Stability For Our Time

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

Read the rest and then apply the argument to government.

It gets very interesting.

We've learned that the Health Care Reform Bill has placed a cap of $2500 on Flexible Spending Accounts because poor people won't get health care if people are allowed to spend their own money buying their own health care products.

Wait. What?

We've learned that veterans who have lost limbs fighting for our freedoms will now pay additional taxes on their prostheses because poor people can't get health care without disabled veterans paying for it.

Wait. What?

We've learned that the Health Care Reform Bill does not cover children with pre-existing conditions until 2014 because poor people can't get health care if sick kids get covered today.

Wait. What?

We've learned that the Health Care Reform Bill will cause the IRS to hire 16,000 new goons to collect fines because poor people can't get health care unless the fed has enough goons to run collections.

Wait. This one actually makes sense in an organized crime sort of way.

We've learned that the Health Care Reform Bill contains a 10% tax on all tanning salons because poor people can't get health care if white people get darker.

Wait. What?

We've learned that the Health Care Reform Bill eliminates a key tax credit that allowed businesses to continue covering prescription drugs for their retirees. This will force many businesses to drop such coverage. Obviously, poor people won't have access to health care if retirees continue to get benefits from their companies.

Wait. What?

We've learned that in the Health Care Reform Bill, the US government has taken over all student loans, because poor people won't have access to health care unless the government controls access to higher education.

Wait. What?

We heard yesterday that part of the Health Care Reform Bill requires that all restaurants with more than 20 locations must post the calorie count of each menu item on the menu. Obviously, without this information, poor people couldn't get health care coverage.

Wait. What?

Never let it be said that the people running Obama's administration are stupid, because they aren't. Dishonest, crooked, manipulative, and mean-spirited, absolutely. But stupid? Not for a second. Anticipating the anger of the majority of Americans who don't like the Health Care Bill, and are outraged at the corrupt manner of its passage, they acted first, manufacturing violent incidents in order to cast the entire movement of Tea Partiers and others as violent racists. Now, as somebody who strongly opposes this administration and its movement towards tyranny, I have to make a hard choice. I can either ignore the false claims of racism and violence and stay on my message, or I can go off point, and deal with these scurrilkous accusations. Either way, my effectiveness is diminished because there are too many people out there who are ready to believe anything the media tells them, including the story yesterday that somebody threw a rock through a DEmocrat's office window, despite the fact that the window was on the 30th floor.

It's a very effective tactic, even though it is based on lies.

I can't be a Democrat because if I were, I would have to allow my admiration for the effectiveness of the tactic to outweigh my repugnance at the dishonesty of the lie. Unlike Obama and his followers, I don't believe in the idea that if you can win, you should win, by whatever tactic necessary.

Whether you are a Christian, a Buddhist, Jewish or a Muslim, demanding Universal Health Care, or any other entitlement for that matter, is a sin.

Yeah, yeah, I know;"Here he goes again!"

It may sound like a stretch at first, but the thing is there is no denying the truth of that statement, and I'll prove it right now. Don't worry, this doesn't take long.

Through the last couple of decades, I've watched as reasonable people began to be pulled apart by the debate over entitlements. On one side, there are the conservatives, who believe that an entitlement mentality is like an acid, corroding away at the recipients sense of self worth, and creating a dependency that is nearly impossible to break. Conservatives also believe that there's no such thing as free money, and that any gift from the government comes with some very large strings attached. Liberals,on the other hand, believe that our government has a duty to provide the basic necessities of life for every person living within our borders because simply being human entitles them to it. Liberals are very generous when defining those basic necessities, which now include food, shelter, a well paying job, an education, and now health care. Free cable and internet is next on the list of basic rights, and if you think I'm exaggerating, you haven't been watching the news..

Here's the piece that both sides are missing, and it explains why entitlements are so powerfully seductive. It's called Pride.

