberty for us, and what have we done if not squandered it and given it away for the false promise of security?

All people care about today is that their party, their candidate gets to control things; not the fundamental principles upon which our government was established. The limits imposed upon government by the Constitution are irrelevant to most people, as are the rights protected by the first ten amendments to the Constitution. All people care about is their agendas, their beliefs as to what their government should do for them.

It doesn’t matter how much evidence one provides which proves our government has expanded its power way beyond what it was intended it possess; people simply do not care. It does not matter that our government has become a tool to be used by special interests to force their will upon the people; be it the social justice programs enacted by our government or the passage of laws which benefit the banking, corporate and military industrial complex. All people care about is that government follows what they believe to be the true purpose for which it was established; not the purposes stated by the very people who created it.

Ignorance is used to describe a person who is lacking knowledge, or facts, regarding a particular subject. Then there is willful ignorance; when a person refuses to consider any facts which contradict existing beliefs. In either case there is a quote by Willem Hendrik von Loon which applies to all, “Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession – their ignorance.”

Regardless of why people choose to remain ignorant, there is a quote by Samuel Adams that I would like to address to them, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

Our Founders risked all that they had and all that they were to be free of a coercive government. Yet the people of America today willingly go to the polls and cast their votes for people to represent them in a government that is far worse than the one our Founders fought to free themselves from.
People today believe that just because they have so-called free and open elections that our system of government, no matter how corrupt that government itself may be, still could be repaired and America made great again.

Listen, and listen well; America will never become great again until the people who occupy it return to the fundamental principles upon which this once great nation was founded…NEVER! The sooner people get that through their thick skulls, the sooner we can go about the business of truly making America great again.

It does not matter who you choose to vote for to hold the various offices within our government if those you elect do not limit their acts to those specifically granted them by the Constitution, and seek to preserve our liberty at whatever cost. I they won’t do that it will be just as the Who sang in their 1971 song, Won’t Get Fooled Again, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Until that happens I’ll be right here, riding your asses and reminding you of how ignorant and foolish you are.

If the consequences weren’t so frightening, I’d almost find it humorous how people bicker over such trivial things like which party gains control of the Presidency or Congress while our government as an entity continues to spend us into a black hole of debt from which we will never escape from.

I doubt that many are aware that in 1929 when the stock market crashed, sending the United States into the Great Depression, the national debt was a mere $17 billion. In comparison the Gross Domestic Product at that time was just over $1 trillion. Since then the debt accumulated by our government has steadily increased to where it now sits at $19.96 trillion, while our Gross Domestic Product lags behind our debt at $19.12 trillion. So, in essence our government owes more than the entire country produces in a single year; and the disparity between the two numbers keeps getting wider and wider no matter who sits in the Oval Office.

Our government was established to provide for the general welfare of the country, yet today we allocate billions of dollars in the federal budget for foreign assistance to hundreds of other countries. According to a March 10, 2016 article in Forbes Magazine, in 2016 the federal government pledged $37.9 billion in foreign aid, and that number jumped up to $42.3 billion after Trump took office.

How does our government justify spending billions of taxpayer dollars to all these countries? You know, if you took all that foreign aid and divided it equally among the 320 plus million people living in America at this moment it would come out to close to $14 million per person. Although the percentage of our budget that foreign aid accounts for is miniscule in comparison to how much our government spends on the defense budget or Medicare, it still adds up; and to make matters worse is the fact that our government has absolutely no authority to spend one penny of taxpayer dollars in assistance to any foreign country. You see, our government was not created to give aid to anyone, let alone a foreign country that it does not represent.

And do you want to know who gets a pretty hefty chunk of all that foreign aid? Well, it’s our good friends over in Tel Aviv, Israel; who get $3.1 billion annually. Although I am against the idea of sending one red cent of U.S. funds to any country, Israel is up towards, if not at the very top of my list of countries that should not get a penny from us.

Uh oh, Neal just crossed over into dangerous territory and is spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric. But let me explain why I say this before you completely slam the door on anything else I have to say. I have nothing at all against the Jews; it is Zionism that I have a beef with, and Israel is first and foremost a Zionist State.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that there are a great many Jews, many of whom are religious leaders within their communities that oppose the existence of the Zionist State we know as Israel. Yet we rarely hear of them because it would take the wind out of the sails of any cry of anti-Semitism if we began seeing Jews condemning the establishment of the State of Israel. After all, how could you possibly call a Jew who opposes the State of Israel anti-Semitic?

One of these Jews who oppose the Zionist State of Israel is Rabbi Dovid Weiss, who in a speech he once gave, stated, “Thus, when Jews viewed the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem and subsequent exile among the nations, they saw it through the eyes of the Torah and the prophets. That vision was a clear one. The people had sinned and, thus, forfeited their claim to the land. Their exile was a punishment. Only G-d Himself could end the exile. He would do so when the people’s sins were expiated and they had learned the lesson of total obedience to G-d.” (My emphasis)

Rabbi Weiss goes on to say, “In fact, the Talmudic Sages foretold, on the basis of various sources in the Prophetic books, that an attempt to effect a premature ending of exile, would result in untold bloodshed and suffering.” Doesn’t that sound exactly like what has been going on every since the State of Israel was created in 1948?

Prior to 1948 you could not find the State of Israel on any map; it simply did not exist. What did exist is the nation of Palestine. Israel came into existence because the Zionists wanted a place for the Jewish people to live, a place to call home. I have already explained what the Jews who adhere to Judaism believe in regards to them being allowed to establish a home in the region their ancestors called the Promised Land; so how did Israel come into existence?

Zionism, simply stated, is a political and military entity which seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine; circumventing the will of God as those who oppose Zionism believe; such as Rabbi Weiss. This idea of establishing a home for the Jews was first introduced in a meeting in Basle, Switzerland as far back as 1897, where the First Zionist Congress declared, “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.”

Going back through the pages of history one finds that the entire region the Jews once called home had been conquered and re-conquered; and the people who lived there subject to foreign rule. During the time of Christ’s ministry the Romans held control of Judea. During the period leading up to World War I the Ottoman Empire maintained control of the region.

Just because the Jews had been exiled from their homeland did not mean that they had not flourished and achieved success and riches in their adopted homes. One family in particular had achieved massive wealth; the Rothschilds. The Rothschild family descended from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a Jew who lived in Frankfurt Germany who went on to establish a huge banking empire he later passed on to his sons.

Each of Mayer Rothschild’s sons went on to establish huge banking houses in France, England, Italy, and Austria; and each of his sons were devout Zionists.

When World War 1 began it offered the perfect opportunity for the Rothschilds, and all those who believed in the Zionist movement, to displace the Ottoman Empire and establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. The only problem is that for that to occur the Allies would need to win the war, which wasn’t happening with the status quo of forces allied against the Germans.

You see, the United States had not yet entered the war. In fact, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected to the presidency under the campaign slogan, “He kept us out of war.” America, for the most part had no desire to become involved in a foreign war; and without our involvement it seemed likely that the Allies might possibly lose to the Germans.

So, behind the scenes in Britain an agreement was made between the British Foreign Secretary, James Balfour, and the banking mogul and devout Zionist, Lord Walter Rothschild; if Rothschild could get the Americans to enter the war on the side of the Allies the British would issue a declaration establishing a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.

Well we all know that the U.S. did, in fact, enter World War I; but how many know of the Balfour Declaration; which was Britain keeping its promise to Lord Rothschild? The Balfour Declaration is a letter from Britain’s foreign secretary to Lord Rothschild which states, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Prominent Zionist Chaim Weizmann once said about the Zionist intent, “There is a British proverb about the camel and the tent. … At first the camel sticks one leg into the tent, and eventually it slips into it. This must be our policy.” The Zionists did not seek to live side by side peacefully with those who were already living in Palestine; they sought to take the land all for themselves by any means necessary; but first they had to get their foot in the door; or the camel needed to first get its leg in the tent as the British proverb goes. The official recognition of Israel as a State was all the opening they needed.

