Liberty or Laws? -- Appeasement

[Gary Hunt]

Liberty or Laws?
Appeasement

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
August 23, 2014

 

Last October (29, 2013), I wrote an article on "Appeasement - Giving in, inch by inch".  In that article, I addressed the appeasement, by the government, regarding both foreign and domestic matters.

At the time, it had not crossed my mind that we have a choice between "Liberty or Laws", only that we had to try to change what was happening - though the methods of achieving that end varied, greatly.  This current series, however, delves into the supposition that the country belongs to us, not the government.  Not really a strange concept, as it was that very way of thinking that led to the Revolutionary War -- that the country, in fact, belongs to the people of that country -- that when government violates the trust, the people will either accept the condition, or the will take back that government.  This concept is embodied in the Declaration of Independence:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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 long trains 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 for new guards for their future security.

What happens, then, when the people continue with a doctrine of appeasement with government?  Can there be any justification for such doctrine, and, if so, at what point in the invariable course of government do we determine to do our duty -- for the sake of our posterity?

So, perhaps we should look at just how we are appeasing the government:

• The Constitution provides that only Congress can declare war (Art. I, §8, cl. 11), though we have allowed both the President and Congress to engage in war, without a requisite declaration.  Over time, it has become the "prerogative" of the President to engage in war, absent an objection by the Congress.  The provision in the Constitution was so placed so that the power and expense of war would not lie in the hands of one man.

• The Constitution provides that only Congress call forth the militia to repel invasion (Art.  I, §8, cl. 15), though Congress has failed to do so repel the invasion, in violation of existing laws regarding immigration, which can be described as no less than an invasion.  If Congress called them forth, the President would be Commander in Chief but the obligation to utilize them to repel invasion could not be detracted.

• The Constitution makes no provision for the federal government to become a benefactor, taking money from those that justly earn it to give to those unwilling to earn their own livelihood.  This has historically been an act of private people and organizations, and to some degree, within the local community (Not Yours To Give).  It was never mandatory, until the government decided to buy the favor (chicken in every pot) of a class of people.

• The supporters of the Constitution, in addressing at least five of the state ratifying conventions, explained that "direct taxes" would only be imposed in an emergency (to pay for war, or other extraordinary events - See "Ratification" by Pauline Maier).  Instead, we pay a minimum of 1/5th of our earnings directly to government.  This does not include the taxes paid prior to purchase of an item by every person involved in the production of the item -- compounding the true tax paid.  "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance" (Declaration of Independence).

• The First Amendment mandates that Congress "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".  This means that they cannot set one church above others (and, to Framers, Christianity was the acceptable religion, the various denominations being the object of the Amendment).  However, by administratively creating and forcing churches into 501(c)(3) status, then limiting what they could include within their sermons (except Muslim churches), they have "established" a religion that has no moral values, and allowed another to espouse values foreign to our nature, without consequence.

• The Constitution makes no provision for the control of education of the children of the People.  Public Education belonged, for over 180 years, to the public, not the government.  The Department of Education was created in 1867, under Reconstruction), though abandoned after a year of existence.  Its purpose, at the time, was to "educated" southern children to Northern values.  It was reconstituted in 1953 as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and has become a source of absolute and arbitrary control over the education process throughout the country, in a form of indoctrination which exceeds anything ever imagined by Adolph Hitler, as a tool of government propaganda, to the point that basic skills have nearly been removed from the curriculum and social engineering programs have replaced them as the focus of the educational system.

• With the recent militarization of police, and the ongoing efforts to restrict and outlaw gun ownership, we find that we are fast approaching absolute subjugation to government authority.  We are far worse off than our English ancestors in the mid-seventeen-hundreds, when in Parliament, William Pitt said:

"The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all of the forces of the Crown.  It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement"

And, we find that concerns that are recorded in our document of Independence from despotic government included within its concerns:

"For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us...          For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders they should commit on the inhabitants of these states" (Declaration of Independence).

For the sake of brevity, I will leave you to add your additional concerns regarding the intentions of government.

The question arises, do we stand for our Liberties, or, do we abide by fabricated laws?  To continue on the path we walk renders us as guilty of appeasement as was Chamberlin prior to World War II, and our own government is today, as addressed in "Appeasement - Giving in, inch by inch".

Appeasement
n. The action or process of appeasing.

Appease
v. pacify or placate (someone) by acceding to their demands.

 

This article can be found on line at Liberty or Laws? - Appeasement