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On January 20th, to commemorate Obama’s first year in office, CBS News (online politics division), set up an Internet poll for viewers to grade the President in 10 separate areas.  The President scored “O”bismally in all areas with a majority of respondents giving him a D or an F in all 10 areas.  In addition, his overall grade was F.  Hope and Change sucks!

The Economy A: 3.94%B: 4.24%C: 5.21%D: 17.91%F: 68.70%	Threat of Terrorism A: 5.83%B: 4.67%C: 9.70%D: 21.57%F: 58.23%
Foreign Policy A: 5.87%B: 4.00%C: 7.91%D: 22.28%F: 59.94%	Energy and the Environment A: 4.90%B: 5.12%C: 12.54%D: 21.13%F: 56.31%
Health Care A: 5.90%B: 2.89%C: 2.96%D: 8.57%F: 79.68%	Social Issues A: 5.80%B: 4.56%C: 11.19%D: 19.39%F: 59.05%
Afghanistan A: 5.14%B: 13.97%C: 26.71%D: 22.86%F: 31.32%	Bipartisanship A: 5.76%B: 2.94%C: 3.97%D: 8.25%F: 79.08%
Iraq A: 5.15%B: 10.25%C: 25.37%D: 23.88%F: 35.34%	Obama’s Overall Job as President A: 5.35%B: 3.87%C: 3.76%D: 22.91%F: 64.10%

In times of tumult and uncertainty, there are those who prey on the weak of spirit to convince them to follow a supposedly easy solution to their troubles.  Don’t be fooled by the man bearing gifts for the easy way out of your predicament is almost never the truth or the lightening of your burden that you seek.  When you are at your lowest point, will you seek the truth, will you know the truth, or will you remain on your knees begging to your newfound master?  Will you stand up and stand your ground?

With all that is before us, you must know yourself and you must remember what you have always known.  You are the master of your own fate.  The choices you make in life will affect you and those around you profoundly.  In your life you have known the freedom to make your own choices.  How many of you in a crisis will desire to continue to make your own choices?  Will you succumb to the tricks of the easy solutions with others making choices for you?  The independent spirit is alive and well in many, while others willingly give up their freedoms so as to avoid the tough choices in life.

While the civil society continues to degrade, there will be those that swoop in offering solutions for the collective.  There are no solutions for the collective.  You and your family are responsible for yourselves.  I am responsible for me.  My neighbors are responsible for their families.  We can help each other through these times. Abdicate that responsibility and your life will forever be changed.  The chains that accompany that choice will bind you and burden you the remainder of your days.  Don’t wrap your chains around my feet; don’t weigh me down with the false choices you have made for yourself.  Allow me to be free just as I allow you to make the choices that you make.

When the man comes around, will you stand your ground, or will you deceive yourself and allow the chains to be wrapped around you?  It is your choice.  You have the freedom to make that choice, but once you choose, how you choose will determine if you are free to make choices in the future.  I won’t follow you down the “rabbit hole.”  I will choose to remain free.  Wherever that freedom takes me, I do not know, but it is the thrill of the pursuit that sustains me.  Through that journey, I will not be alone for I will always have the knowledge of and the faith in my Father.  He will allow me to walk the path standing on my own two feet providing me strenghth through my journey.  Will you walk the path as well?  Will you stand your ground when the man comes around?

Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum

 

Like many people, I received a letter in the mail a couple of weeks ago notifying me that my census questionnaire would be arriving soon.  I’m not one to check my mailbox all that often because it is filled with junk mail (I include the census as being junk mail).  Today, I went out to clean up some weeds (all right, a whole bunch of weeds) in my front yard, and I found at my front door my Census 2010 (long form) questionnaire already opened!

It appears that what could have happened was something as innocuous as a neighbor getting my census form delivered to their mailbox.  They might have opened it thinking it was theirs, then realized the address was not for their home.  Being a good neighbor, they thought they would deliver the form to me, and left it on my doorstep.  Maybe they rang my doorbell first, and I didn’t answer, so they left the form at the doorstep.

Whatever happened, I’ll never be sure.  I know that the contents of the form don’t contain any personal information on them besides my address, but the last page of the form does have a barcode on it.  The last page of the form is part of the labeling for returning the form.  You place this portion of the form, the portion that includes the barcode right above your address, in the return envelope in which the barcode appears through a window of the envelope.

So here is my question for all of you.  Am I overreacting when I say, I’m not comfortable returning this form because it has a barcode and was opened by someone else?  As I mentioned, I know the original contents contained no identifying information other than my address, but this form does contain a barcode which means it is traceable.  My mail was opened (not by me), meaning even if innocuously so, my Census form has been tampered with.

When I called the Census Office, they could care less that my mail was opened by someone else.  They told me that I would be receiving another form as part of their normal process if I did not turn in the first form I received.  I asked them if the second form would have the same barcode label as my first form to which the Census Representative answered probably.  Probably, you mean you don’t know?  Anyway, if it does have the same barcode label, hasn’t my Census request still been tampered with because the original request was opened by someone other than a resident of my address?