Going back a moment to the point before the U.S. entered WW I on the side of the British, it has been said that President Wilson was pressured by outside sources to enter the war on the side of the Brits. Among those attempting to influence Wilson’s decision were Bernard Baruch, Jacob Schiff, Paul Warburg, and even Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis; all who happened to either be Zionists themselves, or supported the Zionist movement. Which now leads me to my next topic; the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Just as Americans were weary of entering a foreign war, they were also weary of the idea of another central bank in America. Yet going back to the 1800’s, James Madison once said that, “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.” The bankers fought tooth and nail against President Andrew Jackson when he sought to let their charter to control America’s monetary supply expire, and they were not about to give up just because they had lost control of it again.

In 1910 a group of men, most of whom were affiliated with either Rothschild owned banks, gathered together on an island off the coast of Georgia to produce the plan which would lead to the establishment of another central bank in America. This Creature from Jekyll Island as it is often called, became the Federal Reserve Act.

The Federal Reserve is about as federal as Federal Express; it may be headed by an appointee of the President, but it is a privately owned and privately run bank. And what is the purpose of banks? Why, to make profits derived from the money they lend out to others. And who borrows the most money? Certainly it is not the average person who takes out a home or auto loan. Neither is it the big corporations who take out loans to expand their businesses. It is government that borrows money on the scale that makes the bankers rich and gives them power.

Politicians are nothing without the money to fund the government and the programs they institute and the wars they start. Take away their money and they have no power. Give them a blank check however, or an open line of credit and they have all the power in the world.

Don’t you find it just a tad fishy that just about the same time the Federal Reserve Act was passed that the Constitution was amended, giving government the power to directly tax your income? They are not going to come out and tell you this, but that was done to provide collateral upon any debt that they might incur.

Bankers do not care what laws the government passes which directly affect the lives of the people; all they care is that the interest payments are made and their profits continue to grow. They control governments by controlling the money which governments need to operate. They use money to buy influence and power for their friends and associates; i.e. lobbyists. They ensure that laws are passed which benefit people of like minds and agendas; such as the relationship between Big Pharma and the Food and Drug Administration.

They are the shadow government and we are but slaves on their plantation; working to keep the money flowing into their coffers. All these trivial things which keep us divided are purposefully kept at the forefront so that we will not seek out the truth about their crimes. The media is owned and operated by these people and we get only the news they want us to hear.

This was affirmed by Congressman Oscar Calloway way back in 1917, just years after the passage of the Federal Reserve Act and the institution of an income tax, “In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States, and a sufficient number of them, to control generally the policy of the daily press….They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers.

An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper, to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature, considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.”

And all this is also why the U.S. stands behind Israel. The Zionists control our monetary system, and therefore if the U.S. refuses to stand behind Israel they simply threaten to raise interest rates and stifle economic growth, or reduce the flow of new money into the economy; which is the only thing keeping our economy afloat right now.

It’s all tied together in a complex web of deceit and betrayal by those we trust to govern on our behalf, and powerful men seeking control of, not only America, but the entire planet. They do not care what laws governments impose upon the people they govern, as long as they control the money supply of the countries themselves.

Just look at how they went after Gaddafi after he announced a plan to sell Libyan oil using gold backed currency instead of U.S. petro-dollars. It would have devastated the hold the bankers have on the monetary supply of many countries; especially had that idea caught on among all the other oil producing nations of the world.

Let us not forget what James Madison said, “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.” (My emphasis)

Sir Josiah Stamp, who once served as director of the Bank of England, once said, “Bankers own the earth. Take if from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back.” And who owns these banks? Predominantly they are owned or affiliated with the Zionist Rothschild mega banking houses of London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, all the major lending houses in the U.S. have ties to, or are owned and controlled by Rothschild owned banks.

We may have the freedom to move about within the country, to pick and choose where to live, what to drive, what clothes to wear, what to eat, and what to do to keep ourselves entertained, but make no mistake about it, we are slaves to the debt our government incurs to keep itself running; and that debt now stands at $61,346 for every man, woman and child living in America right now.

What makes matters even worse is that the people of this country also remain ignorant as it pertains to the extent to which their rights are being stripped away from them. What differentiates a free man from a slave is the ability of a free man to enjoy all their rights, along with all the fruits of their labor, (i.e. their income.) Take away those two things and you may as well be wearing shackles.

But that’s okay, y’all keep worrying about whether O.J. is gonna get parole, what the Kardashians are doing, who is going to win on Dancing with the Stars or America’s Got Talent, what is trending on Facebook, or who your favorite NFL team is gonna draft…all is well in America.

Yeah, go ahead and keep on believing that; after all president after president continue to reassure you that the state of our Union is STRONG. Like they would tell you the truth…

It is said that famed automaker Henry Ford once said, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

Freedom is not just about being free to exercise all your rights, it is also being free of the shackles which bind us to debt. And in that regard Americans are anything but free. Thomas Jefferson once declared “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.” He also said that he believe banking institutions to be more dangerous to liberty than a standing army. I wonder what he’d say about America now; seeing as how we have both and neither of them serve the public good.

Sometime in 2011 my friend, Jeffrey Bennett, suggested I compile four or five articles from each of the subjects I had been writing upon and submit them to him for publication in book form. The result of this project was my first book, Ross Unmasked: An Angry American Speaks Out. When I finally held a finished copy of the book in my hands I was proud of the fact that I had finally become a published author. Now, five years after publication, I look back and find the title a bit misleading as I was not truly angry at the time it was published. However, that was then and this is now; and let me tell you, anger doesn’t come close to describing how I often feel.

The subject matter I write about is not that difficult to understand; at least not if you graduated from high school with a certain degree of literacy. The hard part, at least for me anyway, was in accepting what I was reading when it conflicted with what I had been taught. After all, what good is knowledge if one does not put it to use? If one encounters facts which contradict with their existing beliefs they have but two choices; they can either change their existing beliefs to conform to the facts they have learned, or they can reject the facts they have learned and go on believing falsehoods.

Our government was established to perform certain tasks on behalf of those it represented; the people and the States. Anything they did which went beyond those specifically enumerated powers found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution was usurpation, and was to be avoided at all costs.
I now provide for your edification Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution in its entirety:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Those are the things our government can do and still remain within its just authority; anything beyond those specific powers is considered unconstitutional until the Constitution is properly amended to give it the authority to do other things.

This simple principle is based not upon my thoughts and beliefs, but the beliefs of the very first man to serve as President of the United States; George Washington. In his Farewell Address Washington warned, “If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” (My emphasis)

Although he personally disliked the title, James Madison is considered by many to be the Father of our Constitution. Wouldn’t it be prudent to learn what he had to say about the powers given our federal government by the Constitution?

In Federalist 45, written in 1788, Madison states, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

It would seem, after reading that, that the laws which were to be passed by the federal government were primarily designed to act upon the States and affect the interaction between them, while the States themselves were responsible for enacting laws which directly affected the lives, liberties and properties of the people.

But then I can almost hear the responses, “But Neal, isn’t the government supposed to enact laws for the general welfare?” Well, let’s examine that claim for a moment. At first glance the phrase general welfare seems to imply a wide range of power and authority to do things on behalf of the people; but is that truly the case?

Again, turning to Madison, here are three quotes which prove that this belief is not, in fact, the case:

-If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. (Source: Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792)

-With respect to the two words “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. (Source: Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831)

-If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress… Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America. (Source: Speech to House of Representatives, February 3, 1792)

It would seem that your beliefs regarding the powers held by government to provide for the general welfare are based upon faulty information. Just like Morpheus gives Neo the choice between the red or the blue pill, I’m giving you the choice to either accept the facts or reject them.

But there is one other thing I have refrained from discussing up to this point; the fact that there are certain things our government is strictly prohibited from doing. While the Constitution itself mentions a few things, such as the fact that Congress cannot pass an ex post facto law; pass bills of attainder, or suspend the writ of habeas corpus, these are not the things I’m thinking of. I’m referring to the fact that there are certain unalienable rights that our federal government simply cannot touch without their actions becoming unconstitutional.

At the time our Constitution was being argued over among the States there was a certain amount of resistance to its ratification based upon the fact that many believed it did not go far enough towards protecting the rights of the people. Therefore, to calm any fears it was promised that if they would just accept the Constitution a Bill of Rights would be passed and added to it.

