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Just Say NO! to the Federal Government
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Just Say NO! to the Federal Government
By Oliver Del Signore
Back in the 80s, Nancy Reagan championed a "War on Drugs" campaign that featured as its slogan "Just Say NO!" From what I could determine, the only people who took the slogan seriously, who imagined it would do anything to stem the use of drugs, were the drug warriors themselves. Everyone else pretty much laughed at or ignored it. But Nancy was right. She was just right about the wrong thing.
The real target of her "Just Say NO!' campaign should have been the Federal government itself.
There are two ways a government can control its citizens-by using guns or by using money. Money, of course, is the preferred method here in the USA. Congress passes some useless legislation designed to make themselves look good, or to address a manufactured or imagined problem, then threatens the states with loss of some type of federal funding if they do not comply. State legislatures and local officials, sheep that they are, scurry to comply lest their neighbor get more money to waste than they will.
And the people are slightly more oppressed.
If it only happened occasionally, we could almost live with it. But such laws are not occasional things. They make up the bulk of legislation passed by the self-serving professional busybodies we keep electing to "govern" us. It doesn't matter that most of the laws are blatantly unconstitutional. I've searched and searched through my copy of the Constitution, over and over again, looking for the clauses that give Congress any authority over education, drug use, health care, housing, disaster relief, firearms, or any of the myriad areas into which they seem to relish sticking their collective noses. But I can't find a single word enabling them to do what they do.
What was that? The Supreme Court said they could? So what? I've also searched for the clause that gives the Supreme Court the authority to decide what is constitutional and what is not. I can't seem to find that one either. Does anyone really believe the Founding Fathers of this country wanted the government to pass judgement on itself? In fact, what they wanted, and what they designed, was a system whereby the people, through local government and through jury trials, were the ones who decided whether or not laws were constitutional.
Which is why it is time we American citizens got together, individually and on the local and state level, and Just Say NO!
We've got to start saying NO! to the threats of withholding funds. Indeed, we've got to start saying NO! to any funds not specifically intended for one of the very few powers the Constitution actually grants to the Federal Government.
We've got to say NO! to the education reform that has dumbed down our children to the point where high school graduates need electronic cash registers with pictures on the keys to help them place the order and make change for a dollar, that hands diplomas to people who can't find France on a world map, and who, in many cases, can't read or write well enough to fill out a job application.
We've got to say NO! to the insane War on Drugs that allows our Government to imprison a higher percentage of our citizens than does any other country in the world, that does nothing to discourage drug abuse, and that actually creates the atmosphere of profitability that makes the drug trade attractive and dangerous.
We've got to say NO! to laws that seek to disarm Americans, that prevent us from defending ourselves against four-legged, two-legged, and bureaucratic predators.
We've got to say NO! to the debilitating and divisive welfare and quota systems that have served only to create an underclass of dependents, that has tainted the accomplishments of minorities who have struggled so long and so hard for true equality, that has divided a once proud people into warring camps, each desperately seeking the ear and approval of their masters that they might be granted an ounce or two of the king's gold.
We've got to say NO! to the controllers, NO! to the bureaucrats, NO! to everyone who wants to help us for our own good.
When we sit on juries, we've got to say NO! to the prosecutors and judges who seek to fine and imprison us for actions that harmed no one, except, possibly, ourselves. And when they try to legislate juryless trials, we've got to storm the seats of government and say NO! we will not accept the loss of our right to decide who is guilty and who should go free.
We've got to say NO!, NO!, NO! over and over again, until they finally get the message that Americans want to be free, that we want to be left alone to live our lives as we see fit, as long as we do not harm others.
We've got to start now, today, this very minute to take back the rights and the freedoms we have been letting slip away. For if we do not, if we continue to allow elected and unelected officials to castrate us, to neuter our rights, to dissolve our freedoms, it is our children and our grandchildren who will, in the end, pay the ultimate price. It is they who will live as slaves to the state. It is they who will look back, with tears in their eyes, and ask why we let it happen.
Just Say NO!
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/delsignore76.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Oliver Del Signore
Back in the 80s, Nancy Reagan championed a "War on Drugs" campaign that featured as its slogan "Just Say NO!" From what I could determine, the only people who took the slogan seriously, who imagined it would do anything to stem the use of drugs, were the drug warriors themselves. Everyone else pretty much laughed at or ignored it. But Nancy was right. She was just right about the wrong thing.
The real target of her "Just Say NO!' campaign should have been the Federal government itself.
There are two ways a government can control its citizens-by using guns or by using money. Money, of course, is the preferred method here in the USA. Congress passes some useless legislation designed to make themselves look good, or to address a manufactured or imagined problem, then threatens the states with loss of some type of federal funding if they do not comply. State legislatures and local officials, sheep that they are, scurry to comply lest their neighbor get more money to waste than they will.
And the people are slightly more oppressed.
If it only happened occasionally, we could almost live with it. But such laws are not occasional things. They make up the bulk of legislation passed by the self-serving professional busybodies we keep electing to "govern" us. It doesn't matter that most of the laws are blatantly unconstitutional. I've searched and searched through my copy of the Constitution, over and over again, looking for the clauses that give Congress any authority over education, drug use, health care, housing, disaster relief, firearms, or any of the myriad areas into which they seem to relish sticking their collective noses. But I can't find a single word enabling them to do what they do.
