What Have I Lost?

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I have been meaning to write this article for some time so let’s get this thing rolling. A while back I was reading an article and the comments section. Someone asked the question, “Oh, C’mon! What liberty have you lost? Tell me one freedom that you have lost?” Most of us were taken aback. How could someone be so blind as to not see the restrictive nature of our government? At first we ignored it as just another ‘useful idiot’ who was marching into the ovens. After some reflection, however, I determined that it may be useful to point out specifically how tyrannical this government has become. Americans after all are very busy making a living, raising their children and have a tendency towards naiveté when it comes to our government. Therefore I will attempt here to highlight some of the more egregious ways in which we are subjugated by our unconstitutional government.


Education: Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is the word education mentioned. Certainly, there is no enumerated power to allow the federal government to fund, regulate or otherwise involve itself in education. Of course that never stops them does it? Think about that for a moment. That in and of itself should give you pause. The onus for government intervention is and always has been racial equality. Certainly, in the past people were discriminated against in education. This despicable truth notwithstanding, the federal government in the part of the Executive and Legislative branches has no immediate role. The Judicial branch indeed does have a role and a very important one. The Constitution assures equality to all citizens. If a portion of our population is not allowed unfettered access to the educational system they can sue for relief. If the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) refuses to provide that relief then the Justices who vote for inequality can be impeached. You may wonder why this has never happened. The answer as usual is simple though troubling; politics. Politicians are loathe to reprimand their enemies for unconstitutional performance because it would tie them to constitutional performance. In other words, they all want to govern unconstitutionally, only in different circumstances. The facts are indisputable. Minority Americans suffer much more greatly from government interference into education. Once again the stated beneficiary of government interference is indeed it's worst victim.
Here is how our government is supposed to work. Each branch keeps the other in check with the Constitution being what they rely on to do so. Now we don’t have time to go into all of the freedoms lost from federal intervention into education. If you have a pulse, you are aware of the abysmal failure of the Department of Education. However, for our purposes here consider; you cannot send your child to the school of your choice, even though you pay for it. If you want a religious component to your childs education you cannot do so in public education. If you send your child to a private school you pay for it, but the government will not refund your public school money. The impact on your child’s life can be catastrophic depending on your location and financial status. Your child may be taught sex, abortion, homosexuality and socialism whether you like it or not. This is indoctrination. This is soft tyranny. It is morally, ethically and philosophically wrong, and yet it is the norm in today’s America.

Freedom of Speech and Religion: Now surely we are secure in our right of free speech. I mean after all it is specifically protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. To be fair for the most part we indeed have this right. But is it completely protected? If you want to know if we are secure in this right just ask a conservative commentator who wants to give a speech at Columbia University. Try protesting when a president comes to visit in your town, particularly a liberal president. Political speech was specifically what the Founders had in mind and yet it is extremely controlled at large political events. Look up all the regulations on protesting in front of an abortion clinic. Do those restrictions apply when crazy Christian pretenders protest at a soldier’s funeral? Why no there seems to be a double standard. This of course will always be the problem when you start putting restrictions on a fundamental right.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…” This clause of the First Amendment guarantees the free expression of religion. So go try to exercise this freedom in school. We live in an era where a religion, Islam has as one of its main tenants the killing of infidels and forced conversion and yet in America today it’s easier by far to criticize Christians than to criticize Islam. Cartoonists are forced to abstain from ridiculing Mohammed while complete desecration of Jesus Christ is rampant and protected. Football players are forbidden in some cases from praying for the safety of their participants. While these examples may seem mild to you understand; once the government is allowed to stifle religious expression it will only get worse, never better.