It took a couple years, but on December 15, 1791 the Bill of Rights was formally ratified by a sufficient number of States and became part of our Constitution; therefore the Supreme Law of the Land by which our representatives are sworn by oath to defend.

I’d be willing to bet that 9 out of 10 people couldn’t name more than 4 or 5 of the rights the Bill of Rights protects. I’d also be willing to bet that if we did not have a Bill of Rights, and one was introduced today for ratification, it would not pass because the general public has no concern for things such as the freedom of speech; the right to keep and bear arms, or the right to privacy and unreasonable searches and seizures.

Nonetheless, the fact remains we do have a Bill of Rights and it is part of our Constitution; which means that if our government passes any law which violates ANY of the rights protected by those ten amendments to the Constitution, its actions become unconstitutional.

Therefore when evaluating which candidate to vote for, or which piece of legislation to support or oppose, it should be simple enough to compare what the Constitution allows and what is being proposed. If the two don’t match up the Constitution should take precedence. The same goes for the Bill of Rights; if what a candidate, or bill proposes violates, in the slightest degree, any of the rights protected by the Bill of Rights, then it should be opposed.

But is that what happens? Of course it isn’t, otherwise we would not have the NSA spying on us; all these laws restricting our right to own firearms; Universal Health Care, and all other manner of laws which violate both the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

When I first began writing all those years ago I thought that by sharing the things I was learning I could cause others to see the truth that they had been denied learning in school, and that they would therefore change their way of thinking towards government and what they expect out of it.
WHAT A FOOL I WAS!

I’m not saying there aren’t people who do not care, but they are but a small percentage of the total population in this country. I first began this article by saying I wasn’t angry when my first book was published, but I am now. I am angry at the people who choose ignorance over education. I am angry at those who reject the truth when it is presented to them. I am angry at those who accept that what I say is true, but do not alter the way in which they vote because they still believe in the two party paradigm. But most of all I am angry at myself for being stupid enough to think that I could get people to care. And that’s what it all boils down to, most people just don’t care about the things I write about.

For nearly two decades I have been at this, writing close to two-thousand articles and two books. And what have I accomplished other than neglecting my family? Therefore, although I will still write from time to time, I am going to stop wasting my time on a bunch of ignorant, apathetic, and hypocritical sheep who do not care that damned near everything their government does now violates either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

The information I have tried to share with y’all is out there; if I can find it so can you. But you can forget about me spoon feeding it to you from now on; it’s time you got off your asses and did some work searching for it yourselves. I’ve got better things to do than to waste another moment of my time researching and writing for people who simply do not care.

And now you know why I wasn’t angry then, but I am now.

Last night I did something I rarely do these days; I sat down and watched an hour of the evening news. During that hour the local news ran a story about how the House Republicans have postponed a vote on President Trump’s healthcare bill due to the fact that Senator John McCain is out for surgery, and they need all the votes they can get if they want this bill to pass.

During the story the seed for this article was planted when the news showed a woman standing on a stage saying, “How dare the Republicans try to take away health care from millions of people.” So many thoughts ran through my head in the seconds that followed that statement that I could write a treatise based on them alone.

Fortunately for you I want to keep my thoughts focused on one primary subject; this idea of entitlement to things people in America have today.

Every single belief a person holds is either taught to them or the result of things they have experienced over the course of their life. Therefore, if people believe that they are entitled to things, that belief was either taught to them, or they grew up having things given to them without ever having to work for them.

I remember growing up as a kid my dad always telling me that you had to work in life to obtain things. Sure, my parents would give me presents on my birthday and on Christmas, but anything else I wanted I had to go out and work for, save money for. I cut lawns, I washed dishes in a family run restaurant, I made pizza’s at Shakey’s, I stocked books at the Public Library, and I shoveled asphalt out of a hopper attached to the back of a dump truck in 115 degree weather. But, to quote John Mellancamp, “I earned every dollar that passed through these hands.” (Source: Minutes to Memories)

My first car was a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle with rust holes in the floor boards and a peeling paint job, but by God it was mine and I was proud of the fact that I had worked and saved for it. I drove that car everywhere with my head held high; even taking it on long road trips to the Bay Area to see concerts in San Francisco and Oakland. I had worked for the ability to have wheels that could take me away from the dismal life in Oroville, California, and I wasn’t about to let a few rust holes and loose running boards deny me the pride of having my own car.

But that’s the way I grew up; nothing was handed to me on a silver platter; I had to work for whatever I wanted. My dad used to also say something that has stuck with me over the course of my years, “If you’re gonna work for someone give them an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.” That has always stuck with me in whatever job I have held. I may not have been the best employee at some of those jobs, but I’ve always given it my personal best.

I recall a rough period of my life when my father lost his job and my mother had to leave her role as homemaker and become the breadwinner for the family; how it devastated my father. Yet during all those years of lean times my father refused to seek assistance from any of the programs which were available to him; he simply had too much pride to take handouts, as he called them.

Although my father and I butted heads frequently, and our last parting words were spoken in anger, the ethics that he pounded into my head over the years formed me into the man I am today; and were he alive today I would thank him for it.

You see, I was taught to be self-reliant, to put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, and that life isn’t always easy, but to pick yourself up when you’re down and keep pushing forward through whatever life throws at you.

But there’s one other thing my father taught me that I haven’t spoken about yet; the fact that when a person sees something wrong they should stand up and speak out about it. I recall countless times hearing the clickety clack of my father’s old manual typewriter as he pounded away with letters to the editor, or letters to his elected representatives about the issues that were of concern to him.

Even though we parted ways due to his prejudice against my Filipina wife, when she first arrived in the States after the evacuation of Mount Pinatubo he was so upset over how the military handled the evacuation of all spouses that he called the local paper; who then came out and interviewed my wife. Her story was front page news and that was all due to the fact that my father saw an injustice and spoke out about it.

When I look in the mirror I see Neal Ross, but deep down I’m more like Donald Ross than I often care to admit.

I grew up in different times I suppose; back when America still held its head high and was a place of great opportunity. Sure there was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Watergate which cast a shadow over our land. Sure the Vietnam Conflict was raging and sought to tear this country in two, but Americans, for the most part, still held to certain traditional values and beliefs.

I can’t say that anymore about this country. Everywhere I go, everyone I talk to, I hear this nonsense that government needs to pass this law or that to do this or do that for the people. It seems that no one today wants to accept responsibility for their actions or their lives; they want some sort of government safety net in case they run into hard times or fail to achieve riches or success.

That isn’t the America I grew up in, and I don’t believe it was the America our Founders had envisioned when they rose up and took up arms against their oppressors.

This sickness that is the entitlement mentality permeates America today. I see it in the laws people demand our government pass to create programs to help them, I see it in my place of employment where people do the bare minimum so as not to get fired; and then complain when they are expected to do what the job actually entails. I see it EVERYWHERE and it makes me sick to my stomach!

There is a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, which I have used before by the way, which fits in nicely to my beliefs and values, “If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.”

The America that I grew up in was not a country where it was considered the obligation, the responsibility of the working class to have a portion of their pay withheld and then given to those who refused to work, or could not work. This concept grew into what it is now during MY lifetime, and I blame the people of this country for allowing it to become this politically correct rubbish that it has become today.

The minute anyone begins talking about cutting back on these programs which redistribute wealth they fact harsh criticism and are told they are heartless and uncaring. In 1766, ten years before our Declaration of Independence was even a thought in the minds of our Founders, Ben Franklin wrote an article entitled, On the Price of Corn and the Management of the Poor. In it Franklin states, “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. … In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.”

Today’s answer to all our problems; be it the woeful state of our educational system, or poverty, is to throw more money at the problem and hope it will go away. How well has that worked out for us? Our schools still suck, and there are still many living in poverty. To top it all off our national debt is pushing steadily towards the $20 trillion mark.

But don’t worry ole Uncle Sam’s got everything under control. (And if you didn’t recognize it, that was sarcasm.)

You know, Einstein once said something that aptly fits in to what I’m trying to say, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Einstein also supposedly said that the definition for insanity was doing the same thing time and time again but expecting different results.

Donald Trump campaigned on the slogan Make America Great Again. What made America great was that it was a land where people were left to their own wits to achieve success, not one where they came here and were given everything they needed to survive.

