freeandfun1
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- Feb 14, 2004
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A long, but interesting read!
Time to form a new nation!
Source: BushCountry.org
Time to form a new nation!
Source: BushCountry.org
Jane Chastain and Linda Bowles, two of the smartest women and best columnists on the national scene these days, each wrote separate but equally alarming tomes on Tuesday, regarding the progression (or regression, depending on your point of view) of American government over the past several decades.
Essentially, each said America today resembles little to nothing of the nation our ancestors founded, then fought and died for to say nothing of the scores who died defending it since then.
A more subtle point made in both articles was this: If we don't like the form modern America has taken, there is little time left for concerned citizens to change its direction, lest it become the kind of socialist, authoritarian hellhole we supposedly despise and at least once ideologically opposed.
In her column, Chastain, citing data from a new study on the huge growth of federal outlays, spending and bureaucracy since the passage of the 16th Amendment (authorizing an income tax, in 1913), warned, "it is time this nation has a frank and open discussion about the size and cost of government before we reach the point of no return."
Meanwhile, Bowles' column, which decried the rapid encroachment of federal control and regulatory authority over private property ownership and rights, mentioned that little debate about this dictatorial phenomenon had taken place, outside of the localized areas where some of the worst abuses were occurring.
"One hopes this is due to a lack of coverage by the mainstream media, rather than a fatalistic American submission to state socialism. One fears that only in retrospect, when it is too late to resist, will it be understood that freedoms have been irretrievably forfeited and the Constitution irreversibly abandoned," Bowles wrote.
On the 57th anniversary of D-Day, the allied invasion launched during World War II to exterminate the Nazi threat to the world, I think it is more than appropriate to explore the incredible usurpation of federal power in the past several decades and, perhaps most importantly, discuss what we ought to do about it.
There are lots of "mini-issues" floating about, but they basically revolve around the general issues of whether our nation, our people, prefer the continued encroachment of state (meaning federal) control over every aspect of our lives, vs. those who don't.
In the pro-big government camp are Americans who don't mind sacrificing most of their earnings to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and unresponsive elected officials. They don't mind relying on Washington for a host of taxpayer-funded benefits, and they are agreeable to the notion that personal responsibility and independence should be sacrificed to the power, arbitration and façade of "security" offered by most of our leaders.
To them, there is no limit to Washington's power or reach, save for small, specific limits on just a handful of personal liberties. And they view people who oppose these ideals as anachronistic, pinhead extremists who are too dumb and unsophisticated to know what's good for them.
On the other side is the small government camp, inhabited by people who believe in our Constitution, verbatim, and who hold personal liberty and responsibility so dear that they dare to expect others to hold similar views.
They abhor all but the most limited, specific and narrowly defined forms of taxation because they believe their money belongs to them, and that the federal government only needs enough funding to perform its few, narrowly defined, constitutional duties.
These folks hate waste, fraud and abuse, would rather seek a hand-up from a friend or church than a hand-out from the government, and believe Washington has proven it cannot solve our problems, try as it may.
They hate regulations, unfunded mandates, interference in personal affairs and subjugation of constitutional liberties. They see the huge growth of the federal government as an impetus towards global imperialism, authoritarianism, and eventual dictatorship.
In short, they believe that the larger and more powerful Washington is, the less freedom, independence, money and opportunity they will be afforded. And they view people who oppose these ideals as socialist, pinhead extremists who are demonstrably not as bright as they think they are, and who lack even the knowledge sufficient to realize that.
How, in the very same country, can two such diametrically opposed groups co-exist for the long run? Answer: They can't.
America, it is obvious to me, has grown so large and so diverse that it is nothing more than a mere shell of its founding self.
Our modern-day federalists have managed to subvert our constitutional representative republic with a new "democracy" that contains, at its core, an underlying set of political ideals so foreign, so wrong, and so hypocritical, that serious historians recognize it as the basis for our original war of independence.
Serious constitutional reformers have been either shut out of national debate or demonized into submission. Both major parties today offer only varying degrees of a larger federal role in our lives.
Federal agencies no longer feel compelled to act within the law, let alone within their mandates, but when caught in scandal, lawmakers possess neither the will or desire to force them to be accountable.
Federal courts cannot even agree on the same constitutional mandates and passages, though the language is clear.
Congress has reduced itself to the role of a political whore wherein, every two to six years, its members sacrifice principle and honor to bend over for every special interest willing to spend boatloads of money on them. This process has worked to ensure that ordinary citizens are shut out of decisions made affecting none other than ordinary citizens.
The "will of the people" has become a congressional buzz phrase, but that "will" is measured with phony polls and surveys that, strangely, always echo the sentiment of the lawmaker touting the results. This charade is perpetrated by big government allies in most mainstream media outlets.
Our leaders have forced their way into the affairs of other countries so often than now even allies are questioning our motives and asking us to butt out. As a result of our interference, we have been reduced to building memorials to our fallen heroes who have died in places that pose no threat to our nation but we are denied the opportunity to choose when and where our heroes will be sent to die.
The laws of our land are either followed or ignored by our leaders, depending upon whose ox is to be gored, but these same hypocrites require the rest of us to follow all laws all the time, without question.
In short, our political process indeed, the entire direction of our nation has been put on autopilot. It has been taken out of our control, and we are heading away from our constitutional roots faster than at any time in our history.
We are no longer a nation "of the people, for the people, and by the people," but one for the politicians, of the special interests, and by the will of the federal judiciary.
Still, we have a choice, if we're brave and committed enough to pursue it.
I believe it is time for Americans to admit we are beyond the scope of "political, social and cultural" reconciliation. I believe it is time to act on our consciences, principles, and sense of duty. I believe it is time for Americans to choose what this nation has become, or abandon it to form a new, separate nation based on what it was always intended to be.
I would support the creation of state ballot initiatives, whereby citizens could vote on whether their state should remain in this union or leave it. Short of such a dramatic step, any further discussions of "reforming the system" will be as meaningful as one of Bill Clinton's promises.
There was a time when I was idealistic enough to believe Americans could and would come together to effect the kind of changes that obviously need to be made on a national level. Over the years, however, this idealist notion was dimmed and finally snuffed by the repetitive hypocrisy and chronically corrupt (and unpunished) behavior of our leaders.
I believe tens of millions of my countrymen feel the same way, but were just waiting for somebody else to say it aloud.
