On
this recent 237th anniversary of our Independence, it is good for us
all to give pause and consider our legacy. Most have no idea how quickly our legacy and
freedoms are being usurped and squandered by a bloated, “Big Brother”
Government that is totally out of control, a Government that holds our
Constitution in utter disdain.
John
Adams, Founding Father and second President of the United States gave us a few
thought-provoking words to reflect upon this Independence Day: “You will never know how much it cost the
present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of
it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to
preserve it.”
Far too many Americans don’t seem to realize that violations
of our Constitution with its Bill of Rights, under both President George W.
Bush and President Barack Obama, have now made substantial inroads to destroy
of our rights and liberties. There is blame enough to go around very wide and deep, from
the actions of both political parties, and from all branches of Government. Actually, we no longer have three branches of
one government providing the checks and balances that our Framers in their
wisdom bequeathed to us. We are, sadly, being
controlled by three separate governments all acting beyond and without powers granted to it by the Constitution. Without the Constitution there can be no
government; it is the font of all power, which power, in turn, is granted to
the Government by the People.
I
urge you to read Paragraph 2 of The Declaration of Independence but this
except will do: “. . . 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 . . .” The
Government works for us, the People. Yet
the People, the governed, are today being totally ignored and kept in the dark
under the pretense of “National Security” as their Constitutional heritage and
rights are fast disappearing into a cosmic black hole, a force so powerful that
not even light that otherwise races unimpeded across the 13.8 billion light
years of our universe can escape from its grip.
Our President
constantly ignores and changes laws passed by Congress, the only body given
legislative power in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution; just as tragic,
the President blithely bypasses Congress to “write laws” by using non-elected
bureaucratic Czars in his federal agencies like the EPA. This is in total violation
of Article I, Section I that states: “All
legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United
States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” This is simple declarative sentence with a
single, unambiguous meaning. Period.
For
two years in a row during his first term, Mr. Obama addressed large Hispanic
groups and told them, in effect, that he wished he could change the law but
that we have a Constitution that prevents him from doing so. But just a few months before the 2012
elections, Mr. Obama unilaterally changed the law by exempting almost one
million people from being deported. The
Chief Executive has no power to either create laws or to alter them. Period . . . again! This was a bold-faced,
shameless act of usurpation of power designed to alter the outcome of the
elections. Furious ICE agents have been
granted standing and are now suing Obama for yet another gross violation of the
Constitution. In his own words, the
President admitted for two years he lacked the Constitutional power to do
anything without Congress, yet before the elections he somehow miraculously
“found the power.” And for you historians reading this, I would ask if this
mystery of new-found power could have any parallel to the “mysterious” power
that Hitler found to burn the Reichstag in February of 1933 with elections
scheduled for March 5, 1933? As Lord
Acton said in 1906, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.”
Yet
the Congress obligingly ignores the President’s Constitutional trespasses. Congress then passes laws that they have not
even read, and even laws that clearly violate the Constitution like the NDAA.
Finally,
the Supreme Court “creates laws” from the Bench by distorting the clear meaning
of the Constitution. SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) is not
infallible, not even consistent. It has reversed
its own decisions approximately once every 13 months since it began
operation on February 2, 1790. Something
cannot be Constitutional and unconstitutional
at the same time! Where is the constancy
in applying the Constitution? When convenient, the Constitution becomes just a dusty,
inconvenient Truth that needs to be rationalized into oblivion in order to make
social judgments so that SCOTUS can “pass” socially desirable laws to its
liking, a power reserved exclusively to the Congress.
When
our liberties are gone it will be too late. Those who prefer not to care and to leave the
future of their liberty, and that of their children, in the hands of
self-serving politicians will have no one to blame but themselves when the
country finally awakens one day from its Rumplestiltskin lethargy. Unfortunately it will be too late, as it was
for those millions and millions beguiled by the Nazi party and at least 60
million sent to die in the gulags under Josef Stalin.
We
have just witnessed the most massive demonstrations in the recorded history of
the world that took place in Egypt this week to remove a “democratically
elected” President and the Muslim Brotherhood. Why? Because
this “democratically elected” Government betrayed the People who constitute the
source of that government’s legitimacy. People
died throughout Egypt to take back their government and their freedoms, just as
our forefathers fought and died to reclaim their liberties and freedom from a
tyrannical George III. Egypt’s now “former” new President and his ideologue colleagues
betrayed the Nation by trying to impose on 82 million people a vision for Egypt
totally at odds with the wishes of the People, the “governed,” the source of
any legitimate government’s power.