What was that? The Supreme Court said they could? So what? I've also searched for the clause that gives the Supreme Court the authority to decide what is constitutional and what is not. I can't seem to find that one either. Does anyone really believe the Founding Fathers of this country wanted the government to pass judgement on itself? In fact, what they wanted, and what they designed, was a system whereby the people, through local government and through jury trials, were the ones who decided whether or not laws were constitutional.
Which is why it is time we American citizens got together, individually and on the local and state level, and Just Say NO!
We've got to start saying NO! to the threats of withholding funds. Indeed, we've got to start saying NO! to any funds not specifically intended for one of the very few powers the Constitution actually grants to the Federal Government.
We've got to say NO! to the education reform that has dumbed down our children to the point where high school graduates need electronic cash registers with pictures on the keys to help them place the order and make change for a dollar, that hands diplomas to people who can't find France on a world map, and who, in many cases, can't read or write well enough to fill out a job application.
We've got to say NO! to the insane War on Drugs that allows our Government to imprison a higher percentage of our citizens than does any other country in the world, that does nothing to discourage drug abuse, and that actually creates the atmosphere of profitability that makes the drug trade attractive and dangerous.
We've got to say NO! to laws that seek to disarm Americans, that prevent us from defending ourselves against four-legged, two-legged, and bureaucratic predators.
We've got to say NO! to the debilitating and divisive welfare and quota systems that have served only to create an underclass of dependents, that has tainted the accomplishments of minorities who have struggled so long and so hard for true equality, that has divided a once proud people into warring camps, each desperately seeking the ear and approval of their masters that they might be granted an ounce or two of the king's gold.
We've got to say NO! to the controllers, NO! to the bureaucrats, NO! to everyone who wants to help us for our own good.
When we sit on juries, we've got to say NO! to the prosecutors and judges who seek to fine and imprison us for actions that harmed no one, except, possibly, ourselves. And when they try to legislate juryless trials, we've got to storm the seats of government and say NO! we will not accept the loss of our right to decide who is guilty and who should go free.
We've got to say NO!, NO!, NO! over and over again, until they finally get the message that Americans want to be free, that we want to be left alone to live our lives as we see fit, as long as we do not harm others.
We've got to start now, today, this very minute to take back the rights and the freedoms we have been letting slip away. For if we do not, if we continue to allow elected and unelected officials to castrate us, to neuter our rights, to dissolve our freedoms, it is our children and our grandchildren who will, in the end, pay the ultimate price. It is they who will live as slaves to the state. It is they who will look back, with tears in their eyes, and ask why we let it happen.
Just Say NO!
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/delsignore76.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
By Jim Moore - Ether Zone
Every founding father that I can think of was in favor of making America a republic and not a democracy. And since that time, everyone with lead in his pencil and ink in his printer has assiduously argued the point, in tracts, brochures, books, plays, movies, television, and websites.
I even took a swing at it myself. In a recent article to the web, I tried to make as clear as possible that democracy means Rule by Man; and a republic means Rule by Law. I thought I explained the difference pretty good. But I was writing to the wind. The arguments go on.
Because, however, the difference between a democracy and a republic is a huge, but subtle one, it behooves us all to keep taking cracks at comparing them. Because the difference is one of the reasons why America is on a down grade.
Did our founders know something we didn't know? Yes. Did it give them a good reason for making us a republic? Yes. What was the reason? The Rule of Law keeps the country free and productive; the Rule of Man eventually becomes tyranny and destroys the nation.
Why is this so? And if a republic is so good, why do we continue to call ourselves a democracy, and say it with pride and reverence, when you can't even find the word democracy in any of our founding documents, but republic is all over the place?
Maybe you'll think again about the word democracy after you hear what Hans Hermann Hoppe has to say about it. In his new book, The God That Failed, Hoppe makes this trenchant observation, "Democracy causes rulers to use policy for their short-term gains at the expense of the long-term welfare of the country."
Read that line again and let it simmer.
A democracy, Hoppe reminds us, is ruled by temporary "caretakers" who have no proprietary interest in the country. Their interest is short-sighted. Their policies exploit the "present" at the expense of the "future", and the country suffers.
Hoppe points out that even hereditary lines of kings, with all their human frailties and bad judgments, usually did better than that; because, for the "family's sake", they had a vested interest in maintaining the cultural, social, and economic strength of their country. Human nature, being what it is, when you "own" something you're apt to take better care of it.
The really bad news, contends Hoppe, is that "the longer a democracy exists, the more damage is done to the country's laws, property, culture, family, and moral values by the musical chair system of rotating rulers guided by short-term interest."
The consequences of having "in today-out tomorrow" politicians is devastating. Why? Because the incentive for businessmen and consumers to take a long-term view are reduced. Business horizons sink to a new low. Debt levels rise as short-sighted rule encourages government to confiscate more of the nation's income and wealth.
No one, except perhaps the mensa-minds among us, can fully comprehend how democracy literally destroys a nation. But the consequence is not hard to grasp: If we keep making the world safe for democracy we will soon find out that no one is safe anymore.
About the Author
Jim Moore is a free-lance political writer and is a regular columnist for Ether Zone. A list of works by Jim Moore can be seen at the American Reformation Project website,
Published in the June 19, 2002 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright (c) 1997 - 2002 Ether Zone http://www.federalobserver.com/index.php?section=American+<i>Odyssey</i>
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878