Again, I honestly think I am overreacting, but I don’t like that my mail was opened, and I don’t like that the mail opened by someone else has a barcode on it that is somehow attached to my address.  What do you all think?  I’m leaning toward not answering the census unless the Census Office can send me a separate request that doesn’t have the same barcode label as the request that they sent that has been tampered with.  Your thoughts?

From The Right Scoop Website

 

On the Duty of Independence

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… –Thomas Jefferson “Declaration of Independence” 1776

What if the federal government passed a law stating that all Americans had a right to clothing?  In order to ensure compliance with the law, what if the government included a mandate that the individual would buy approved shirts, pants and shoes.  Furthermore, if you did not comply with the mandate, then you would be assessed a fine in the form of a tax collected by the Internal Revenue Service.  How long do you think it would take before there was an uprising against intrusions into your individual choices regarding your clothing?

Why do you then think that the “individual mandate” to purchase health care insurance approved by the government is any different?  Is there a moral imperative to provide health care insurance to all members of a civil society, but no such imperative for clothing?  If such a moral mandate exists, is it further argued that it is the government’s duty to legislate and compel the citizenry to adhere to the mandate?  These are the questions of our time, and yet so many review the questions in the artificial light of a possible moral obligation to society rather than in the natural sunshine of the individual rights of human beings.

The moral imperative before us is two-fold: 1) do we have a right to health care (or food, or clothing) and 2) if we do possess such a right, is it the government’s duty to provide for that right and ensure that society conforms to the moral imperative?  We could debate, probably until the end of time, whether or not number one above is true, but for the purposes of this discussion, we can choose to disagree on the merits and fallacies of the argument.  More important to our discussion is to determine whether or not number two above is a necessity of government especially with respect to our system of government.

When our nation was founded, our forefathers demanded their independence from oppressive and tyrannical rule.  As the Declaration of Independence begins:

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.

Having understood that the Laws of Nature guarantee our birthright to equality and the pursuit of our individual lives, we were then empowered to make the most of our lives in contribution to our communities.  Thankfully, our Founders shed their blood so that we would only have to expend our energies in protecting our individual liberties and the system of government we inherited. 

When we limit our individual choices, we limit the community as a whole.  For if the government can dictate to you what health insurance, clothes and shoes you must buy, how far off is it before that same government begins dictating to you limited choices and finally for the sake of expediency one size fits all will suffice.  If, for example, the clothes are too big, then you can assert you are still clothed, but if the clothes are too small, is the government still in accordance with the supposed moral imperative?

How is health care different?  If the federal government can mandate that you purchase an approved health insurance plan, how long before it becomes expedient to reduce the number of plans to just a few choices or one size fits all health care?  Do you, the young adult, have the same health care needs as your grandparent or great-grandparent?  Most likely not, but when government meddles in the affairs of the individual, unintended consequences result.  The next thing you know you are wearing a t-shirt on a cold winter’s day and you realize your naval is showing.  But that’s OK because you realize that the government will provide you a coat to keep you warm.  You are grateful now, are you not, to have your benevolent government so concerned with your daily necessities?

Your loss of independence matters little to you because you have all your necessities taken care of, but what of your desires?  Do your desires have a place in your “brave new world?”  And who pays for it all?  Do you sit on your couch in your mandated home ever awaiting your next necessity to be fulfilled while your desires slowly expire?  Are you all consumed with ensuring that you get your fair share that you no longer remember what you dreamt of in your youth?

How could a single mandate of requiring everyone to purchase health care insurance have led to all of this?  The answer is simple:  when the rights of the individual are subverted and beholden to the collective and imposed by government, free will is lost and personal pursuits no longer matter.  Time and again, the collectivist theories of what’s best for society have been tested, and they have always resulted in failure.  Bound are collectivist thought to the oppressions and tyranny of a ruling class. 

The fundamental reason such collective impositions do not succeed is because government as an entity possesses no inherent morality.  Only individuals can truly be moral among nature’s creatures.  We may often fail in this pursuit, but because we have the capacity for morality, unlike governments, we at least possess a chance to succeed.  And it is that chance at ultimate liberty, the freedom of the individual, that allowed this nation to prosper for so many years, albeit with stumbles and travails along the way.  To forsake the ideal for so little a recompense (even the reward of guaranteed health care) should frighten every American.

It is the duty of human kind to understand its limitations, while also understanding that the only hope of bettering the society is to empower the individual.  We have a duty to accept and embrace our individuality and our commitment as individuals to make the society better.  No government can exceed the combined efforts of individuals, and no government ever has.