Everything we do these days is done to ease the symptoms of the problem, not remove the cause of the problem. Take this health care issue for instance. Why is health care so costly these days? Our answer is to make health insurance available for all at the cost of higher premiums for those who can afford it. Why don’t we address why it costs so much more for basic medical treatment now than it did 50 years ago? Why don’t we address why it costs people hundreds of dollars, often thousands, for treatment that is obtained for much less both North and South of our borders? Why does the FDA, (which happens to be part of the government by the way) refuse to allow treatment by homeopathic means; instead declaring that only drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies can cure disease?

You may not want to believe this, but it is all about control. If you provide a service for the people they are less likely to take offense at the fact that you are depriving them of certain rights. The old saying you don’t bite the hand that feeds you comes to mind.

America was founded upon the concept of individual freedom, and you aren’t truly free if you are dependent upon someone else for your survival. It’s that simple. The more they provide for you, the more they control you. This goes for the money you get to buy your groceries, the subsidies you get for your homes or your children’s educations; and for the protection provided by law enforcement to keep you safe. Take away your self reliance and what have you got; a land of slaves dependent upon government for a portion, if not all their needs.

In closing I would like to leave you with a couple lines from a song written by the rock band RUSH, entitled Something for Nothing, “You don’t get something for nothing
You can’t have freedom for free.”

Nothing in this life is free; if you’re getting something without having earned it, the chances are it was paid for by the theft of money from those who DID work for it. Also, freedom does not come without a cost. Just one look at Arlington National Cemetery will confirm that.

Our country was birthed by men who cherished freedom so much that they were willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for it. What are you willing to sacrifice to get the freedom we have lost back?

“Words offer the means to meaning and for those
who will listen, the enunciation of truth.”
(Alan Moore)

No truer words were ever written than those above, taken from the graphic novel and film of the same name, V For Vendetta. If you were asked to describe something as simple as an orange to someone, but then told that you could not use words, how would you go about describing it? Words are the means by which individuals communicate with each other. Therefore the larger your vocabulary; the better your understanding of the use of grammar, then the better you are able to express your ideas to others. The reverse is also true, if your vocabulary is limited, or if you do not understand the proper use of grammar, you will have a difficult time understanding the meaning of the person trying to get their point across.

But what good are words if people do not listen to them? The key in open communication between people, or groups, is that both sides listen to what the other is saying; putting aside their personal prejudices and beliefs, and considering whatever facts may be presented.

The ultimate goal in any means of communication should, therefore be, the truth. But what is the truth? Is it your truth, my truth, someone else’s truth? The truth, simply stated, is defined as that which is accordance with reality; which leads me to my next point.

Words can lead us to the truth but they can also be used to obfuscate and manipulate; in essence, to keep the truth hidden. If one is willing to only hear one side of a story then how can one expect to come to the truth? If one rejects ideas they disagree with, even though they are supported by insurmountable evidence, then how can that person honestly say that they seek the truth?

The truth is not always easy to find, or identify once found; it takes a certain amount of effort; of thought and evaluation of facts before one can say that they have found the truth. I have found that people are fundamentally lazy; and this is even more so when it comes to reading dry old documents written hundreds of years ago. Yet how can one expect to come to the truth about why our system of government was established if they do not go to the source; or the horse’s mouth so to speak?

Are people today so naive that they believe that those they elect are going to come out and directly say that their intent is to deprive the people of this country of their God-given rights? Of course they won’t say that; they will obfuscate the truth by telling us that the laws they pass are in our best interests, or they will cloak their true intentions under the banner of national security. No one wants to be called unpatriotic, and yet that’s exactly what happens when one stands up and questions the actions of our government when they tell us we must sacrifice a few of our rights to keep us safe from whatever it is they tell us these new laws are supposed to protect us from.

If I were to call someone ignorant they would most likely take great offense at it. Yet according to the dictionary ignorance is simply the lack of knowledge. How can anyone claim not to be ignorant about the reasons for which our government was established if they have never taken the time to read our Constitution and Bill of Rights? How can possibly say that they are informed when they have never read the Federalist and anti-Federalist Papers; Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution, or any of the notes on the various ratification assemblies which argued whether to accept or reject our Constitution?

If you do not know why our government was established then how can you honestly say that when you vote for a particular candidate you are making a truly informed decision? Sure, you may be evaluating the differences between whoever the Republicans or Democrats nominate, but is that truly comparing the candidates against what the Constitution says are the powers given the office they seek?

If you have never read any of the abovementioned documents, you are probably, by definition, ignorant. It is not an insult, it is a statement of fact; unless of course your ignorance is willful on your part, then it becomes something entirely different; it becomes stupidity.

I know what the dictionary says is the definition of stupidity, but I have my own definition for it. Stupidity is the willful disregard for the truth, or the fact that one chooses not to seek it out; i.e. apathy and complacency. Stupidity, as found in the Neal Ross Standard Dictionary, can also be described as holding opinions or beliefs which go against what the facts prove to be the truth.

I have sort of been dancing around a question that I would now like to address; what is the purpose for which our government was established? Do you think it is to create jobs; protect us from terrorism, or any of the other issues the candidates campaign upon? If so, upon what facts do you base your opinion? If you’re going to say something, you should be able to provide some supporting evidence for your claim; otherwise it is just your OPINION.

I can provide tons of quotes proving that those are not the reasons for which our government was established; but I will settle for two.

The first comes from the Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson, our nation’s third President, “…a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”

The second comes from James Wilson, a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, “Government … should be formed to secure and enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government which has not this in view as its principle object is not a government of the legitimate kind.” (Source: Lectures in Law, 1791)

If, therefore, any form of government seeks to restrict the natural rights of its members, how can you say that you support it and still remain true to the principles of those who originally established it?

And if you’ll notice in Wilson’s quote, he did not limit his comments to the natural rights of the people; rather he used the broader term, members; which as originally established meant the States as well. Therefore, if the State governments seek to limit the natural rights of the people they are not, as Wilson explained, of the legitimate kind. Nor is the federal government if it seeks to limit, deny, or usurp the rights held by the States.

When I try to share the truth with others I am either laughed at or ignored because my beliefs are not in accordance with what is commonly believed to be the truth. I suppose now is as good a time as any to insert a quote from Patrick Henry regarding how I feel about people today, “It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth – and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

Those words flamed the fires of independence in a great many who witnessed them being spoken by Mr. Henry. Today they fall on deaf ears; souls devoid of the love of liberty which gave rise to the Colonists seeking their independence from a King who was far less oppressive than the government we willingly submit to today.

In a letter to Edmund Randolph, George Washington stated, “There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” If that means that the truths you find conflict with existing beliefs, then if you have any virtue and integrity, you will discard those beliefs and replace them with those founded upon the truth. But that’s assuming that there is any virtue and integrity left in America today.

Which leads me to my final quote, which I find aptly describes American politics today, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” (George Carlin)

Imagine for a moment that you decide to go on an extended vacation. Before you leave you hire someone to house-sit for you; clean your home, pay your bills, and maintain your yard while you’re away. Upon coming home from your vacation you find that your house has been completely remodeled into something that you find horrendous. How would you feel? I’m betting you’d be pretty upset with the people you trusted to take care of your home.

If you can picture that scenario, and your response to those you hired to care for your home, then just maybe you can get a hint as to how I feel about our government. In 1787 our Founders did something very similar; they wrote a Constitution which created a government which was supposed to take care of the basic needs of our country; or the general welfare as they called it back then. At the same time this government was supposed to leave the people of America free to ‘pursue happiness’ without governmental interference.

Whether people like it or not there are a few facts that they cannot disregard if they wish to engage in any serious discussion regarding government. The first is that our government would not exist had our Founders not gotten together and written a Constitution which outlined the basic shape it would take.

Secondly, like it or not, this Constitution outlines the specific authority given each branch of government and the areas government itself may enact laws upon. These specifically enumerated powers, as they are called, are found in Article 1, Section 8 of this Constitution and outline the ONLY powers our government may exercise on our behalf.

And thirdly, to get enough people to support this Constitution the Founders included a Bill of Rights which outlines various rights which the government has absolutely no authority to infringe upon. If, as our Founders believed, these rights are the gift of our Creator, then they predate government in any form it takes, and therefore no form of government, be it federal, state, or local, may pass laws which violate them.

