Don’t get too excited. I am not going to sing a lullaby to you. To the contrary I want to jar you awake. As we approach the 2012 elections, every party, every political wannabe and every career politician will be assessing the voters to determine how to finesse a winning number…they plan to be counting sheep. Politicians frequently lie. The uninformed, naïve ones mislead because they believe that they can defeat the system once they are elected. The cynical career politicians lie routinely and often. They do not even give the voters the courtesy of crossing their fingers behind their backs as they speak. They will do anything, evade everything and promise enduring fidelity to the Constitution to capture your vote. They will lie. I challenge you to find more than 5 members of Congress or the state legislature who never vote for unconstitutional legislation or resolutions.
If a citizen or a politician believes that some particular law or regulation is worthy but unconstitutional, she or he can implement the process to change the document through an amendment. Just because a politician, a citizen or a group believes something should be permissible or government-sponsored does not make it a legitimate function of government. Good ideas are not necessarily legal or constitutional. Politicians thrive when the sheeple clamor for something that is extra-constitutional. The public outcry provides some modicum of justification for extending government power, and supplies cover for future efforts to suppress our liberty. Politicians may not be the most profound thinkers in the land, but they do know how to count and read polling data.
It becomes impossible to expect the political class to display restraint when the citizens routinely look for government solutions for private sector problems. Just as the three year old child wants every toy in the store, many citizens demand that government correct every default and solve every ill. Our mission should include educating and chiding our fellow citizens to become more self-reliant. We do a reasonably good job of informing them about government inadequacy and over reaching, but we fall short when placing the blame where it lies…with the people who demand more or tolerate it. When things are running smoothly, the people’s vigilance and willingness to accept questionable governing is maximized. When the wheels of government and society begin to wobble, the people are motivated to pay attention, but our action is not initiated until the wheels begin to fall off the government and social structure.
If the people succeed in our attempts to preserve the republic by electing servants who are committed to liberty and the Constitution, then, as we were warned two centuries ago, our cry must be for eternal, effective vigilance. Cockroaches avoid the light, and politicians avoid controversy. The vocal activists must outwork and out shout the looters. If the looters win, we all will be losers. Right now the looters and their political puppets have a huge advantage. They control the levers of power. They control the Federal Reserve. They hold control over most of the media. The looters are firmly entrenched in all levels of the formal academic and educational system. The looters are in positions of power within many of the religious institutions in the nation. The looters are siphoning the energy and heart out of our nation, and leaving behind an empty skeleton. There are, at this late stage, some of our citizens who do not understand that the skeleton is empty…no organs, no muscle, no tissue, no blood. They mistake the collection of bones for the reality that once existed. They have not yet discerned that without blood and muscle, the body cannot survive.
Our mission as patriots and lovers of liberty who must sound the clarion call is to alert our fellows, our families, our co-workers, our churches, our neighbors and everyone we know or meet that the skeleton is empty, and we must labor to rebuild the body. We, all of us, can no longer live the life of compliant sheep. We must stand up to be counted…not as sheep…but as people committed to individual liberty. Perhaps we have the time to prevail…perhaps not. Liberty isn’t easy, and it ain’t cheap.
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