I have found it more entertaining every year to hear what Americans think of the 4th of July. Most have never read the Declaration of Independence or even understand the political dynamics of the days in 1776. Most just know it is a day off, an excuse to party. The state (government in control of this land) could not be happier.
Test drive these words and see if your average politician might be tempted to put up barb-wire fences and gun turrets around the US Capitol:
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…
Alter or abolish is the remedy for a government that no longer has the consent of the people, yet here we are.
The role of government in society has been argued for centuries, yet common sense dictates that every generation could and should struggle with the proper extent that government (i.e. force, coercion, monopoly) should try to “help”.
From an insightful article written by a man 10 years my senior, I have found some interesting “truths” for me to ponder, as well as my kids and grand-kids. For example:
.. can’t we at least be happy when the government helps needy people? No, we can’t. The more goodies the government doles out, the more violent society becomes. That’s because it becomes more and more vital to be at the head of the line for those goodies; without them, you’re left with a crippling tax bill and nothing to show for it. The higher the fraction of people’s income that comes from the government, the more intense becomes the jockeying. You do your best to smear anyone who is claiming to be more worthy of largess than you. Society becomes spontaneously pulverized and at war with itself, all thanks to “help” from the government.
A society at war with itself is advantageous to the state as this distraction can serve to allow it to not only offer to fictitiously broker peace between the warring factions while “managing” the “crisis but also allows it to weigh in violently around the globe as a world-stage bully. A hobby that the state/empire loves to do, experiment around the world with ideas for democracy which then can be modified for use domestically to enhance the “police state”.
The rights that the founding fathers were willing to be called and hunted as “traitors” for can be seen in the following list of illegitimate government actions:
- If you are sick, you have the right to be treated by whomever you please, for a price negotiated to the satisfaction of both parties, without government intrusion.
- If you have services you wish to offer to the world, you have the right to do so without asking permission from the government. Only if you engage in force or fraud does the government have a right to intrude.
- The government has no right to enslave you or your children to fight and die in some trumped-up war. If the nation were ever in genuine danger, there would be no shortage of volunteers to defend it.
- The government has no right to tax an amount approaching half of your earnings. The legitimate functions of government can be financed by a tiny fraction of that.
- The government has no right to rob you in order to pass out money to some favored victim group. Genuine charity is voluntary, but when the government gets involved, waste and fraud and theft are built in.
- The government has no right to force you to pay for the worthless indoctrination centers called “public schools.” That money rightfully belongs to parents so they can make an informed decision for how best to educate their children.
- The government has no right to deprive you of the means of self-defense. Any government official who attempts to use force to do so is committing the worst order of crime and should expect an appropriate response.
- The government has no right to pull your car over on the highway and steal any cash you may be carrying. Any criminals who participate in this practice should expect an appropriately enraged response from those they seek to rob.
- The government has no right to condemn and raze your home to enable some private developer to build a shopping mall.
- The government has no right to lock you up if you have committed no crime, on the pretense that some people are irrationally frightened of some microscopic bug, and therefore everyone must hide until the last traces of irrational fear have vanished.
- The government has no right to shut down your business for any reason, unless you have been found to have engaged in force or fraud by a non-corrupt court of law.
- The government has no right to require you to wear a diaper on your face, or to be injected with an experimental biological agent.
- The government has no right to force you to do business with someone you don’t want to do business with. It’s not nice to be a bigot, but bigots pay for discriminating through higher labor costs, lost trade, and a general echoing back of the world to the spirit one projects onto it. For the law to criminalize bigotry merely bottles it up, where it achieves higher and higher pressure until it explodes. It also creates a lawsuit-happy nation where everybody is terminally aggrieved over some perceived slight and wants to whine about it endlessly. The right to freedom of association is absolute.
- The government has no right to apply coercion in any way to stop or influence anything you are doing, unless you are violating someone else’s rights. A free individual runs his own life, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Anything else is tyranny.
On July 4th, will you be celebrating your “freedom”? Asking for a friend!
Those who advocate the strategy of “elect better officials” are deluding themselves. Candidates for office always promise to be the new, different, actual, genuine representative of the people who would never violate anyone’s rights. But once they’re elected, it’s only the biggest donors they give a flying consideration about, and they have taken care to ensure that there is no way to sue them for breach of contract. They are accountable to no one but themselves and their own selfish interests, financed with what used to be your money.
Ever-larger government peddles itself as the solution to society’s problems, but intrusive, thieving government is the source of a huge fraction of society’s problems. We do of course need to deal with actual private criminals in order to keep people secure in their homes and property, but when the government turns criminal we have a much bigger problem, and we are left to ourselves to deal with it.
I do hope you see clearly that politics is not the way the people can exit from our existing ramped up tyrannical paradise.
Most people would read that and assume that violence is the only other option at this point, however, as the author of this article suggests, no, but if one is violently attacked by an illegitimate government, self defense is itself a natural right regardless of the law:
Am I in favor of violence? Quite the opposite: I vehemently oppose it. Violence is never justified except in self-defense, where it is absolutely called for in measure proportionate to the threat. That’s why when government officials initiate illegitimate violence, they should not be shocked if their violence is met by necessary self-defense. It is they, and no one else, who are responsible for the illegitimate violence they initiate, and when it is returned to them in equal measure, they have no one to blame but themselves.
When the Redcoats headed to Concord and Lexington to capture the guns the militia had stored in those locations, natural self defense rights were being violated and measures appropriate to the threat were put in place.
Remember that. Wise as serpents, harmless as doves .. and if you don’t have a sword, sell your coat and buy one .. it sure came in handy in Concord and Lexington back in 1775!
-SF1