We've all reached a point in our lives where we've had to ask for help, and most of us more than once. We turn to our family, friends, neighbors, or church for help with our difficulties, financial or otherwise.It's humbling, and sometimes humiliating to be reminded that we are not as strong and independent as we like to think we are. From a Christian perspective, that's one of the reason we are given trials, in order to humble us, and to remind us that everything we have is a gift from God, that we have earned nothing.

We don't like to be humbled. We don't like having to take our hat in hand and ask for help. And so, out of our human pride, we are eager to find a way to avoid those feelings, and a sense of entitlement is just what the doctor ordered. If we are entitled to assistance, then we aren't asking or begging for anything; we're only demanding what we are due. By maintaining the fiction that we are owed what we need, we are able to maintain our false pride.

People with chronic or debilitating illnesses are dependent on medical care in order to maintain any sort of quality of life. That kind of care can be expensive to maintain, placing the person in a position where they must have help. They have a simple choice; they can humbly accept that they require assistance both medically and financially, or they can arrogantly demand that they have a right to such care and assistance.

Guess which route most take?

It's pride folks. Good old Biblical, going-before-destruction Pride. It knocked Lucifer from Heaven and it's destroyed men and nations, and its doing it again. Believing that having a need entitles you to demand that the need be met is pride, plain and simple, and the last time I checked, pride was a sin in just about every religion. Even Buddhists view pride as a big pothole on the seven fold path. It's a sin and a sickness, and some of us are so badly infected that we actually endorse a form of slavery in order to assuage it. The new health care bill forces me to buy health insurance, not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of those who need care, in effect forcing me to work exclusively for another man's benefit. That's how powerful pride is. When we are tight in it's grip, we actually believe that we have a right to take the fruits of another man's labor. This is America people! We fought a war over this once! Do we really want to do it again?

Can we recapture our humility? Can we as a nation remember the truth, and move away from the entitlement mentality? Can we do it as individuals? Can we remind ourselves that life is a gift from God, not Uncle Sam? As a nation, we need to remember that everything we have comes from God. We have earned nothing and we are owed nothing. We've been richly blessed, and now like spoiled children, we are demanding more, and while God answers prayers and supplications, He's not that receptive to demands, although if you demand what you deserve, He might just give it to you.

That's not a good thing.

President Obama spent today telling people that their health care wasn't going to change if they didn't want it to.

1 Trillion dollars seems to be a pretty high price tag for no change.

In 1803, the Supreme Court gave itself the power of judicial review in the decision Marbury v Madison. Whether that was a good thing or not is the subject for another time. What concerns me today is the ramifications of that decision, which placed the Supreme Court in the position of final arbiter of the Constitution. As such, they are the gatekeepers of the Law, and have the responsibility to enforce the provisions of the US Constitution, reigning in the Legislative and Executive branches as needed to ensure the integrity of the Constitution, which all three branches have solemnly sworn to uphold.

But will they do their job?

I've been reading over at the Volokh Conspiracy, and what I've read bothers me. Both Jonathan Adler and Orin Kerr agree that there are serious Constitutional issues with the individual mandate, and they both agree that the chances of a Judicial overturning of that portion of the health care plan is unlikely.

Think about it for a minute. The idea that the federal government can force its citizens to purchase a product against their will is counter to everything the Constitution stands for, yet both of these men predict that the Supreme Court will let this stand, setting a precedent that will make it even easier for the government to compel purchases of other products in the future.

What does it mean to you and me, the average citizen, when the last check against an overreaching federal government is more than likely going to stand by and let tyranny replace freedom? Where else do we have to turn? The ballot box will fail, as the nightmare is enshrined in bureaucracy, powered by unelected and unaccountable "czars" and nameless faceless drones churning out regulations. The last two decades have shown us that it doesn't matter which party controls the Presidency or the Congress; in either case, the bureaucracy grows. The Supreme Court has stood as the last check on this growth, and if it fails, as Kerr and Adler predict, then there is nothing left to constrain the growth of federal power.

