As a sovereign individual, I feel it is my responsibility and duty to state that I reject the United States Federal government as the legitimate power over the United States of America. I do so, not because the right guy is not in office right or because I am some crazy religious fanatic who does not believe in government, but because they have broken their contract with the States of of this country and with the individuals represented by those States.
This contract, the United States Constitution, was established to clearly define the powers and responsibilities of the United States Federal government, a central government designed to ensure that the several States would remain stronger together rather than suffer schism and conflict such as the European nations had faced. Whether or not the fears were unfounded, the several States agreed to the contract on the premise that Federal government would limit its powers and allow the several States to govern themselves as they saw fit, provided a few guidelines in the Constitution were followed.
The idea was simple really. Keep the central government’s powers and responsibilities minimal and allow the State governments, where the people had much more direct access to the overseers of the affairs of the State. The entire central government’s system was set up to ensure that the best representation was available to the people and the State governments as well. This coupled with the fact that the chief executive would be chosen by a group of individuals who did not have any association with any government organization or institution would ensure that everyone had a say and that both oligarchical and collective tyrannies were put in check.
Ever since its passage, ratification, and execution, the Federal government has been encroaching in and crossing the self-imposed limitations they have agreed to. This encroachment has been exponential as the central government has, over time, made great progress in its goal of eradicating the identity of even the state government and their respective citizens. And while much can be said for the battles won against them, they are winning the war.
During the run of John Adams, the second US President, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. These acts were a direct violation of the First Amendment, as it was a law passed to prohibit certain forms of speech. There was no question that this law was unconstitutional, yet many states and members of Congress supported it for whatever reason. Already the central government was trying to breach the contract and defraud their citizens because of one man’s sensitivity about his own weight (literally John Adams had this law passed because a reporter call him “His Roundness”).
The problem was not the system set up by the contract but the people who were left to enforce and maintain it. When you allow or give a person the authority to use force on you and your neighbor, the temptation to use it for evil such as vanity, greed, or envy, becomes too great. There are men (and to a lessor extent women) who can resist such temptations, but they are few and far between. Often enough, they lack ambition to obtain power over others, so they will not run for public office because they have no desire to do so.
In any case, a few States resisted this initial encroachment by nullifying the law. Basically, nullification is where a State government refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of a law passed by the Federal government that it believes to be unconstitutional. While not a specific privilege granted by the contract, it is a natural consequence of basic contract law. If you agree to sell another man your sofa and that he is to come over in the morning and pick it up but he comes at midnight, bangs on your door demanding your sofa now, then he has broken his contract with you and you are under no obligation hand over your sofa. This is the same principle as with nullification.
While the encroachments were minor and there were very few incidents of the central government doing far more than it was authorized to do for a long time, this all changed after the aptly named “Civil War”. I do not like to refer to that war as a civil war because the southern states expressed no desire to overthrow the existing government, just to create their own one. Instead I refer to this war as the War of Southern Secession, which is a more accurate description.
Secession is where a State leaves the union, for whatever reason, and starts its own country. While this action, like nullification, was not specifically granted to the States, it was a natural right found in contract law. Citing the example I provided earlier, let’s now say that the individual in question decided to break into your home and take your sofa. Now you are under no obligation to fulfill your end of the bargain because he has breached his own end of the bargain. So long as you do not take anything that he promised in exchange for the sofa, you are free to tell him to go suck eggs (hopefully behind bars as I assume you have called the police).
In any case, President Lincoln, the first Republican president, believed that even though the contract did not address this, the States had no right to secede from the union and absolve themselves of the contract. I suppose there was some ego involved as being the first Republican president to oversee the “destruction” of the United States. The fact is, however, the southern States were well within their rights to tell the Northern ones to suck eggs, regardless of whether or not we agreed with their reasons for doing so.
