Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Revolution

T.F. Stern reminded me that whether the constitution permits it or not, the federal governments excessive size, reach, and intrusive power over our lives is a reality that we must deal with. David reminded me that to a politician, the end justifies the means, even if the means are ignoring the constitutional limits that the founders placed upon our government. And it doesn’t really matter what part of the political spectrum the politician occupies.

A look, even at our founders, demonstrates this to be so. Our second president helped to set the pattern with the Alien and Sedition acts – on their face a violation of the first amendment to the constitution. Men are men and the rule of men is not the rule of law.

I read the Declaration of Independence and marvel at the simple truths in that document. All men are created equal. They have certain God given unalienable rights such as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They have the right and the duty to establish government that protects those rights in the way that they see best – and to overthrow any government that does not. When Thomas Jefferson penned the declaration these truths seemed self-evident. They form the basis of our ideas of freedom and they separate us from the revolutions that came after, such as the French revolution as well as the Marxist revolutions that came afterward seeking not liberty, but enforced equality imposed by the state.

Another self-evident truth that Jefferson wrote about – people will put up with a lot of abuse of governmental power while they can. Setting aside a government to replace it with a new one isn’t something to be done lightly. The costs involved can be quite high the signers of the declaration were risking everything: their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

In my opinion the government we have today is not the government that the founders offered to us. Benjamin Franklin was asked, after the Constitutional Convention, what kind of government the convention gave us. His reply was that they gave us a republic… if we could keep it. When our president calls the constitution a charter of negative liberties that says what government cannot do and not what it must do for you it’s clear that he’s right, but for the wrong reasons. When the speaker of the House says that questions regarding the constitutional authority for acts of congress are not serious questions it’s clear that she was right – also for the wrong reasons.

Of course when I say “for the wrong reasons” above I suppose I should explain it. Clearly they think the way they do for what seems to them to be the right reasons. At least I hope they do.

What I want from my government is mainly to be left alone to live my life as I choose. I acknowledge that I may not always make the best decisions or think things through enough, but then who does? I also know that I have several character flaws, just as does everyone else, that amount in one way or another to varying degrees of evil. I’m not going to delve deeply there – but rather to qualify my desire to be left alone with a desire to be protect myself from my fellow man when he might choose to do me harm, or where my strength isn’t sufficient to be protected. And, in exchange for that protection, if I indulge the darker side of my own nature and do harm to others then let the hand of justice treat me equally. But let it be tempered with mercy as well, not just for me, but for those that would harm me.

That’s all I want, and todays government gives that to me for the most part. And it does a better job of it than just about any other government I am aware of. And so I’ll suffer its abuses a while longer.

The “occupiers” today are calling for revolution, but the kind of revolution they seek isn’t the same as the revolution led by our founders. They aren’t really looking for liberty – at least not the kind of liberty I’m familiar with. Instead they’re looking for “equality” but not the kind of equality they were born with. It’s not so much equal treatment – but equal outcomes they seek regardless of the path to those outcomes. They call themselves the 99% (I’m not going to debate their sloppy math) and say that they want “fairness”.

Look at the kind of equality they’re looking for though – cut down those at the top to fill in the gaps rather than make the effort to raise those at the bottom to do so. They would take a sanding block to our society and smooth out the rough edges by bringing everything down to the same level. Or, perhaps as the French did they’ll use the guillotine to lower the heads of anyone who has risen too high in society.

In the end it’ll be blood spilled – and the elimination of liberty as they impose their tyranny on the rest of us. It’s happening one way or another. Either another revolution will come with an unpredictable outcome or the politicians will do it progressively, by ignoring the restrictions the founders placed on government.

I’d rather be the frog in the pot than an ant. But I’d really rather be a free man.