Consider this: if the federal government has the power to force citizens to buy a product from one company, then doesn't it have the right to force purchases from another? The next time GM is in financial trouble, the federal government will have the authority, based on the Commerce Clause and this precedent, to force people to buy GM cars, or pay a penalty through the IRS for not doing so. If the Treasury market continues to collapse, we can be forced to buy worthless T-bills in order to prop up the Ponzi government for just a little bit longer. There's no real difference between forced purchase of insurance and forced purchase of a car, or bonds, or pretty much anything.

But these two men find that more than likely, the Supreme Court will let this stand.

Folks, our government is not only broke, it's broken. The President has used corruption, deceit and bribery to pass this bill through a partisan Congress that never had time to read the bill they voted on. And now I'm hearing that the Judicial branch will more than likely let this thing stand.

Well, it can't be allowed to stand. If we are still Americans, if we carry the blood of Patrick Henry, John Adams, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin in our veins, then we must do something. Depending on any branch of the federal government to fix this problem is no longer an option because the federal government is the problem. It's time to remember that the States do have rights, and that the Constitution was written not to restrict the rights of the people and the States, but the rights and powers of the federal government. It's time to enforce those restrictions, to remind the men and women in Washington that their job is to serve us, not the other way around.

You may have noticed that I have stopped capitalizing "federal" and started capitalizing "State." This is no accident but a gesture to remind us all that the federal government is a creation of the States, and that apart from the States, it does not exist. It is time to end the fiction forced on us at bayonet point that the federal government is superior to the States. It is not. A careful reading of the Constitution proves this beyond doubt, as throughout, the language used is that of Sovereign States granting limited powers to a federal government, and reserving all other powers, including those of Dissolution and Secession, to the States and the People.

I'm not arguing for the dissolution of the United States, or for Secession. As a united country, America has done great things and may again in the future. What I am arguing for is a return to the proper relationship between the federal government and the States, one where the fed works as an extension of the States and of the People, a servant rather than a master.

How will this happen? It won't be easy.

The first avenue is through the State Legislatures. At last count 38 had passed or are working on passing affirmations of State's Rights, and restating the 10th Amendment. Many are now crafting legislation that declares that their state will not participate in the new health care legislation, "deeming" it as an unconstitutional imposition upon State's Rights. I'm certain that we will see challenges to these laws at the federal level, but those challenges must be seen as irrelevant, since the federal government has already demonstrated its utter corruption. The States will have to stand firm in the face of federal reprisals that will certainly include threats of economic reprisals, known colloquially as blackmail, and actual economic attacks, refered to as racketeering.

At the same time, the People must fight at the ballot box, replacing corrupt politicians, which right now includes every single one of them, with honest men and women who will restore some small slice of integrity to our government. It will be hard work, but we get the government we deserve, and we've seen what laziness and complacency gets us; it's time to see what an involved and informed electorate can do. Ignore the naysayers, and the folks who say it can't be done. 13 upstart colonies couldn't defeat the world's leading empire either, and we know how that turned out.

Pursuing these twin strategies just may be enough to turn the tide and realign the federal government along the lines described by the Constitution, but I would by lying if I said I believed that. Like all tyrants, the federal government will not give up its power easily, and it will have plenty of quislings in the general population to aid it in its struggle to keep power. Most of the media will side with the fed, as will many of the slaves it has created through increased dependency. Freedom is for adults who have the courage to face risk and possible failure, and there are too many in this nation who are no more than cowardly children.

In the end, we may still lose. Like any wounded animal, the federal government will not hesitate to use force and violence to perpetuate itself. Kent State and desegregation proved that. The federal government will call up national guard and reserve units, and we could see situation where Americans are forced to fire on other Americans. It's not what I want, but I have no doubt that the federal government will authorize it if needed in order to enforce its will on the States and the People. The question becomes, "Will the People and the States fight back?"

