|
Every July this nation celebrates its independence from the
British Crown and the institution of a federal republic that gave
the governed control over the election and maintenance of those
who constitute the leadership of the country. The question
today is, are we commemorating the most outstanding concept of
human government devised by brilliant minds, or are we celebrating
a current event, a free nation?
Thinking people must admit that we are a nation where the rule
of law has become the tyranny of lawyers, and the government is
less representative of the people than of that vague entity
entitled "the national interest" -- whatever it happens
to be at the time.
The judiciary in our nation has gone beyond applying the law to
interpreting the foundational documents of our country and the
guarantees of the Bill of Rights which limited the acts of
government against the liberties of the governed. Such
rights are no longer inviolable, but are subject to judicial
review and liberal construction to the extent that the government,
more than the people, possesses the "rights" and the
force to use them at will.
Only when there is an uprising against such judicial fiat, or
congressional acts, is there a return to the vox populus, and few
individuals seem to comprehend, except in the most flagrant cases,
that freedom is eroded every time a judicial opinion or new law
restricts any article in the Bill of Rights, or any portion
thereof.
Congress has always been political, and divided, but now the
entire body (regardless of platform or stated ideology) has
drifted into the mindset of the globalists, that is, to the left,
toward a socialist nation rather than a nation of free individuals
who consent to be governed. We do well to remember that Rome
was once a republic, but became an empire, and then disintegrated
from within so that it could no longer defend against attacks from
without.
Every inch of responsibility that government takes from the
individual by making new laws and instituting new programs to
provide for the people what they should provide for themselves
makes the people less responsible and more dependent on
"father government." Or on Big Brother, in the
more popular nomenclature. The state takes over what the
individual should do, then it takes control of the children, and
the voice of the people is restricted so that "freedom of
speech" is limited to freely agreeing with the government
agenda.
On this precipice we stand, in July of 2002, edging closer to
full governmental control of children and adults, and the danger
of having a form of republic that is in fact an oligarchy of the
few. In simple terms, we stand on the verge of tyranny while
being reminded daily of our historic freedoms as they are
legislated away or twisted by judicial review and opinion.
Not only do we stand on this precipice, but we are paying huge
sums, via taxation, for the maintenance of the tyrants who are
pushing us over it. If this is freedom, it is one that our
founders would have abhorred, one that we should abhor. Yet
we proclaim we are free because we can still purchase the
automobile or house of our choice, within our financial means to
do so. That form of faux liberty exists under any regime of
tyranny.
There is no such thing as absolute freedom if there are more
than two people on the planet. Law is needful because people
will not willingly be ruled by integrity, nor is it human nature
to be lawful. If you need proof of this, put two toys and
three children in a playpen. There must be laws, but it is
the operation of law itself, the construction of that law, that
differentiates between the rule of law and the tyranny of law.
That is why the founding fathers penned the documents they did.
These men well knew both the human desire for freedom and the
human penchant for lawlessness. They had seen the horrific
abuses of "law" in Europe under the so-called divine
rights of kings and queens, which lopped off many a head for
little more than speaking the wrong thing at the wrong time or
place.
Our nation guaranteed to all its citizens the God-given rights
to life, liberty and the pursuit (not the achievement)
of happiness. Government has been restricted by the Bill of
Rights from inhibiting freedom of speech, religion and the press.
People were guaranteed the right to bear arms against intruders
and against a renegade government that attempted to usurp the
rights of the people or subjugate them and suspend their freedoms.
We were given ballot boxes for the election of those who would
represent our interests (rather than their own) in both houses of
Congress and in the Executive Office.
By hook, crooks and bureaucracy, by agenda and design, these
freedoms have eroded. We live in an era that is highly
restricted in areas of personal freedom of its citizens, and wide
open on its borders to those who illegally enter the country, many
to do no more than destroy it if they have or make the
opportunity. That is not the will of the people, it is the
march of the agenda toward no-border villages in a globalist
community. How did we come to this point? Because of
lack of integrity of parties and leadership, the rule of the rich
over the masses who are not, and the Marxist agenda to bring down
the capitalist structure. The crooked capitalists have also
left their hoof prints on the desecration of the capitalist dream
by making capitalism a dirty word, the symbol of man's unbridled
greed, avarice and corruption, just as totalitarianism has left
its marks in blood on the pavement of many a Tienanmen Square or
Dachau.
America's founders had a quality that seems to mean little to
many these days -- integrity. It is integrity that led
George Washington to step down from the presidency and give
America great wisdom in his farewell address. It is
integrity that flowed through the presidencies of John Adams and
Thomas Jefferson. Those who were instrumental in founding
this nation knew that no law, no founding documents, no words on
paper, could survive if man's corruption prevailed.
The downturn of America's original vision for a free nation,
and the erosion of those freedoms, as well as the diminishing
character of its leaders has been visible for decades now.
How do George Washington's cautions about our national
involvements compare with Richard Nixon's courting of China and
his famous "I'm not a crook" speech? What a
pitiful and yet dreadful decline in morality, in vision, in
agenda. Yet a mere twenty-four years later, the nation would
have its second presidential impeachment (but not conviction) of a
man whose concepts of morality seem to have been spawned in some
primordial ooze. This notion that a leader can be above the
law to the extent that even Nixon could not achieve was perhaps
the low tide of America's existence.
Now we have a wartime president in a state of perpetual war
against the ideology of evil, when such a war is not one of state,
but of character and intent.
We also have less personal freedom than at any time since the
war between the states when then-president Abraham Lincoln
attempted to impose martial law upon our citizens, consolidated
the union, and left the nation with a more powerful centralized
government than was ever intended by the founders. It is on this
centralized focus of power over the people that our present
growing oligarchy and bureaucracies are built.
It is obvious that absent the integrity of the people, who
demand the same of their leaders, that the entire concept of
"freedom" in America is the commemoration of an
experiment that appears doomed to failure.
The fourth of July might well be the commemoration of the
Declaration of Independence and the celebration of hot dogs, buns
and beer with occasional firecrackers and Roman candles.
We do well to remember that ceremony, pomp and circumstance do
not make fact, nor does the celebration of the concept of a free
people make the people free.
|
Shop PUSA
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism
in Central Asia
by Ahmed Rashid
Scan your PC for viruses now!
Magazine of the Month
Passion for Truth: From Finding
JFK's Single Bullet to Questioning Anita Hill to Impeaching
Clinton
by Arlen Specter
DVD's Under $10 at buy.com!
Cigar.com
Unholy Wars:
Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism
by John K. Cooley
Leather -
Sale (30 to 50% off)
Shop for Your Princess at DisneyStore.com 
Search
the Web for:
Death Penalty
Ronald
Reagan
Middle
East
MP3
Web Music
George
W. Bush
Saddam Hussein
Online Gambling
Auto Loans
Free Online Games
NFL
Nascar
Britney Spears
|