These are well documented facts and I have discussed them at length in previous articles. Yet I still run into people all the time who say they support a particular president, or government itself, when it oversteps it’s just authority and passes laws in regards to things which are not among those specifically granted it to enact laws upon.

Listen, there is no grey area here, no wiggle room; either our government obeys the Constitution or it doesn’t. Therefore our government is either just, or it is unjust; either it provides us justice, or injustice. Black’s Dictionary of Law says that justice is the protecting of rights and the punishing of wrongs using fairness. Therefore, our government is either just or unjust based upon the extent to which it leaves us free to exercise our rights.

Every person holding elected office, and some who are appointed to positions of authority, must take an oath before entering service that they will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. On January 19, 1979 I took a similar oath upon entering the United States Air Force. The thing is, I take my oath seriously, while most others consider it a mere formality before they are allowed to assume the position to which they have been elected.

Most people, when one mentions the word government, assume I am talking about the President and the Congress; in that assumption they are dead wrong. When I say government I mean the whole kit and caboodle, all the way from the President down to the lowliest janitor who mops the floors in the hallways of Congress.

Therefore, if any agency within this behemoth that is government violates any of my rights, I blame government itself; and by virtue of being the Chief Executive, I blame the President. The President is nothing more than a glorified manager. I know that may sound disrespectful of the office, but it is the truth. The job of a President is to manage the tools at his disposal, in the best and most efficient way possible, to ensure government serves the purpose for which it was established. Although he may make recommendations to Congress, he cannot tell them to do anything; as they do not work for him, they are representatives of the people and the States, or at least they used to represent the States until we tinkered with the structure of our government by ratifying the 17th Amendment. Yet with his veto power he has the ability to ensure that any law passed by Congress which oversteps THEIR authority does not become law.

Harry S. Truman used to keep a sign on his desk in the Oval Office which read, “The buck stops here.” Those four simple words imply so much; yet what they say is routinely misunderstood or ignored by most people.

As holder of the highest position in the land, the President is ultimately responsible for all that government does. He has the authority to block unconstitutional laws by veto; he must ensure that the various agencies under the authority of the Executive Branch faithfully execute those laws passed in accordance with the specific powers granted our government, and he must strive to ensure that our rights our constantly protected against violation by anyone under his authority.

Therefore, if the NSA is spying upon us; violating our rights protected by the 4th Amendment, or if the BATF violates our rights as protected by the 2nd Amendment, then the buck stops with the President, as it was his job to ensure that these things never happen.

You see, most people blame political parties; either the Republicans or the Democrats. If something goes wrong in government, or if a law is passed which people do not like, then they blame the ‘other’ party. If that were truly the case then why do we not see laws being repealed every time there is a shift in control between a Republican controlled Congress and a Democratic controlled Congress? Did Obama repeal the Patriot Act? Did Trump? What about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare as most call it; did Trump seek to repeal it, or simply modify it in such a way to leave his signature on a blatantly unconstitutional piece of legislation?

If our government was supposed to provide justice for the people it represents, then why do not the federal judges adhere to the Constitution in their courts? Why instead do they adhere more to previous rulings by other judges than they do the clear and concise writings of the men whose actions brought our government into existence? Our judges, especially those in federal judgeships, are just as much a part of government as is Congress; their job no longer is to ensure that the people get justice, but to protect government from the constraints imposed upon it by the Constitution.

Yet, does the buck stop with the President as Truman believed; or does it stop somewhere else? I believe it lies elsewhere. To the people of California I now pose a question. How long has Dianne Feinstein served, (or disserved as I like to say) in the United States Senate? Don’t know? Here, let me answer for you…25 years. Feinstein was elected in 1992. Seeing as how U.S. Senators are re-elected every six years; that means Feinstein has been re-elected 4 times.

I’m sure the same can be said for the representatives in many States. My point is that these people keep getting re-elected, and those who do replace them come from the same cesspools of corruption which are the Republican and Democratic parties. Neither party cares about the Constitution; it is a hindrance to their agendas, or political platforms.

And whose fault is it that these people win elections and then go on to get re-elected time and time again? Why, it’s the voters. I find it almost humorous that I hear people, especially those on the right, say that they are upset that nobody in government supports the Constitution, yet these same people vote for candidates whose campaign promises clearly show that they won’t do so if elected. So WHO is NOT supporting the Constitution? Is it the candidates or is it the voters who cast their votes for them?

When our system of government took its first baby steps and inaugurated George Washington, the first President delivered a speech in which he said, “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

His first concern was the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, not how many laws our government could pass which restricted that very liberty. If that was his chief concern, and if that was the very reason for which our government was established, (See the Preamble to the Constitution), then why is it that this is of so little concern to the voting public who elect these corrupt career politicians who only seek to EXPAND the powers held by our government at the cost of our liberty?

Either each of you reading this SUPPORT our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or you threaten them. Again, there is no wiggle room in this. Either you support a government which routinely violates both the Constitution and our unalienable rights, or you oppose it. You can’t say one thing and do the other…sorry.

Getting back to that oath I took in 1979, it says that I am to support and defend the Constitution against ALL enemies, both foreign AND DOMESTIC. So, therefore, if your actions threaten the Constitution, and the rights which our government was established to secure, then that makes YOU my sworn enemy. Is that what you really want? I’m tired of government being used as a tool to bring about social justice and social equality to all; or being used as the enforcement arm of big moneyed corporations who seek to expand their wealth and power. All I want is to live my life free of interference and restraint. I want government off my back and out of my pocket, that’s all.

I did not ask to become a political columnist, it was thrust upon me by the times. I am one who values the truth and integrity, and there is a woeful amount of both in society today. Therefore I must speak up when I see untruths being spread around like manure in a garden. I don’t care how many I offend as I go either; I believe myself to be on the side of all that America was founded upon. As Charles Austin Beard once said, “You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence.”

I just don’t get how anyone could say that they love their country then turn around and vote for any candidate who refuses to uphold their oath to support and defend the Constitution and at the same time protect their freedom. It makes absolutely no sense to me…

“Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this. When I have
a subject in mind. I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me.
My mind becomes pervaded with it…”
~Alexander Hamilton~

I awoke this morning with an interesting thought floating around in my head. I’ll bet you didn’t know that I hated history when I was younger; couldn’t stand memorizing names, events, and dates that, in my young mind, had no relevance to my current existence. As I grew older I began to appreciate history and have become almost fanatical when it comes to my search for the truth about the history of this country.

You see, history not only teaches us who and what we are as a people, it also shows us how history itself can repeat itself; that is if you are observant enough of the trends that have occurred over the course of time.

When our Constitution first went into effect the obvious choice for the newly created position of president was the former commander of the Colonial Army, George Washington. Washington did not seek the office, the office and the people sought him to fill its vacancy. That being the case, there was no rivalry between opposing political parties for the presidency.

That said, from almost the beginning there was a division in this country over how to interpret the Constitution and the powers it gave our government. On the one side there were the Federalists who sought a loose interpretation of the restrictions upon the power given government. They believed that there were ‘implied’ powers hidden within the clauses of the Constitution that granted them powers which were not among those specifically enumerated.

On the other side were the anti-Federalists. They believed the Constitution said what it said and meant what it meant, and there was no room for interpretation, or construction as they called it back then.

Although Washington himself ran without claiming alliance to either side, he leaned more towards the Federalist position. That did not stop the influence of party, or faction as they called them back then, from creeping into politics. Washington’s own cabinet was a perfect example. On the one side there was Thomas Jefferson, who served as Washington’s Secretary of State. Jefferson claimed no alliance to party; going so far as to say that he would choose rather not to enter Heaven if he could not do so without allegiance to a party. Yet he, along with James Madison, became the apparent heads of the anti-Federalist way of thinking in America.

Then there were the Federalists, with Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury at the head. Although this schism between the two opposing beliefs was primarily limited to Washington’s cabinet positions, it began to spread throughout the country, and by the time Washington refused a third term as president it had established itself firmly in American political ideology.