I don't know, and I certainly don't want to fight back, and it is my sincere hope that by following the twin strategies of enforcing State's Rghts and action at the ballot box, that any such event can be avoided entirely.

The sad thing is that if the Supreme Court had the stones to do their job, the one they gave themselves over 200 years ago, none of this would be necessary.

The issue with health care reform is being discussed by just about everybody in the blogosphere today, and they break down into three groups. There are Progressives rejoicing over the passage of free healthcare for everyone, there are conservatives and libertarians who plan to fight the federal government to their last breath, and there are conservatives and libertarians who believe the fight is already lost and America is consigned to the inevitable course of decay seen so many times throughout history. Since I really have nothing more to add to that discussion, I want to take a look at the student loan legislation attached to the healthcare package. Basically, it takes over the provision and administration of all student loans, both undergraduate and graduate.

While the federal government has directly issued student loans in the past, their chunk of the market has remained fairly small. Most universities and colleges prefer to deal with private financial institutions rather than the government. These institutions are easier to deal with and offer a higher level of service to the student borrower. The system has worked very well, affording millions of kids the ability to go to college. Five of my kids have attended college using these loans, and one is close to graduating. (Finally!) The process has been fairly simple. Each year, the student fills out an online form that determines the amount of federal aid they are entitled to, both from Pell grants, which don't have to be repaid, and Stafford loans, which do. The loans are made by banks and other institutions under federal guidelines and are subsidized and guaranteed by the government. The government subsidy pays the interest while the student is in school and the government guarantees payment on the loan to the bank. If the student defaults, the bank will be repaid by the government.

Under the new legislation passed by the house, the government will directly loan the money to the students cutting out the banks altogether. Leaving aside the question of where the federal government will get the money, seeing as how it already is running massive deficits, and leaving aside the Constitutionality of the federal government becoming a financial lending agency, this is an extremely bad idea if you have any regard for academic freedom, freedom of expression, and independent thought.

Let's do a thought experiment. Tomorrow morning at work, If you go up to your boss and tell him that one of his most cherished beliefs is not only wrong, but foolish, and you demonstrate it's stupidity in no uncertain terms and do so publicly, in front of all of your co-workers, how long do you think your employment at that particular business establishment will last? After you're fired, do you think you'll get a good recommendation?

Whether your workplace has an official policy regarding political discussion or not, every employee understands that you don't make the boss look bad, not if you want to keep your job. The fact that he pays your salary has a restraining effect on your freedom of expression.

Now let's look at a the typical college student, who will now be required to go to the federal government to get the funds for his education. How free will he or she be to voice any dissent? Colleges, where we are supposedly encouraging our young people to expand their horizons and explore new ideas may quickly become places dedicated to ideological purity rather than diversity.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but let's look at a few historical trends.

Once the federal government begins providing funding, it begins to attach strings to that funding in order to coerce behavior. Like a dope dealer providing free tastes to create junkies, the federal government provides "free money" at first, and then begins to use that money as leverage. Highway money is a perfect example of this. When the federal government decided that there should be a national speed limit of 55 mph, the Constitution prevented them from implementing it, so they used the power of the purse and forced the states to comply by threatening to withhold highway maintenance funds unless they lowered their speed limits. The federal government used a similar tactic to force states to raise their drinking age to 21.

By taking over the direct funding of education, the government now has a new handle to manage behavior. If a particular school has a curriculum the government doesn't like, funding for that school's students may be denied. If students agitate against a repressive government, those students could lose their financial aid. If you're a progressive and don't believe this could happen, just imagine a strongly conservative administration faced with wide spread student demonstrations as in the 60s. If that administration had the power to cut off the student's funds, don't you think they would? Are you comfortable with that level of power in the hands of unelected federal bureaucrats?

