Friday, February 11, 2011

Freedom Fighting


In mid-December I wrote four columns about the citizens’ reactions to an overzealous repressive government. They were: “Willful Submission”…a discussion of a nation’s meek submission to its autocratic government; “A Salvation Message” which explored the role of nullification as a remedy; “Secession as a Strategy” developed the thesis for leaving the Union if the nullification efforts were inadequate; and “Sedition Sentiment” examined the justification for active resistance when a government has clearly exceeded its mandate. While I didn’t receive a lot of feedback on those columns, I am aware that they were written before many of you began reading “Littlestuff-minoosha.” I have, however, been thinking about sedition as the final chapter. It is not,….and it cannot be the end result. Seditious activity will incur the wrath of the state apparatus, and thus, must either escalate or be extinguished.
It seems somewhat ironic to me that as this piece is being distributed, I am in Washington, D.C., among the marble and granite monuments and buildings that reflect the power of this once glorious and free nation. Even here surrounded by cherished evidences of our wonderful history, I am attempting to cope with a suffocating sense of decay. Power is palpable here, but it doesn’t feel as if it is necessarily benign. People scatter about like mice in a granary when the door is opened, and one wonders if they know what they’re doing….or is it merely a charade? They seek to justify their roles by sucking the blood of liberty from the rest of us. Political and regulatory vampires on power trips. Oh my!
One of the great strengths of the United States of America is that we have attracted freedom-loving people from every nation and culture on the planet. They have brought their traditions and their ingenuity with them as they sought liberty and opportunity. Yet the nameless faces who are toiling behind these marble walls are seeking to squeeze us into a molded “sameness.” Equal opportunity was promised at the Founding, but the government class yearns for equal outcomes. They expect us to endorse their goals, but we must resist them if we are to be free. Seeking a solution to this problem, I sought the counsel of some learned, wise men:

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.
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
From the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

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