It’s also interesting to note that back then the Electoral College, as written into the Constitution, did not differentiate between the office of President and the office of Vice-President. Whoever got the most electoral votes became President, and whoever got the second most became Vice-President.

As factions or political party allegiance became more pronounced in America this presented a unique problem; it became possible for a candidate from one side of this schism to become President, and one from the other to become Vice-President; as was the case when John Adams became President with Thomas Jefferson serving as Vice-President. Although this flaw in the Constitution was later corrected by the 12th Amendment, it did nothing to ease the friction between a Federalist President and an Anti-Federalist Vice President.

As I have already stated, this schism, or rift in the way people viewed the powers given government, had been growing since the earliest moments of our young Republic. During the course of Washington’s time as President the Secretary of Treasury had urged the consolidation of the individual State and federal debt into one lump sum to be paid off by the federal government. Within two years the means of generating revenue for the federal government had been pretty much exhausted and they sought another way to raise money to pay off that staggering debt. (I wonder what they’d think now with our $19.9 trillion debt?)

Their solution was to pass the very first excise tax; upon distilled goods. An excise tax is a tax which is levied not at the point of sale, but upon the point of manufacture. Excises are more not actually taxes, they are duties imposed upon a good at the point it is produced, and can then be passed on to the consumer at the point of sale in the form of higher prices for the goods.

As whiskey was the most popular of these distilled beverages at the time, this excise became known as the Whiskey Tax. This excise, or tax, was felt by some to be so egregious that it sparked rebellions, and even talk of secession among those most affected by it.

But it is not the Whiskey Tax that I wish to focus your attention upon, it something altogether different. During the presidency of George Washington revolution had broken out in France by those seeking liberty from the established monarchy. This led to what is now known as the Quasi War, an undeclared war between France and the U.S.; fought primarily at sea between the two countries.

This war was fought primarily over the fact that once the French monarchy had been toppled the U.S. refused to honor its debt to France, saying that it was owed the previous government, not the people of France themselves. This outraged the French and led them to attack American shipping vessels.
There were, at the time, those in America who had supported the French and their cause, and felt the U.S. had betrayed its obligation to pay the debt owed the French people. Then there were those who sided with the opposition and believed the U.S. had no obligation to pay a debt to a regime that no longer was in power. These differing beliefs played out across the cities in America and in the halls of political power.

In an effort to secure national security four bills were introduced into Congress, and passed by a majority of Federalists in both houses of Congress. Although this was done without knowledge of President Adams, these bills were nonetheless then sent to the President for his signature; which he ultimately gave. These bills became known as the Alien and Sedition Acts and consisted of: The Naturalization Act, which made it more difficult for foreigners to obtain citizenship; The Alien Friends Act, which allowed the President to imprison or deport those he deemed ‘dangerous’; and the Alien Enemy Act which basically did the same, although it restricted that ability to those of the nation the U.S. was at war with.

Then there was the one solitary Sedition Act, which gave the government the power to prosecute anyone who voiced or printed what it deemed to be malicious remarks about the government, or the president; a clear violation of the freedom of speech.

These acts were so egregious to the principles that this fledgling young nation was founded upon that they led a sitting Vice-President to go behind the President’s back and write a document denouncing them. This document, known as the Kentucky Resolutions, and authored by Thomas Jefferson, declared one concept that is so simple and fundamental that it should not even require me to comment on it. It seems that there are a great many people in America today who seem to think that their federal government is omnipotent and that whatever laws it passes, however much they dislike them, they are required to obey.

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

I would suggest that you read, and re-read that as many times as you must for those words to sink in; especially these 16 words, “… whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force…”

And how are people to know if their government is assuming undelegated powers if the people themselves have never taken the time to read and understand the true intent of the Constitution? Answer me that if you can. We have gone so far beyond what the drafters of our Constitution intended that there is no hope of ever restoring our government to their intent. Yet people today go to their voting places and cast their ballots for the candidates of their choice; with absolutely no regard for whether the promises made during the campaigns are among the specifically delegated powers given government. And people wonder why I become so frustrated and angry with them!

If our government truly is one which derives its powers from the consent of the people, then let me ask you a question. Do y’all honestly think that if an overwhelming majority of the people in this country were to suddenly withdraw their consent that those inside this government would just pack their bags and return to private life? The answer to that question ought to tell you exactly what kind of government we have; one which uses force to compel obedience to its dictates. Legitimacy, justice and liberty are of no concern to our government today; only obedience to its will.

If you resist they will fine you. If you refuse to pay the fine they will imprison you. If you resist arrest they will kill you. The constitutionality of the crimes you might find yourself charged with are of no importance, only that you obey the law. But did not Thomas Jefferson state that the law is often but the tyrants will, and especially when it violates the right of the individual?

Our government has become a criminal enterprise whose sole purpose is to amass more power for itself and to limit the ability of the peasants, (we the people), to resist. As long as you obey the laws it passes you will never feel its benevolence, but the moment you begin to awaken and exercise your freedom you will begin to see it for what it truly is; our master.

The game has been carefully rigged against those who choose freedom over servitude. For generations now the people of this country have been fed lie after lie about the history of this country and its system of government; to the point where they are functionally illiterate in regards to those things. Ask the average person to tell you what each right the first ten amendments to the Constitution protect if you don’t believe me.

Our judges, more often than not, won’t even rule based upon the Constitution, choosing instead to rule based upon past rulings by the 9 black robed tyrants known as Supreme Court Justices. Our law enforcement officers, although they may be good intentioned, are guilty of enforcing unconstitutional law after unconstitutional law; not because they are bad people, but because they are just as ignorant as the average voter.

As long as people continue to play this two party paradigm; believing that by choosing between either Republican or Democratic candidates, they will never see that their government as an entity has become fully criminal in nature. It doesn’t matter a bit who gets to run things, as long as the THINGS government does continue to violate the Constitution and infringe upon our rights. You may as well go to the polls and be offered the choice of being punched in the face by a right hook or a left cross; it doesn’t matter, pain is the end result of either choice, as unconstitutional government is the end result of choosing between Republicans and Democrats.

It seems that no matter how hard I try, how I word it, or how many times I repeat myself, the message I am trying to spread just won’t get through to most. Maybe Asimov was right, maybe “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has 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.”

Maybe ignorance is a cocoon which protects people from the harsh reality of life. Maybe the truth is something which threatens to destroy the illusion their ignorance provides. Maybe they fear the truth because it would impose upon them the obligation to do something; to change their belief systems or their lives. Or then again, maybe people have simply become stupid and prefer slavery over freedom. Who knows? All I do know is that the truth is out there for anyone who wants to go in search of it. I found it, and I’m no genius. So if I could find it, so could anyone else.

I don’t think people today truly understand what it was like when the earliest Colonists made the decision to pull up their roots in England and make the voyage across the Atlantic to the New World. For any English citizen to pull up roots and seek to establish a new life in this new land they had to obtain permission from their sovereign the King to establish an English Colony in America.

Back in that period of history kings ruled by what is known as divine right; that is they believed that their power and authority was given them directly from God, and therefore they were subject to no human restraints. It also implied that only God could judge whether the acts of a king were just and that any attempt to depose, dethrone, or restrict a kings power was contrary to the will of God and may even constitute a sacrilegious act. It was for this reason that many royal proclamations began with the words, “by the Grace of God.” To question a king’s authority was tantamount to questioning God’s authority.

When, in 1620, the passengers aboard the Mayflower made landfall in the New World, one of the first things they did was write the Mayflower Compact, wherein it states, “In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.”

If you’ll notice, these early settlers proclaimed themselves to be loyal subjects to their sovereign, King James, followed immediately by the phrase, by the grace of God. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that these early settlers to America still adhered to the belief that the authority of their King was absolute. So what happened over the course of the next 156 years to cause the Colonists to question the authority of their King and seek independence from his rule?

What happened was the Age of Enlightenment. At around the same time the first settlers were establishing Colonies in the New World a group of political thinkers and philosophers began questioning established beliefs as they pertain to a wide range of subjects; including the source from which political power is derived.

John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government played a huge role in changing how people viewed the origins of political authority. Instead of adhering to the belief that the authority held by those in power was absolute, Locke proclaimed, “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.”