If that possibility seems to far out for you, let's look at a more subtle application of the power inherent in the purse strings. The federal government would have the power to shape the course of study followed by students. If in the eyes of the government, we need more "community organizers" and fewer physicists, they can make that happen by denying loans to physics majors. Advance that to graduate school. If the federal government believes we need fewer cardiologists and more general practitioners, they can allocate funding accordingly. If your dream is to be a cardiologist, oh well, sucks to be you. INdividual choice will be stamped out in favor of centralized planning.

And just how good has the federal government shown itself to be at planning for anything? Can you point to a single cost estimate that turned out to be accurate? Or a government forecast that even vaguely resembled reality? Remember the Obama Administrations unemployment forecasts used to sell the stimulus package? It was completely and totally inaccurate. This is bad enough when it's used to creat government policy, but if Washington misses when it estimates how many doctors in each specialty we're going to need, people will pay for those mistakes with their lives.

Now there are some folks who believe that the federal government would never abuse the power of the purse in that manner. Somehow these folks have managed to ignore the entire US tax code which is nothing more than an exercise in behavior modification through reward and punishment. The government decides that home ownership is good and so they give a tax deduction for mortgage interest. The government wants to encourage retirement savings so they offer deductions for IRAs. The government decides kids are good, and so offer child care deductions and allowances. The government decides that profiting from investments is bad so it enacts punitive tax rates to discourage investment. The reason our tax code is so long and complex that even tax experts can't get it right is because it has been used for decades as a way to enforce government ideals on the rest of us. If we gave up on the behavior modification aspect of our tax code, we would have a one page tax form that a 6th grader could understand.

Now the federal government has the same power over student loans. My guess is that in the next few years, it will become increasingly difficult for home schooled students to get federal loans. It won't matter that the student gets admitted to the college or university, they may not qualify for aid. The same may happen to graduates of conservative private schools and religious schools. Accrediting agencies may come under pressure to revise the accreditation status of high school and universities that don['t comply with government "suggested" guidelines. Student loans may become subject to racial or other quotas in the name of diversity. IN short, the federal government will have the ability to sculpt the student population to meet its own plans, rather than allowing those students to choose their own paths.

The problem doesn't just exist on the front end, however. Once the student graduates, he or she has a substantial debt to pay back to the federal government. How they pay that debt back could get very interesting. Again, the government can offer easier terms to students who agree to go where they are directed and do as they are told, while those who prefer to follow their own choices may find themselves swimming in penalties and fees, denied professional licenses and certifications until their student loans are paid in full. Again, if you think centralized planning like this is a benefit to society, picture a deeply conservative administration in charge and with the same centralized power.

Does this still strike you as a good idea?

To tell you the truth folks, this scares me more than the health care crap. All the health care bill can do is bankrupt us and lead us into dependency. The student loan bill can make that dependency more or less permanent.

The American Experiment has always been something of an oddity in World History. While there have been other democracies and republics, America stood out for the idea that not only did the people get to choose their leaders, but that those leaders were actually servants of the people. bound to their will. As Abraham Lincoln put it, government was "...of the people, by the people, for the people..." Thomas Jefferson said it in the Declaration of Independence:"...governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

America was founded on the idea that the people were in charge, and that their elected representatives were sent to the Capitol to express the will of their constituents, not their own.

That ideal has been eroded away over the decades, and this weekend, we've seen it collapse utterly. The federal government, led by President Obama and his Progressive allies, have triumphed over the will of the people to pass his Health Care legislation. They have used pressure, bribery, trickery, deception, misdirection, and every other corrupt practice devised over the history of governments to pass this legislation, and they have done this in the face of steadily growing opposition from the citizens of this nation. Just yesterday, Obama told Congressmen to go ahead and vote for the plan despite opposition from their constituents because it would be come more popular eventually. Hidden in that statement is the simple concept that lives at the heart of all Progressive plans:

Don't worry about what the people say they want. We know what's best for them and it is our job to make sure that they do it, whether they like it now or not.