Our founders encountered a similar predicament although theirs was asserting their individuality against a government of ever mounting egregiously oppressive behavior; while our predicament is also against an oppressive government but one that has no legal authority to continue such acts.  Our Founders believed that their relation to the British government was in part bound by an “unwritten” Constitution that the British parliament was not upholding; while our cause is much clearer.  We know that our federal government is repeatedly acting in an un-Constitutional manner, but unlike our founders, we are not forced to separate from that government; rather, we only need reassert our rights and insist that they follow the Supreme Law of the land.  We have many venues to reassert our Constitutional rights; whereas, our Founders were left with only war and the giving of their blood and treasure, so that we today may only give of our time and energy to ensure what is rightfully ours.

To allow you to see some of the parallels of what the Founders were fighting in the late 1760’s and early 1770’s to what we are fighting today, I offer the following list that comprises the primary grievances and actions colonists had taken with respect to the British government:

• English merchants were enjoying a monopoly on raw materials and requiring importation of manufactured goods from Great Britain.

• Discriminatory trade practices where American exports were devalued and British imports were so highly valued that there was a never ending debt cycle for the American farmer and merchant.

• In 1765, seeking to alleviate their war debts, the British Parliament levied a Stamp Act tax in the Colonies which required all legal documents, newspapers and many other articles to have a Stamp placed upon them. The colonists had no representation in the British Parliament and maintained responsibility for levying their own taxes that they sent to the British Crown.  This was the first tax against the colonists imposed by a government body in which the colonists had no representation.  The Stamp Act Tax was repealed by the British Parliament just one year after it had gone into effect.

• Even though the British Parliament had repealed the Stamp Act, during the same session, they asserted their supposed right to tax the colonists.

• The colonists retaliated by general agreement to not purchase English goods that had taxes attached.

• In Boston, the colonists were unruly, and the King sent British troops to occupy the city.  By 1770, the occupation had so added to the tensions that a snowball fight between young boys in Boston against British soldiers culminated in the “Boston Massacre” where gathering Bostonians were gunned down by British soldiers.  Five Americans were killed while many others were wounded.

• Tensions remained in Boston for the next three years.  Even though the British Parliament repealed the Townshend Act which was the tax on tea, the British Parliament in response to the dumping of tea in the Boston harbor, passed the “Intolerable Acts” with its most restrictive measure being the closure of the port of Boston resulting in Massachusetts being under what can only be described as British martial law.

• By May of 1774 a grassroots movement began in the colonies against tyrannical rule.  Many meetings throughout the colonies sprung up to reassert individual rights.

• In the summer of 1774, the “Fairfax Resolves” were drawn up and stand today as one of the first influential documents regarding American political thought.  The Fairfax Resolves reiterated the limited powers of Parliament against the colonists and highlighted the rights of free men.

• The colonists began their Congresses later that year in 1774 holding the First Continental Congress in September of 1774.[1]

You might ask, what has any of that have to do with America today?  I make the list to show you that there were numerous unjust acts by the British government that led to the American Revolution, just as there are many unjust acts perpetrated against the American people in total contradiction and without the Constitutional authority to advance said acts.  Let me provide a brief list of the acts and legislation taken by our government in just the last two years that lacked any Constitutional authority:

• The federal bailout of privately held companies in 2008 under President Bush, i.e., Lehman Brothers and AIG.

• The TARP program or Toxic Asset Relief Program under President Bush and passed by the Congress in the fall of 2008.  The program funded private banks (even banks that attempted to refuse the money but were not allowed refusal by the Federal Government).

• Under the Obama Administration, in late winter and early spring of 2009, interference in the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler in which shareholders lost priority positions to reimbursement of unions and private dealerships were shuttered in contradiction to testimony in the Bankruptcy Courts.

• The health care legislation S.B 3590 passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives requiring an individual mandate to purchase health insurance representing an unprecedented tax on citizens to purchase a good or service whether they desire that good or service or not.  The legislation also includes numerous provisions against the uniformity clause of the Constitution in relation to the States.

The grievances against our Founders resulted in war, but we are fortunate in that the grievances against us need only result in a reassertion of our Constitutional protections, such as has already begun with the lawsuit against Chrysler regarding the bankruptcy proceedings and the many lawsuits State officials are arming themselves with against the health care legislation.

Our Founders finally prevailed in their efforts, but the war took them eight long years of untold loss of human life and personal fortunes.  Are we so impatient that we cannot spend our own time with the same patience and fervor to preserve that which was guaranteed to us through Natural Law and procured for us through Providence?

It is your time to stand up and reassert your independence and individuality.  It is your duty to rely on yourself, to stand on your own merit and to make this nation once again exceptional.  Will you answer the call as our Founders did, or will you allow the failed governments of the past to intrude within our borders and forever remake our nation, i.e., “fundamentally transform America?”  Will you answer the duty you have to humanity to assert your independence?

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[1] Summaries of Chapters 8 and 9, Jay A. Parry and Andrew M. Allison, The Real George Washington, (National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1991, 2008, sixth printing 2009)

Copyright © 2010 Dr. Kate’s View and Constitutional Government. All Rights Reserved. Permission must be obtained from the authors to reproduce any part of this paper.