If
cavalier citizens of the United States were to send a similar message to its
ideologue-driven, self-serving government of both parties there might be hope
for the Republic. But when the average
citizen is oblivious to what its Government is doing there is slim chance of
that happening. It seems that what liberties
we lose in stealth and small steps seem somehow to go unnoticed and
unchallenged. Today it is our “private” phone
calls and e-mails being collected and stored by an all-seeing, all-powerful
central government. Tomorrow it will be our guns and right to self-defense
against an imperious government. What will we eventually find at the end of the
proverbial “slippery slope we travel?” Every
American should have the opportunity to speak with those who were trapped in
Communist Russia for 70 years and with those deprived of their inalienable
rights in the conquered nations subjugated behind the Iron Curtain after World
War II. They still seek a new life in a
new America, but what will happen to their dreams of liberty and opportunity in
a “fundamentally changed,” future America not so far off?
Why
has the Department of Homeland Security, NOAA, Social Security and other “benign”
agencies of the Federal Government purchased over 1.8 billion (billion with a “B”)
rounds of hollow-point ammunition, enough to put 5 rounds in every man, woman
and child in the USA? The Geneva
Convention bans the use of hollow-point ammunition in conflict by all signatory
nations; it cannot be used by the armed forces; it has but one purpose—to kill.
To kill whom we should ask? Despite questions by many retired military
generals about these 1.8 billion rounds, we are yet to receive an answer other
than “for target practice.” At five
times the cost of target practice ammunition does anyone really believe that? This stockpile of bullets is enough to fight a
war like Iraq for decades yet we still have no answer from our Government. During this time when we commemorate our
Independence, won for all of us at incredible sacrifice, we should ponder many
questions and issues like this that never make it to Main Street America because
of the impenetrable barrier of the Main Street Media:
Far
too many Americans don’t seem to realize that violations of our Constitution
with its Bill of Rights, under both President George W. Bush and President
Barack Obama, have now made substantial inroads in the destruction of our
rights and liberties; our official government policies have usurped powers
never contemplated, and certainly never granted, by our Framers in our Constitution:
- Because of the actions of one Edward Snowden (despite
what many think of his actions at stealing ill-guarded “State Secrets), we
now know that the U.S. government has spied on each and every one of us
for seven years—watching and collecting our phone calls, emails and other
communications, amassing all this personal information in secret databases.
The last two U.S. presidents have
committed unprecedented violations of the right to privacy protected by the
Fourth Amendment, with warrantless wiretapping and government mining of
electronic communications. Where
was Congress or the Supreme Court to say “No?” The new National Security Agency’s
National Data Center in the Utah desert is so capable of storing and
knowing virtually everything about everyone that alarmed spokesmen have
said that it is “a turnkey operation, that literally with the turn of a
key could turn America into a totalitarian state.” National Security is one thing but the
survival of the Republic is quite another.
The
Forth Amendment makes it very clear: “The
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.” Some
in the NSA have resigned over what they believe is an unconstitutional hijacking
of the Republic whose only purpose is to turn it into George Orwell’s 1984. Every digital record from bank records to
private phone calls and e-mails are at risk of “unreasonable search and
seizure.” With the blatant disdain for
the Constitution we already are experiencing, can we even think about surrendering our basic freedoms to a voracious,
power-hungry government that the Constitution had limited to be only a small,
general government with 17 enumerated powers granted in Article I, Section 8? To recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, the
author of The Declaration of Independence and our third President: “In
questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him
down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson
- The current president has admitted that he has ordered
American citizens to be assassinated without charges or trial and claims
he has the right to continue this executive murder. (I would like to see the Constitutional
justification for this absurd claim!)
- In violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of
Freedom of the Press, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has secretly
ordered the collection of extensive records of phone calls and other
information of reporters for the Associated Press and Fox News, even
falsely alleging, in order to obtain a warrant, that one reporter was engaged
in a criminal conspiracy because he was seeking information. Holder swore before Congress that he had
no knowledge of this yet only he could sign the application for the
warrant and the record shows he did so! Holder now claims that he had no intention
of prosecuting, which means he lied twice,
this time to a judge in order to obtain the warrant. How is this different from “show trials” we
have witnessed in dictatorships over the years? The first thing dictatorships do is to seize
control of the free press so that when a totalitarian government
manipulates the truth there is no one to shine a light into the darkness. Unfortunately in Obama’s America there is
no need to seize the press. The
“press” has gladly abandoned its time-honored obligation to investigate
and report, and accepted instead a place of shame at the head of the
sacred, virtual procession to enshrine the “Anointed One.”