Folks, doesn't that sound like something your mother used to say when you were about 5 years old and didn't want to eat your veggies?

Do you like the idea that the folks you elected to represent you in Washington look at you as a 5-year-old child?

Are you an adult, or are you a child?

Can you imagine Thomas Jefferson if he were alive today? What would he make of the current legislative atmosphere? And more importantly, what would he say about us, the supposed citizens of this nation? How would any of those men who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to free this nation from another government who treated us like children feel about us today, sitting by while a new government attempts to return us to the status of subjects?

They would be sick to their stomachs, and so am I.

With the passage of this legislation, which forces us to participate in a government health care system, we've gone from being citizens of the United States to being subjects of the federal government. The federal government has claimed the right to tell us what kind of insurance we must buy, on pain of financial penalties or imprisonment. This provision alone makes this legislation incompatible with a nation of citizens, but it gets worse. Tucked into the health care plan is a federal government takeover of all student loans for higher education. All of the sudden, the federal government controls all access to higher education. Again, we're subjects, not citizens. When we look at the conditions and requirements of this legislation, and compare it to upcoming legislation on energy usage, the next stimulus package, the jobs creation packages, there is one very clear trend emerging. Each and every one of these Progressive policies has at their heart the idea that the federal government knows what's best for us and has the right and the authority to force us to live by their standards.

That's not what the founders had in mind when they fought and died for freedom. Let's take another look at the Declaration of Independence and see just what they were fighting about:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

In effect, we rebelled against England because the government there began to treat the colonials as less than free men, and more like subjects of an unlimited monarch or tyrant. I think it is safe to say that our federal government, over several administrations, has been doing the same thing.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

Congress has been going through marathon sessions in order to force through unpopular legislation from sheer weariness, or meeting in the dead of night to pass unpopular bills while the citizens are literally asleep in their beds. This isn't just Progressives. Not too long ago, when Republicans held the Senate, Bill Frist attached last-minute legislation to try to outlaw on-line gaming on the last day of the session and well after midnight in order to get it passed without examination by the people. This has become a routine practice by both parties, and is evidence that the federal government at all levels has been corrupted by power.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

Both parties have made it a practice to block the confirmation of judges and the result has been a tremendous buildup of backlogged cases as benches sit empty for extended periods of time. Neither party wants to allow the other to appoint judges, and so none get appointed. Justice is denied, and one of the people's primary methods to obtain redress against an out of control government is cut off.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Once again, both parties have expanded the appointment of 'czars,' people directly appointed by the government with no accountability to any citizen of the nation, yet with extensive regulatory powers. There are more czars in our government than there are Cabinet members, and every one of them have the power to set standards that have the force of law, often without ever going through a legislative body. In addition, we have added unelected bureaucratic bodies never mentioned in the Constitution to our government and given them legislative authority. The EPA and OSHA are prime examples of this, extra Constitutional bodies with the power to make law, set penalties and fines, all with no accountability to the average citizen. How much of the US Code is generated by these non legislative regulatory bodies?

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

How many judges have we seen talking about how the US needs to conform to World Courts, and use laws and precedents from outside our nation in determining justice in the US? We've seen occupants of the White House talk about placing American citizens under foreign laws, and sometimes even allowing those foreign laws to supercede our own Constitution.

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

This one needs no explanation. Taxes are passed through the legislature attached to unrelated bills, hidden in large omnibus spending packages, or disguised in other ways. Often, the tax increases are passed through outright deception and manipulation of the facts. To date, I have not heard a single Progressive talk about the tax increases contained in the health care bill, only bland assurances that we will all get more and all pay less.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

Under the Patriot Act, enacted by President Bush and recently extended by President Obama, American citizens suspected of being enemy combatants can be held indefinitely in prison. How many are being held, or have been held? We don't know because the Patriot Act also draws a veil of secrecy over that.

