To the people of the United States

From BreaktheMatrix.com
I am writing today because no one has asked my opinion in any poll. No candidate has sought my vote, and no lobbyist taken up my cause. It seems that of all of the "special interests" in America, mine is forgotten - unworthy of notice by politicians, activists, media commentators, and the press.
It may be because I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, nor represented by lobbyists for the disabled, senior citizens, minorities, trade unions, nor any other lobby. In fact, I am not a member of any group whatsoever.
I am the individual. Our Constitution was written to protect me from the majority. I am the victim of Democracy, which has overwhelmed the safeguards of the old Republic and replaced the Republic with mob rule. I am raising my voice now, while I am still able to raise it, if for no other reason than to let posterity know that I was still here when the ruins of our Republic are examined.
I have lived my life in a country that proclaims itself to the world to be the "land of the free," but have watched my freedoms erode. The most basic right I had – ownership of the fruits of my labor – has been taken from me. Now, politicians argue over what portion of my labor will purchase medical care for the poor and elderly, what portion will pay social security, what portion will educate other people’s children, and what paltry sum I will be allowed to keep so that I may go out tomorrow and work another day.
I once lived in a country which recognized my right to do as I pleased, as long as I did not violate the rights of others. Now, mountains of laws and regulations have been passed in the perverse effort to prevent me from having even the opportunity to commit a crime. As a result, I am rendered paralyzed, as there is almost no action that I can take, beyond rising from my bed, that cannot be construed by someone to be a crime or violation.
More of my property is seized to support grand adventures in foreign lands, where my government spreads "freedom" through the crosshairs of its guns. My government’s invasion of countries that pose no military threat to us whatsoever has made me hated throughout the world, merely for being an American, and helped enslave my children to unserviceable debts.
Most ominously, even the legal protections of my person have been revoked in the name of protecting my fellow citizens against "terrorism."
While the Constitution guarantees me sound money, as only gold and silver shall be legal tender, I am nevertheless forced to use the worthless paper notes of a private banking cartel that decreases their value daily, providing me no safe store of value to save for my future. To aid financial speculators who produce nothing whatsoever, the volume of these notes is increased out of all reason whenever these gamblers and thieves stand to suffer a loss. As a result, the purchasing power of this slave currency is constantly decreased, widening the gap between rich and poor, and destroying the middle class. I am left with no practical means to participate in free trade and civil society.
I give my fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt, and believe that they have merely forgotten what the true nature and purpose of government is. I remind them that government is nothing more than the collective use of force – and that the use of force is never justified except in defense. It is, by definition, a last resort. Government has almost limitless power, but very few rights. It has no right to do anything beyond protecting my life and my freedom.
Government has no right to provide for the needy with monies extorted at gunpoint from its citizens. I will gladly work with my fellow citizens to help those in need, once I have a choice. In the meantime, I demand that my labor cease to be taken from me without my consent.
Government has no right to bring freedom to the oppressed by initiating force. I remind my fellow citizens that all of the tyrants of history justified their conquests under the false guise of "liberation." I will gladly stand with my countrymen to fight any foreign power that truly threatens us, but I demand that my government immediately cease to invade foreign countries in my name.
Government has no right to "manage the economy." Trade is only truly trade when it is free – the result of exchanges between people by mutual, voluntary consent. There is no role for government in this whatsoever. I demand that my right to trade freely with my fellow citizens and citizens abroad be respected and no longer subject to inspection or interference.
Government has no right to "prevent crime." It may only punish activities that are truly criminal, and those are relatively few compared to the ocean of laws and regulations that have been passed. I demand that any law prohibiting an act that does not directly harm another person be repealed, along with any law that prohibits unpopular thoughts or speech. Neither the threat of terrorism, poverty, natural disaster, nor epidemic justifies the surrender of one ounce of liberty. I demand that habeas corpus be restored.
Finally, government has no right to rob me of my property by forcing me to use paper currency whose value is subject to its whim. I demand that gold and silver no longer be taxed as capital gain if it rises in price relative to paper currency.
While I owe my fellow citizens nothing in return for heeding these demands, I nevertheless offer a thousand-fold in return. My fellow citizens are running out of fossil fuel – I will discover a new, renewable energy source. Our planet is growing crowded – I will unlock the secrets of traveling to others. The productive members of our society will soon be outnumbered by those less able or unable to produce any longer – I will feed them all. For it was I – the free individual – that gave you everything you have. It was I that invented the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, and the computer. It was I that devised methods to produce mass amounts of goods, making them affordable and available to everyone. It was I that devised a system of government where the rule of the jungle was replaced by the rule of just laws.
In return for restoring my rights, you will again free my creative power to give you more than you can possibly imagine, and solve problems which you are unable to solve without me. I ask nothing more in return, for it is no more my right to make claims upon my fellow citizens than it is their right to make claims upon me. I hereby waive any supposed "entitlement" to public welfare, medical care, retirement benefits, or any other benefit that requires coercion of my fellow citizens to provide it. In return I demand that my liberty be restored. As I believe that I am the last individual left on earth, I do not believe that my tax money will be missed. However, if there are other individuals besides me that would claim their freedom as well, I invite them to join me, and to them I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.
Regards,
Publius Valerius Publicola

Taking from the Federal Government and the impetus to socialism it brings.