In the post-war era and before the rise of the twentieth century progressive movement, the central government began to slowly but surely expand and grow. During the rise of the industrial United States, crony capitalism, aka corporatism, also came about. It started with the railroad systems, but increasingly expanded into other industries. By the late 1800s, the Sherman Act was passed, a vague act that allowed the government to determine what company was operating as a monopoly and gave them the power to break it up. Now we had probably the first significant legislation at a national level that interfered with private contracts between private individuals. I daresay this act was responsible for the rise of the lobbyists and special interest groups as it was this act that established the central government as the de facto decider of the winners and losers in the modern industrial economy.
The next thing to come down the pike was the rise of the progressive movement. They were a large group of Utopians who believe that a strong central government was the means to a perfect society. From them came many new policies with regards to even minor aspects of everyday life such as what you eat and what you drink. Alcohol prohibition, for example, was largely a progressive idea. They also believed in pure representative democracy, that is, all public officials would be voted on. To this end, they passed the Seventeenth Amendment, which called for direct election of Senators. This amendment opened a whole chamber of Congress up to the influence of special interests and they were now no longer tied down to the influence of the State legislatures. Likewise, they created a central bank (however, they were duped by the elite bankers), created an income tax, and limited the size of the House of Representatives, which ensured that your vote would be diluted.
Once the progressives took power, not just as elected officials but also as eager bureaucrats ready to do the will of their philosopher kings, the encroachments have become overwhelming. Today, there is almost no aspect of your daily life that has not been touched by the dirty hands of the Federal government bureaucrat in some way, shape, or form. From the food that you eat to the cars you drive to the communications you make with others, there is more than likely some bureaucrat who has determined what choices you have and monitors what you are doing with those choices. This is not freedom but slavery. Heck, the money you earn and use is backed by the full force of the United States government and if you try to create your own form of money, you are labeled a “financial terrorist” and sent to prison for the rest of your life.
Why did I go over all of this? Because, quite simply, the United State Federal government is in breach on contract. It has been for over a century now and it is very near a total breach of contract. Not only has it breached its agreements with the several states, but with the individual citizen as well. As such, I consider every existing regulation and law to be in violation of the Constitution because of this and every new law and regulation to be illegitimate as well.
Unfortunately, as I am only one individual, this means nothing to the government beast I openly despise. They have more guns, manpower, and drive than I do and as such, they will force me to follow their rules and regulations with the threat of lethal force in retaliation. Every act of defiance will ultimately lead to my death or indefinite detention so I am forced to comply with them or risk losing all that I hold dear. My best case is to simply live off their radar as much as I can and hope that some bored bureaucrat does not take a specific interest in me. And yes, I realize that by writing this and publishing it on a public blog will only serve to increase that risk but I must speak out because I believe in something better than a nanny-welfare-warfare state that presumes to know better than me, despite the top employees having obtained their degrees on the low end of the grade pool.
I do not call for open revolt or violent revolution because historically all such actions have resulted in something worse, not better, than what was before said uprising. At best, we can create alternatives to existing government monopolies and hope we are not stamped out in the process. That too may be a fruitless effort because once they notice something gaining traction, they attack (see what happened to the Liberty Dollar or MegaUpload as an example). I think the best case scenario to play would be it collapsing on its own glut and hubris, but the outcome can be just as bad as open revolt.
I have no political doctrine or any real political beliefs anymore. I have a series of ideas, but they probably could not be considered a political ideology, largely because the ideas I have are not based on politics, but my own outlook on morality and ethics which apply to all situations, not just political ones. I do not think that any ideology will fix anything because, as history has shown, people will eventually screw things up royally.
I do believe that individual is sovereign and that everyone is entitled to live as he pleases so long as it is honest and peaceful. Unfortunately, such sentiments are not shared by the vast majority of the people who live with me in this oligarchical police state because they have given into fear in one form or another. Thus, I must try and limit my interaction with them and try and get through life, hopefully avoiding any unnecessary attention from bored people. Still, though, I refuse to acknowledge or pledge allegiance to this government because it is illegitimate.
Uh, 2nd prez was John Adams. Madison was #4.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I'll correct it.
DeleteCorrected.
DeleteGood post!
ReplyDelete