This was quite a shift in how people thought about the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, and that change in thinking can be seen in our own Declaration of Independence where Jefferson proclaims that “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Instead of the authority of their rulers coming from God, our Founders believed that their rights came from God, and that it was within their right to stand up to anyone who threatened those rights. When Jefferson sat down to write the Declaration of Independence he not only stated that it was the right of people to throw off any government which threatened their rights, he also said it was the duty of people to do so, “…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…”

So, when our Founders were faced with the choice of either submitting to the power to bind them in all cases whatsoever, or resisting by arms the authority of their sovereign, they chose to resist; believing that it was their right to stand up to anyone that threatened their unalienable and inherent rights as freemen.

Although the American Revolution was fought for independence, it was, in reality, a war fought between opposing ideologies. On the one side there was a King who felt that his power was absolute; granted him by God. Then on the other side were the Colonists who believed that their rights came from God and that anyone, including a King, who violated their rights was to be resisted.

When the Colonists won the revolution they sent delegates to Paris, France, to meet with delegates from the King of England to negotiate a treaty of peace between England and the former Colonies. Although this Treaty of Paris, (1783) formally ended the hostilities between the Colonies and England, it did not put an end to the fact that those still under the rule of the King believed that he ruled by divine right. This is supported by the words of the treaty itself, wherein it states, “It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the Hearts of the most Serene and most Potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain…”

As each State was technically still considered an individual Colony of the British Empire, it is important to understand what that meant when all 13 of them simultaneously obtained their independence from the Crown. I suppose it would have been akin to Scotland and Ireland being freed from British rule; they would not suddenly have united into one single entity; rather they would each have obtained their own independence as a sovereign state unto themselves.

That is exactly what happened when the Treaty of Paris was agreed to and signed by representatives from the Colonies and the Crown; each State became a single self governing entity unto itself. The Treaty of Paris states, “His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States…”

As independent States, any form of government which would bind them together in a Union, or Confederacy, must have been a voluntary decision made by both the people of each State and their chosen Legislators. Any power then given to this government is subject to whatever limitations the States and the people chose to impose upon it. Finally, since this entity, or government, is a creation of the States and the people, it becomes their servant, not their master, and should it, as Jefferson said, become destructive of the ends for which it was established, it can be altered or abolished and there is nothing it can do about it.

Our federal government was NOT established to be the caretaker and provider of the people who make up the United States of America. It was established to provide for the common defense of all the States that comprise the United States; it was established to be able to enact laws which allowed for the free flow of goods from one State to another, (regulate commerce), it was established so that it could establish a uniform currency to be used throughout the individual States so as not to create confusion when the people of one State attempted to buy goods in another. It was NOT supposed to pass laws which directly applied to the people; more it was to pass laws which affected the interaction of the States with each other.

This belief, however contradictory to what you now believe, is affirmed by James Madison in Federalist 45, where Madison declares, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

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

Today people look primarily to the federal government to fix all the problems in America. Let me ask you something, if there are so many problems in America today do you think that there is the remote chance it is because we choose such piss poor representatives at the State level? Had we adhered to the Founders intent when they drafted the Constitution, and left the federal government to be a mediator, of sorts, between the States, and let the States handle the things which directly affect our lives, then wouldn’t it make sense to pick the BEST candidates we could for Governor and for the State Legislatures?

The problem, as I see it, is that once you allow government to gain a foothold into the ability to pass laws which directly affect your life, you can never shut the door on future usurpations of more unauthorized power. Once this happens, the door is sprung wide open for outside influence to be exerted upon what laws government passes. Just look at the number of lobbyists which roam the halls of our nation’s capital. According to OpenSecrets. org, since 1998 the number of lobbyists has not dropped below 10,000. If you were to spread that out, that makes 18 lobbyists for every single member of Congress. Our government was never intended to be the agent whose loyalty was to corporations who could afford to hire huge lobbying firms to woo the representatives of both the people and the States themselves.

I don’t know how many of you have ever attempted to contact your representative, but I have. More often than not I don’t even get a reply, and when I do it is typically a form letter saying they appreciate my contacting them and that they will take my thoughts into consideration. Yet were I to show up on their doorstep with a check for $25,000 I bet you they would shake my hand and sit down and listen to what I had to say. Doesn’t that sound the least bit like bribery to you?

You may not believe it, but one of the reasons our government was established was to secure the rights of the people who make up the United States of America. As free men and women we are not subject to the will and desires of any group; be they a majority of the people, or a K Street lobbying firm representing a multi-billion dollar corporation.

People today think that if they join together in some group and make enough noise they can influence government into doing almost anything they want. But what if what they want is to violate the rights of others?

As freemen, each of us as individuals, whether you like this fact or not, is responsible for their own life and the consequences of their own decisions. It is either that or we are slaves, subject to the will of any majority. You cannot have it both ways. Theodore Roosevelt stated that principle best when he said, “If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.”

I hate to get into the division between liberals and conservatives, but I feel I must for a moment. For those on the liberal left who believe that government should pass laws which provide all manner of programs, or funds, for those in need, I have a question. What would happen if every working man and woman decided, to hell with this, I’m gonna quit so I can get all this free stuff others don’t have to work for? Who would pay for all these government programs then? Where would our government collect the taxes to fund its operations?

Y’all want to impose your will, or dream of a Utopian world where everyone is taken care for, upon us. Yet how would you like it if we lobbied government and they then passed a law which required that every child in America learn proper firearms safety, and upon reaching the age of 18 be required to carry, on their person at all times, a loaded weapon for their own protection?

Or, what if they passed a law requiring that every man, woman and child in America attend church services every Sunday? How would you like it if your pay were taxed for the support of some religious organization? How would YOU like it if you had to miss out on your favorite weekend activities because you had to go to church?

Y’all would cry bloody murder that your rights are being invaded; and with just cause. But what about the rights of those your belief systems are causing to be restricted? I go to work every day and earn the pay that my employer gives me for my time and service; not you, not some guy on welfare, or someone with a certifiable mental illness. What right have they to the money, even if it is a small percentage, that I EARNED by the sweat of my brow?

In 1816 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter in which he stated, “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

If you truly want to help those in need, fine volunteer your time and your money; but don’t demand that anyone else who is not so inclined be required to do the same. You see, when you do that you have crossed that line which separates your rights from the rights of others. In short, you have declared war on the rights of those you disagree with and that is the very principle which led our Founders to fight the army of their King to free themselves from.

Our government, as it exists today, has grown into this massive beast that no longer even slightly resembles what our Founders intended when they sat down to write our Constitution. Our Constitution has been amended to cut the States out of their say in what laws our government passes; (See the 17th Amendment).

Our government today has twisted and perverted the meaning and intent of the Constitution to usurp and gain powers it was NEVER intended they possess. The boundaries which separated the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches have been blurred, if not erased, and each now exercises powers it was never intended they possess.

And yet people go to the polls thinking, “Oh we can’t let this candidate win, or that candidate win. We gotta vote for the one who most closely aligns with our own beliefs as to the purpose for which government was established.” But what about what the Founders believed was the purposes for which our government was established; do they no longer matter anymore?

It was never intended that America become a democracy; our Founders despised democracies and feared their destructive natures. John Adams once said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Yet that’s what a majority of the people believe today; that America is this huge democracy, with each group vying for their slice of the pie; their hands in the seemingly never ending trough of government funds. But I’ll bet there is something you weren’t taught in civics class in school; that is if you even attended a civics class. There is a quote attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish Judge, which states, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

That sounds strikingly familiar to me for some reason. After all, look at how most people vote; based upon the candidate making the best sounding promises, and then compare that to our soaring national debt, which currently sits at right at the cusp of $20 trillion.

Well, if Tytler, or whoever said that, is right, then we are on the verge of a dictatorship. Do you know what that means? It would mean that you have no rights; your rights are whatever the government tells you they are. In short, we would be exactly where our Founders were before they decided to take up arms and free themselves from the rule of a despot.

But you see, there is something else Tytler supposedly said, “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.”

If that is also true, then the downfall of our Republic into a dictatorship is all but inevitable. And from the discussions I have had with the average voter, it wouldn’t surprise me if it occurs within what remains of my lifetime.

