Posted on 04/20/2009 2:33:48 PM PDT by SuperLuminal
Topic: FOUNDATIONS OF FREEDOM
The Usurping of our Unalienable Rights
The Foothills of Appalachia 98 Doug Fiedor
The Usurping of our Unalienable Rights
For the last sixty-five years, our federal government has continually exhibited two very important predispositions: These are a strong propensity towards steady growth, and the accumulation and centralization of political power.
Of course, all of this growth and accumulation of power in Washington comes from one source: We the People. This is because, to put it simply, here in the United States all power legally originates with the people. Put another way; government cannot take a right away from us unless We the People relinquish it.
Years ago, we called the ability to do as we wished "freedom." And, back then, about the only caveat on our freedom was that we did not bother others with our actions. But about eighty-five years ago, this began changing. That is, starting about 1913, the federal government began to centralize political power and hence, control over the people.
The Founding Fathers designed a central government with authority to conduct only eighteen basic functions. Their expressed intent was that any powers not specifically delegated to the central government by the Constitution were deliberately left to the states in general, and to the people in particular. The Founders knew very well that every law, rule and regulation passed by the central government would decrease the rights and liberties of the people -- your personal freedom. Therefore, they were very careful to give the national government only those powers necessary for the country to function effectively as a unit.
That has all changed. Today, freedom in these United States is more or less a relative thing. Today’s freedoms include only those actions Congress and the regulatory bureaucracies wish to allow to the people. That is, an American citizen is allowed to do something only until Congress, or one of the administration’s regulatory agencies, decides to forbid it. Exactly how most of this happened will be addressed later.
And what of those eighteen powers given to the federal government by our Constitution? One, the regulation of money, has been totally abdicated to a semi-private corporation known as the Federal Reserve System. And, two others -- the protection of our borders and the proper operation of the city of Washington, D.C. -- have become utter failures.
George Mason University Professor of Economics Walter Williams writes that these eighteen duties mandated to the federal government by our Constitution would account for approximately one-third of the federal budget. The other two-thirds of the federal budget is, therefore, "extra-Constitutional" spending. In other words, two-thirds of the hard earned money we are forced to send to Washington every year is spent by the federal government with no Constitutional authority.
So too with many laws passed by Congress. Today’s Congress legislates on even the most basic of human functions. One day it was how fast we will be allowed to drive our automobiles. Another day it was what we will be allowed to view on television. On yet another day it was what we would be allowed to transmit over our telephone or via computer networks, and send though the mails. Most recently, it’s regulating how much water each personal toilet may use per flush and how senior citizens may spend their own personal money for medical care. Among the most humorous, though, was a discussion of how toilet paper was to be manufactured and marketed.
The point is that if certain members of today’s Congress can contemplate something affecting human existence, chances are quite good that they will also attempt to regulate it. Complicating the problem is the fact that the federal regulatory agencies are now allowed to pass laws (regulations) on their own volition. Worse yet, these unelected federal bureaucrats are now even levying taxes on the American public, with no comment from Congress.
"How can they do that?" seems to be a popular question nowadays. Which should be stated more correctly as, where did they find the authority to legislate on that subject? Congress makes up their own authority as they go along, is the only completely correct answer. Congress invents its own authority. And now, so do the regulatory agencies.
Often, Congress starts by legislating on a matter that might actually be useful and desirable, but just borders on being outside the authority given by the Constitution -- like welfare, for instance. If the people do not complain too loudly, and the courts do not immediately knock it down, they then carry it on ad nauseam. And, as in the case of welfare, they tend to continue adding to the law every year, until its original intent is utterly corrupted, and the whole system becomes a total affront to our Constitution.
Contrary to popular belief by many in Washington, the term "Federalism" does not mean that the federal government is to control everything. The states were intended to have most policing powers, the central government very few. Were the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution enforced with the vigor of the First, this situation would be rectified immediately. Instead, our country is infected by a quagmire of many thousands of often conflicting federal laws, rules and regulations.
It is also disturbing that there are so many volumes of ever-changing federal law that no single person can ever learn it all. On top of that, there are two-hundred and some thick books of poorly written regulations, most of which also come with severe civil and criminal penalties. These regulations are enforced by ninety-some federal agencies, all of which are continually working on hundreds of new rules and regulations.
In fact, unelected federal bureaucrats now write so much law that, on average, it totals 70,000 pages of small print in the Federal Register annually. And, because ignorance of the law is not an acceptable defense, this is law that all Americans are required to know and obey. Clearly, the federal regulatory bureaucracy is out of hand.
Worse, many federal regulatory agencies use a recently invented power called the "General Duty clause." This allows regulators to invent a regulation, on the fly, when they come upon a specific circumstance that they do not have a standard regulation to fit. In other words, citizens can no longer only rely on the written law. Americans must also be able to read the minds of the regulators in order to conform to federal regulations. Obviously, the federal government has gone far afield from the rule of law on which this country was founded. Today’s federal government is more akin to regulatory despotism.
This is further complicated by the diabolical attitude of those entrusted with enforcing the law. For instance, during Attorney General Janet Reno’s Senate conformation hearings, she was heard agreeing with (then committee chairman) Senator Joseph Biden that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." In other words, she (or Biden) does not need to personally know all the laws (no single person can), but we citizens can be imprisoned if we do not obey them all.
