Acts of Rebellion
T.L. Davis
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
What ground have they chosen by making us their enemy? They have chosen the ground of a government estranged from its charter; disrespecting of the rights of the citizenry. They have chosen the ground of the Temple, Texas police department willing to arrest a veteran at the whim of mob rule.
The battle lines are drawn. We have to encourage them to correct their ways; to honor the Constitution. Their distance from legal action has caused the backlash they detest. They don’t want to hear from the Tea Party, the Patriot/Liberty Movement or the militias, because we remind them that they are acting illegally; that their actions are illegitimate.
All of this has been written before, but today it is with a different heart.
Their revolution has taken place over the past one hundred and fifty years. Slowly they have crept in inch by coercive inch: taking a little bit of liberty here, adding a little bit of socialism there. Insinuating the state into our lives a morsel at a time. “It is for the best” they say as they do a little more evil.
The true nature of the republican state is to find a balance of liberty that provides the greatest liberty to all. This simple principle has been abused to mean all liberty is at the mercy of the comfort of the most. Those are two completely different principles.
Once the concept of “societal good” is enforced by the power of the state, there is no individual liberty that can tip that scale. It is only by holding individual liberty above the “societal good” that republicanism can exist.
We see this clearly in the Second Amendment issues. My right to protect myself with firearms is above anyone else’s right to feel safe. Some people might not feel safe if they see me walking down the street with my pistol on my hip, but they are not in danger. I am not responsible for their mental state. If I wave that weapon around and threaten them with it, I have stepped over the line marking my right to protection and their right to free movement. I have hindered their right and my right to a weapon might be restricted by my actions, but not by their pathological fear of a weapon.
My cause is to the recognition of my rights as given to me by God and affirmed in the Constitution.
I have the right to free speech. I have the right to firearms. I have the right to due process of law. I have the right to religious expression. I have the right to my papers and effects. Without warrant or probable cause of a crime being committed or about to be committed, the government has no right to infringe these rights.
I also have the right to every other thing that does not infringe another person’s freedom or exercise of their rights.
As such, I am within the Constitutional framework this nation was founded on and legally bound to protect.
If the government exceeds its authority and seeks to limit any or all of these rights, I have the legal right to seek redress and force it, one way or the other, to obey the Constitution and limit itself to the legal authority that it was issued under the Constitution. Where the government has become an entity of itself, drawing its authority from its own force of arms, it is a rogue government and deserving of disobedience and aggression.
It is not the United States of America as formed and given authority under the Constitution that has become hostile toward my liberty, but the government acting illegally and outside its charter abusing its citizens and authority that has caused my acts of rebellion.
Hear, Hear!
I can appreciate the way that this was expressed, without bluster, without anger, probably more so than anything I have read by T.L. I suspect it might just a little more well-received by those that should be listening. It reminds me of how a loving, but disappointed parent will pull a mis-behaving child very close to their face, as they explain what the child has done wrong, and why; and that there are consequences to those actions if they don’t change theirways.
A very well reasoned statement of the causes of and remedy for the long train of offenses being perpetrated upon us. One way this has been measured is in a recent Pew Research Center poll. The poll found only about 28% of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government. This is down five percentage points in one year. We need to tap into this discontent more. I suspect many of that 28% can not put their finger on just why they no longer have a favorable view of the federal government. We need to better inform them just what that discontent stems from. Also the poll found there has been an increase in favorability for state and local government. I would say that is a very good sign. Get as much participation in state and local government as we can.
A better statement on the condition of our freedom and the force against that freedom I have never read. Thanks