But you can take one thing to the bank; I won’t go into bondage without a fight. If it comes, you’ll hear my crying the immortal words of Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

It has been my experience that there is one thing most people give little thought to; that being the foundation upon which other things are built. Take the foundation of your house for example, it is always there providing support for the dwelling you reside in; but how often do you think about its security and stability? Yet were it to fail your home may suffer all kinds of problems; up to and including a complete collapse.

Or one could take a tree as another example. A tree derives its strength, and sustenance, from its root system. If a tree has a strong root system it will remain healthy and strong. Conversely, if a tree’s root system is weak then it could become subject to disease, and the slightest storm could uproot it.

If you look to the dictionary you would find that the word foundation has two meanings. The first is: the lowest load-bearing part of a building, typically below ground level. The second, and the one I’m more interested in, is; an underlying basis or principle for something.

If it were possible to travel back in time to the moment man first made his appearance on Planet Earth, one would find that there was no such thing as government. Government then must be a contrivance, or a creation of man himself. Therefore, if government is something that is created by man, it must have been created for specific reasons; to serve specific purposes.

Therefore it is logical to conclude that governments are created either to serve people, or to enslave them. The question then arises, for which purpose was OUR system of government created?

I know that questions such as this one are of little concern to people these days; all they care about is how government can make their lives better, safer, or more comfortable. Yet these questions which have driven me to spend countless hours reading and studying the writings of the men who actively participated in the establishment of our system of government.

Let me as you a question, and be honest with your answers: Who do you think has a better understanding of the reasons why our system of government was established; those who have never even read the Constitution, or someone like me who has spent endless hours studying the thoughts of those who established our system of government?

As I said, this question, or more specifically, these questions are the reason I have spent hours engrossed in books, and online searching out all I could find on the history of our country and the period which saw America transform from 13 British Colonies into an independent nation with its own system of government created by the will of the people.

Yet I didn’t stop there; I wanted to know what formed the beliefs of the Founders themselves. After all, they were born into a world where it was accepted that the Colonists were subject to the rule of a monarch; so what beliefs would cause them to rebel against that authority if that’s simply the way things were? It was this question which led me to the writings of John Locke; specifically his Second Treatise on Civil Governments.

During his term as Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson invited Vice President Adams and Secretary of Treasury Hamilton to his residence at Monticello to discuss matters of State. While there Hamilton was examining portraits which hung upon the wall in Jefferson’s home. He asked Jefferson who those men were, to which Jefferson replied, “I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced…” One of those paintings was of John Locke.

When I first read Locke’s Second Treatise I could almost physically feel the influence he had on Jefferson; it was as if Jefferson channeled Locke into his own writings; particularly the Declaration of Independence. It is therefore reasonable to say that if people adhere to the principles espoused by Thomas Jefferson, then they also adhere to the principles espoused by Locke himself.

You may feel otherwise, but I believe the Declaration of Independence to be the single greatest document ever produced by man. The first paragraph of that document is simply a preamble of sorts; stating its purpose; “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

It is the next paragraph that takes my breath away every time I read it; for Jefferson encapsulated much of what Locke takes pages to say into just over two-hundred words; “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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

If there is one thing our Founders were, it was proponents of the belief in Natural Law, or more specifically, our rights under Natural Law. If you had spent any amount of time reading the works of men like Jefferson, Samuel Adams or Patrick Henry, you would have seen that they all believed our rights come not from any government, but as gifts of our Creator; a part of our being as much as is the color of our eyes or hair, and that no government can deprive us of them without the gravest of injustices.

If, as I have already posed, there was a time when government did not exist, then what state did man exist in without any government to control his actions? Locke gives us an answer to that question in Section 4 of his treatise on Civil Governments, “To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”

What Locke describes is liberty in its purest form; unfettered ability to enjoy all our rights without interference by other men. Over a century and a half after Locke wrote his Second Treatise, a Frenchman by the name of Frederic Bastiat wrote a similar book about the purpose for law itself; simply titled, The Law. In his book Bastiat states, “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.”

It took me a few times reading that before I understood its significance. What Bastiat is saying is that our rights do not come from the law, nor do they come from those who make the laws. In fact, it was because we all have rights as individuals that man created entities to enact laws on their behalf.

Therefore, if we as human beings are all free, or to use another word, sovereign, then why would we even consider empowering others to pass laws which we must then obey? The answer to that can also be found in Locke’s treatise, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.”

Now by property one might assume that Locke meant the people’s belongings; such as their homes, their cars, their clothing and all the other items they purchase. But this is not necessarily all that is covered by the word property.

In 1792 James Madison wrote an essay on property itself, stating, “In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As you can see, to our Founders property encompassed far more than simple personal belongings. So when Locke speaks of people uniting under government to protect their property it is so that ALL those things spoken of by Madison can be protected. In fact it is this very principle which Jefferson spoke of in the Declaration of Independence, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

And when government no longer serves the purpose for which it was established? Well, Jefferson then said this, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”

In Section 222 of Locke’s treatise we read “The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society…”

He then follows by saying, “…for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society …”

Which is exactly what Bastiat refers to in the opening of his book, The Law, “The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose!”

And what is the remedy for such a situation? Why Jefferson told us we can alter, or abolish even any form of government which becomes destructive to the ends for which it was established. Locke states that, “…whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.”

These beliefs and principles, these foundations, apply to all forms of government; be they local, state, or federal, as all governments are creations of man, given certain powers for certain specific purposes. As Jefferson said, “…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends…” it is our right to alter or abolish it.

Backing up a bit in Locke’s treatise, in Chapter 4 Locke states, “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.”

You may choose to live by the laws passed by our government which violate your most sacred rights, but you cannot force me to do so; not without the grossest of injustices. You may choose slavery over freedom, but you cannot force slavery upon me. That is the foundation upon which our system of government rests; not the will of the many outnumber the will of the few. We are not a democracy where a simple majority is all that is required for laws to be passed; our government was established for certain specific purposes, with certain rights protected by constitutional amendment, and whenever the government exceeds its powers, or violates those rights it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established.

You may like the things our government does, but that does not make those things the ENDS FOR WHICH IT WAS ESTABLISHED! Unless the Constitution is amended, specifically giving government new powers, then the actions of our government, be they undertaken by Republicans or Democrats, which exceed the specific powers mentioned, or which violate a single right, are destructive to the ends for which THIS government was established, and it is the right of the people to resist.

But resistance is futile when it is but a mere handful of the total people in America who are willing to stand up to the encroaching power of government. We have a massive standing army, both militarily and in the various agencies established by government to enforce their laws upon us. We have local and State law enforcement that also enforce any number of unconstitutional laws upon the people. For resistance to become effective it must be overwhelming; so that there are simply too many of us to arrest or kill.

Which means that unless a great deal more Americans wake up to the fact that their government is no longer serving the purpose for which it was established, and stop supporting it by voting for those to fill the seats of power within it, nothing is going to change. As long as you support government as an entity, it will continue to grow. Government does not care if you support Republicans or Democrats, only that you believe in it and continue to support it by voting. Withdraw that support in sufficient numbers and begin standing up for your rights and you will see government lose its power. After all, Jefferson did say that government derives its just power from the CONSENT of the people, didn’t he?

Yet I hear people say that America is still a much better country to live in than many others; that our system of government is not as oppressive as the governments of other countries. That may be so, but let me tell you a little story.

I was at a Latter Day Saint, (Mormon), event called a Fireside a long time ago when a speaker was asked if a person was basically good, wouldn’t they be allowed to enter Heaven when they were compared against all the evil that goes on in the word. The speaker said something I’ll never forget; “You should not compare yourself against all the evil committed by other human beings, rather you should compare yourself to Jesus. How close do YOU come to being as perfect as He was, not how far do you find yourselves from the evil that is present in others?”

I find that a perfect analogy for my beliefs in regards to politics. I don’t care how well the Republicans or the Democrats come to fulfilling your desires as to what purpose government should serve. I care only how well government serves the purpose that our Founders intended it serve. It all boils down to party over principle; you either adhere to the principles, or foundation upon which America was founded, or your loyalty is to party; which is susceptible to corruption and external influences.

I know upon what foundation my principles rest, and what I stand for; do you?