Taking from the Federal Government, and the impetus towards centralization it brings.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United Sates says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The Federal Government was designed to secure our rights and liberties and nothing more.

James Madison made the point in 1794 in the House to object to a welfare proposal saying he could not, “undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Federal Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” (4 Annals of Congress p.179, 1794). Madison’s point was that Congress did not have the power, no matter how worthy its cause, to grant money for welfare. But, since this time Congressional efforts have exceeded these Constitutional strictures to include FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, Department of the Interiors, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of Treasury, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Labor, Department of Veteran Affairs, and Department of Transportation. The most significant result arising from the creation of these organizations is they have made the States subservient to the Federal Government through the money and unconstitutional laws enacted around this leviathan.

The money supplied to the States from these Federal institutions has ultimately made every individual more dependent on the Federal Government’s flow of cash. The responsibility for ones self and family has slowly shifted, and handed responsibility to the Federal Government. We no longer take responsibility for our children’s education, nor even for their wellbeing, in many instances. We no longer take responsibility for our security. We no longer take responsibility to rebuild our communities when they are destroyed by natural occurrences. Because of the relentless intrusions by the Federal Government we the people are losing control over our own lives.

In 1887, 100 years after the Constitution was drafted, President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill to buy seeds for Texas farmers suffering from a drought, saying he could “find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution” (The purpose and limits of Government, Pilon, Rodger, 1999). You see, no matter how good the intention may be these subsidies from the government are unconstitutional because the power for the Federal Government to grant these subsidies does not exist in our Constitution. Nor do the States give them the power. Nor do the people within those states give them the power. FEMA, along with almost every “Department” set up by the Federal Government since its inception, exists in direct violation of the Constitution of the United Sates. There are American citizens who believe in expansive government, ignorant of the implications this brings. There are others who use the government to advance their own ends. These examples are why we must constrain the Federal Government by holding it to the strictures of the Constitution of the United Sates. In a truly free society, that thrives on civil liberties it is up to the people of that free society to take care of themselves. For evidence of how well the Federal Government can take care of the people look no further than New Orleans, Louisiana, and the utterly incompetent “disaster-relief” efforts of FEMA, following hurricane Katrina in 2005.

This rise of the welfare state comes out of the ashes of the Civil War with Abraham Lincoln’s version of the “American System” and evolved into the misconception today of “good government”. Our Founding Fathers looked at government as a necessary evil to be feared, and limited, where as “progressives” view government as a way to solve social problems, that government is good, and can help re-engineer our society to improve the well being overall. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a “progressive”, and the New Deal he brokered ushered in a wave of bad policies to fertilize and cultivate this welfare state, and for the next 70 years these bad policies spawned more bad policies to create the leviathan we have today. Rodger Pilon in “The Purpose and Limits of Government” made two points to how this Federal control, and welfare to the states began, and why no one has really fought to stop these “good government” policies. First he points to the General Welfare Clause, from Article I, Section 8 of the Articles of Confederation. As Pilon states, “the centerpiece of the Constitution, again, is the doctrine of enumerated powers, which limits the Federal Government to its authorized ends”. (The purpose and limits of Government, Pilon, Rodger, 1999) Particular or local welfare is not specifically stated in the Constitution so it should be understood that Congress does not have the power to delegate funding for anything other than very general expenses, and the individual states should take care of their own. The Supreme Court in 1938 thought differently, and granted Congress independent power to spend for general, or any particular welfare it deemed necessary. And, power, as we know, has a way of eradicating the human ability for restraint. The second point made by Pilon which was reinterpreted by the same foolish Supreme Court was the Commerce Clause. Pilon points out, “the Founders gave Congress the power to regulate, or make regular commerce among the states and to negate state efforts at restraining trade”. “The Commerce Clause was put in the Articles of Confederation to ensure free trade”. But, as the New Deal was being railroaded through in the name of “good government” this was changed to mean, Congress had the power to regulate everything that affects interstate commerce (The purpose and limits of Government 1999). My how far we have come since those fateful days of the “great” socialist FDR, and because of government regulations, hand outs, and this false ideology of “good government” there is no ground to sacred for the mighty Federal Government to walk on. As Mr. Pilon so eloquently put it, “the modern regulatory state poured through the opening floodgates until today there seems almost no subject too personal or too trivial for federal regulatory attention”. (The purpose and limits of Government, Pilon, Rodger, 1999) Congress is involved in possible federal regulations for steroid use in baseball, it uses the FCC to regulate what you can and can’t watch on television, the Department of Justice along with the DEA tell you what drugs you can and can not take, and the Department of Homeland Security tells you which kind of people you can and can not talk to without finding yourself in a prison in Guantanamo Bay, and soon you will not have too many choices where you can receive medical care. As H.L. Mencken said “the urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it”.

by Sebastian Grey