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For decades, the President, Congress and the Judiciary have chipped away at the restraints laid on them by the Constitution in order to increase their own power, usually at the expense of the citizenry. Just as one example, Harry Reid tried a gambit where the health care legislation would be made permanent by hiding in the 2000 page bill a clause that said any discussion of repeal of the package was automatically out-of-order in the Senate, attempting to restrain any reconsideration of the bill at a later date. Progressives considered expanding the use of Deem and Pass from a time-saving manuever to a face-saving one. Both parties have considered ending the practice of filibustering; both have used "holds" and earmarks as ways to "bring home the bacon" for their districts, instead of the manner they were originally intended. The office of the President has made increasing use of Executive orders to create law without having to go through the legislature. Each of these manuevers has the effect of increasing the power of the federal government at the expense of the states and the citizen.

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

When the War Between the States ended, Chief Justice Salmon P Chase said that "State's Rights died at Appomatox," a statement we see more clearly every day. Where the founders built a government based pn a small, limited federal government, power hungry men, some greedy, and others convinced that they knew better than the rest of the citizens, sought to acquire and concentrate power in a federal government. That power came directly at the expense of the States, which were considered as sovereign entities until after the War ended. In the two and a half centuries since then, we've watched the states grow progressively weaker, until they are now totally dependent on federal dollars. Once of the primary conduits for this flow of power was the perversion of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which Congress has used to regulate everything we deal with in our daily lives. If any single constituent of a product crosses state lines in commerce, then Congress has given itself the right to regulate it. A clause meant to control tariffs between bordering states has been perverted by the federal government into a license to regulate anything and everything they want.

The problem with power is that it is addictive; those holding it always want more. The federal government is now encroaching on our individual liberties. The Bush administration limited protestors to "free speech zones" an egregious violation of our Constitutional rights as the entire US is a free speech zone. Congress passed McCain Feingold, a legislative package with the sole purpose of controlling political speech during campaigns. Republicans run on agendas to control what we do in our own bedrooms; Progressives pass legislation to punish us for what we think. In both cases, federal politicians are limiting what we can say, what we can hear, and what we can know.

If that isn't tyranny, then what is?

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Last summer, a group of Americans had enough and rose up in protest. They adopted the label of Tea Partiers, in brotherhood with the patriots of 1776, who expressed their outrage with the extended abuses of a government that seemed determined to see them as subjects, not citizens. Peacefully, and in an orderly fashion, these people, myself among them, took to the streets to demand redress from our government. Over a million of them went to Washington DC, where they assembled on the mall and petitioned the President for redress.

His response was to claim he hadn't even noticed a million people camped out on his lawn.

What colossal arrogance!

Later, when the Tea Party grew in strength and influence, he could no longer feign ignorance, and referred to us using a sexual epithet made popular by Progressive media types, demonstrating his total lack of respect for anybody who stood up as a citizen and opposed him. While most the offenses I've listed fall at the feet of both parties, it is the present occupant of the White House who has demonstrated through word and deed that he is unfit to be the leader of a free people.

But the problem goes far beyond the man in the White House. The federal government itself has been corrupted by exercising too much power for too long. Consider Alcee Hastings, who said in public and in front of cameras that here were no rules for passing legislation, and that Democrats would just make them up as they went along, doing whatever was needed to get their legislation passed. Think about that for a minute and understand that the only thing unusual about Hastings was his honesty in admitting how all legislators at the federal level act. For you Democrats who support healthcare reform, picture hearing that statement from a conservative Senator getting ready to pass a Bush bill. Are you still okay with it?

We just heard a sitting US Congressman say publicly that the rules don't matter. That, my friends, is the very definition of tyranny and we are now living in one. The worst part is that there's no putting this genie back into its bottle. Once a centralized government gets its hands on power, there's only one way for the people to get it back.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 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 to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

So, do we have any patriots left, or have they all "gone Galt?"