And that is exactly the problem in a nutshell.
The analogy is that of a one way street down that slippery slope of justice; a road which contains many turns of unexpected consequences, and eventually leads down to the state of tyranny. For, when the volume of law enacted by government far exceeds the ability of the governed to comprehend, there is, in effect, no law. The unexpected consequence, then, is selective tyranny.
In The Federalist Papers No. 62 James Madison admonishes:
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"
Today’s federal government is quite obviously not the government intended by our Founding Fathers.
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Posted by: One who knows... 08/14/98 11:11:55 EDT
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This essay captures the essence of our national problem. I hope you all get a chance to read it...
From: One who knows... 08/14/98 12:38:24 EDT
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To: One who knows...
Good post, but what does this have to do with Monica? hehehe
The question is, what are we going to do about the above problems? Do you believe that we will be able to make the needed changes through Incrementalism? Or will there need to be a complete tearing down of the existing institutions to restore our Liberties?
From: Lance 08/14/98 12:51:41 EDT
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To: One who knows...
Identifying and admitting to a problem is the first and most singularly important step in finding a cure.
The next step, however, is the tough one.
Assuming for the moment that most Americans agree with the thrust of the essay (BTW, they do), the problem lies in getting these ostriches to bite the bullet on the tough fixes needed here.
Neither the Dems nor the Reps within the Beltway want to "fix" this situation. Which makes sense, in that it is a scenario which they have worked hard to create over decades of pissing on this country's voters, and on the blood of the thousands of proud, brave, DEAD AMERICANS who came before them to guarantee with their lives the freedoms we now squander in the despicable name of political convenience.
All we have left are our voices and our votes. We'd better learn how to use them soon... because we apparently haven't learned how to yet. And, sad to say, the way things are going, "soon" might not be "soon enough."
Good post, OWK. Keep the faith.
From: jimgib.... 08/14/98 12:59:48 EDT
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To: Lance
"Do you believe that we will be able to make the needed changes through Incrementalism?"
NO, I hope it, but I don't think so......
"Or will there need to be a complete tearing down of the existing institutions to restore our Liberties?"
Yes.. hopefully peaceful though....
Regards
From: One who knows... 08/14/98 13:00:47 EDT
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So, at least for me, the question is: Eleven years ago we were all saying pretty much the same things we are saying now. Only the level of tyrannical pain has increased 10-fold in the interim.
Therefore, can we conclude from our own FR history that eleven years from now:
Just a question...I don't know the answer. Maybe in 10-years venues such as FR will have been outlawed.
Heck. Maybe, in ten years, cussing, muttering, and voting will have been outlawed........
Time for change, change back that is!
Choose this day how you will serve; Will you serve unwillingly and at the biding of others wearing the yoke of socialism or will hold true to the course of our forefathers’ standing tall and serving freely? As for me I choose to SERVE THE REPUBLIC!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24180181@N04/3460595404/?addedcomment=1#comment72157617099033728
“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.”
— Thomas Jefferson
I wonder, as well, if that applies to binding, through property confiscation (taxes), my grandchildren and great grandchildren to trillions of dollars of debt.
I certainly think it does.
How do you get to the old articles? I have a few that are no longer accessible.
By the way, the rumor of OWK’s accidental death was a hoax.
First we must restore it as the Nation's governing paradigm.
The peaceful options are rapidly approaching zero or none.
In 1999, along with guns and ammo, I decided to store lots of selected FR threads on one my own servers...just in case. Well, the server (shh!..Novell) has been shut down and stored for many years and I have undertaken to try to recover some of those lost threads.
In particular, I wanted to get a hold of a few of JR's "firebrand" posts. IAC, I'm going to re-post some of the oldie-but-goodies that I can find.
"By the way, the rumor of OWK’s accidental death was a hoax."
Last time I saw him in person was at the March On Washington. What a party that was! Even though we sometimes disagreed, I liked his patriotism, intellect, and writing abilities.
Glad to hear that he is not at ground temperature.
I miss the old libertarian gang from the late 90’s here. The toll of Bush years was heavy.
Salem Witch Trials of 1692 redux?...{:-)
First, paloecon posters were gone, those in the mold of Sam Francis. That was even before Bush was elected. The libertarians had their doubts about the War on Terror, and about Bush’s fiscal policies in general. The last distinctly libertarian group bounced off with Ron Paul. Good thing I am mostly posting on religion these days.
It would be nice to have a thousand point of view Free Republic renaissance now that the GOP is in opposition and in disarray once more.
Agreed.
Collateral damage in the pursuit of partisan ideological purity.
Sounds like the purges in the USSR during the 20's & 30's.
Lots of stuff is starting to sound like the '30's.
The periodic bouts of “Ban The Heretic!” have done as much damage to FR as Stalin’s 1937 purges did to the Red Army.
I do not care who you are, that is just plain funny.
Yeah -- the only difference is that now the epithet of choice is "Troll!" rather than "Enemy Of The People!"
Some of that tinfoils wrap looks downright necessary by todays reality though.
When you think about it, even the most ardent tinfoiler eleven years ago would probably would have thought you were nuts if you predicted the well-crafted long-term strategies and tactics that have led us to the events of the last one-hundred days.
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