- This same attorney general supports the president’s
“right” to order the murder of U.S. citizens without trial or due process,
claiming: “Due process and judicial process are not one and the same,
particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution
guarantees due process, not judicial process.” Oh? My copy of the Constitution must be
outdated!
- The U.S. Congress enacted a law in 2012 (See The
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA, paragraph #1021.) It gives power to the U.S. president to
have the right to order the U.S. military to arrest and hold U.S citizens
indefinitely, without evidence, without charges or trial — a patent violation of the right to
freedom of expression, the right to be presumed innocent until proven
guilty and the right to a speedy trial, all of which are enshrined in the
Bill of Rights. The Executive AND Legislative branches have absolutely
NO Constitutional authority to do this. Just because Congress passes legislation
and the Chief Executive signs it, does NOT make it Constitutional. Yet the average, distracted American has
not a clue what is happening. I
find it less than reassuring that President Obama has promised not to use
that power.
- Why do we have a dead Ambassador and staff in Benghazi,
Libya? Why were those who could
have protected them told, “to stand down?” Where was the Commander-in-Chief that
evening? We do know that he left on
Air Force One the next morning to go campaigning and fund raising. After nine months of Congressional
investigations, we have no answers and nothing but stonewalling from the
purported president of this great Republic. Yet the “free press” has elected to stay
“free” and far from this story because it might put their demi-god hero in
an awkward situation where he might be forced to face the truth, never
mind to tell the truth. If our
“free press” were no longer free I submit that they would be the first to
rebel, claiming the right to a free press. Yet this same MSM somehow sees no
contradiction in cooperating in the ultimate, self-inflicted demise of the
free press they are supposed to represent and protect.
- Financial privacy is dead in America, killed by the
PATRIOT Act that forces bankers to act as government spies.
- Unreasonable restrictions impede Americans’ rights to
conduct business offshore, to the point that foreign banks and businesses
now reject U.S. clients simply because they are Americans.
- The
Director of the FBI admits that his agents use aerial drones to spy on
U.S. citizens, and Congress has authorized the use of thousands of
surveillance drones to be used by police, the Defense Department and the
Dept. of Homeland Security. Yet if
a citizen tries to fight this infringement of the Fourth Amendment in the
courts he is told that he has “no standing” to bring this case. So where is Congress, the elected
representatives of the People? Do
not all these individuals take a solemn oath to uphold, support and defend
the Constitution?
- The
FBI is now charged to investigate the criminal behavior targeting
conservative groups at the IRS that has recently come to light. Obama feigned outrage and an
investigation. Yet when Congress asked FBI Director Muller what agent was
directing the investigation he had no idea. It is now six-weeks after this so-called
investigation started and not ONE SINGLE VICTIM has been contacted. The FBI Director works for Attorney
General Eric Holder who, in turn, works for Barrack Obama. Can the fox guard the henhouse? Will we
ever learn the truth about the IRS? Yet it is this same IRS that needs to
hire at least an additional 16,000 agents to police ObamaCare, another law
that was concocted and passed in secret when we had been promised total
transparency. All discussions were
to be on C-Span!
Even
Democrat Senator Max Baucus, often called the Father of ObamaCare, and who
voted for it is dismayed. In an open discussion
with HHS Secretary Sebelius he said: "A
lot of people have no idea about all of this," he said. "People just
don't know a lot about it, and the Kaiser poll pointed that out. I understand
you've hired a contractor. I'm just worried that that's gonna be money down the
drain because contractors like to make money ... I just tell ya, I just see a huge train wreck coming down. "
And
who could not be cynical when 58% of the American people oppose the legislation
while most of the remaining 42% have no idea what it mandates. Finally, after Kathleen Sebelius recently told
the world that all was going smoothly for on-time implementation, the
Administration announced without warning in a bombshell release on Twitter just before Independence Day (no
press conference or opportunity to ask questions) that the employer mandate
would be postponed for a year but that the individual mandate (read: tax and
penalty) would not be waived. The
result? The real impact of this
draconian change to our healthcare will not be felt until after the 2014 elections.
How can one not be cynical about the manipulation of our election process unless
drinking the Government’s free gifts of its special “Kool-Aid?”
Our
government is systematically destroying our liberties, acting in secret,
claiming that we the people have no right to know what is being done because of
“national security.”
Americans fought, and we won independence from Great Britain against enormous
odds. But now, politicians from both parties are destroying more of our
liberties than King George III and the British ever did. Maybe the Egyptians
know something we don’t know.
Salva nos et Republicam nobis.
Publius
**Flag photo from Drudge Report