Guns: Regardless of the fact that the SCOTUS recently upheld a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms individually for self-defense, there are places all over this country where you are not allowed to bear arms. Rules and regulations regarding this fundamental American right are becoming ever more restrictive and oppressive. The federal government is developing databases on who owns arms and where they are located. A recent backlash against this tyranny in several states is a welcome change to our recent history but much needs to be done especially on the federal level. The federal government has no enumerated power in the Constitution to abridge your right to keep and bear arms. They have no right to make you register that firearm. Now many of you will say that registering and restricting weapons is a reasonable response to crime. Never forget that security is almost always the pretext to steal your Liberty. Also, once you allow one restriction soon they can tell you what type of weapon, what size, what ammunition, what model, what accessories and on and on and on. Government oppression always grows. The end result can be nothing other than the eventual rescinding of the right altogether; it’s only a matter of time.

Property Rights: The Founders wrote extensively on the importance of property rights to the America system of government. Allowing citizens to own and prosper from the use of property was a keystone to the economic future of America. It would take an entire book to go into detail on the plethora of ways the government has infringed on this basic foundational principle. In modern America, the government can tell you what to do with your property, what you can build, how it can look, what color it will be, what type of roof it will have, how many trees you can cut, which trees you are forbidden to cut etc. The taxes on property in many places are so oppressive that you never really own it at all. Death taxes applied to property allow the government to tax again what has already been taxed. The governments appetite for money is voracious and nowhere more obvious than on property. Everything you own has been taxed several times over, from the material purchase to build it to the labor to assemble it. The SCOTUS has now even allowed the confiscation of private property for private development by others in the name of financial gain in the public interest namely redevelopment and taxes (Kelo decision). As a side note the developer in the Kelo controversy was never able to gain the financing needed. The development never took place. The final cost to the city to confiscate and bulldoze the previously privately owned property was $78 million. As of this writing the property is an empty lot generating zero taxes while the taxpayers foot the $78 million dollar bill. This is the result of government interference into free market enterprise.
We are also supposed to be protected in our person and our possessions but a brief look at the Patriot Act shows that to be lost as well. The government can sneak into your house, snoop around and plant bugs, all without probable cause or a warrant. The government can listen to your phone conversation and read your email without probable cause or a warrant. The government can grope the private parts of your 8 year old daughter or your 80 year old grandmother without probable cause or a warrant. Again all in the name of security yet a Muslim man paying for a plane ticket with cash, no luggage and known to recently have visited Pakistan and Yemen is ignored so as not to offend Muslims. It's okay to offend God-fearing law abiding Americans, but we can't offend potential terrorists.

Commerce: The right to engage in free commerce is another cornerstone of American Liberty. Allowing citizens to interact in a business environment free of the chains of government corruption is the driving force behind the prosperity that this nation has enjoyed. In the last 100 years there has unfortunately been an unholy alliance between business and government. This has resulted in the government becoming an all powerful entity which by manipulation of regulation and tax code can determine winners and losers in the market. Corporations become larger and richer while small businesses are saddled with endless regulation and tax making business almost impossible. The result is seen plainly in the crash of the economy in the Fall of 2008. All economies have bubbles but government intervention makes them deeper, more frequent and harder to climb out of. At each incident the government writes more regulations seizing an ever tightening grip on business. The result is large corporations developing intimate relationships with politicians and assisting in the writing of these regulations which ultimately helps those in the loop and stifles competition. Again present circumstances show clearly how this corruption destroys a free market. Government does not create wealth, it destroys it. They've done quite a job on us lately. Talk to anyone who has attempted to open a new business in the last twenty years and you'll get an earful about how government impedes business instead of assisting it. Even the right to work is abridged by government and unions colluding to control business. Witness the latest NLRB decision to deny Boeing the right to open a business in South Carolina. Who the hell do they think they are? Your KING, that's who.

Life: Of the unalienable rights delineated in the Declaration of Independence the very first one is the right to life. Do you have the right to life in America today? Ask the millions and millions of aborted babies. It’s a little hard to exercise your other rights when you don’t even get the first and foremost right, the right to live. There is no other example more appropriate for what happens when government becomes too powerful than this. Government kills its’ own citizens under the pretext of protecting privacy. Privacy is more important to government than life itself. This is the very epitome of tyranny. The damage to society for this egregious assault on God’s creations will never be fully known. It’s no wonder a young mother in Florida kills her 2 year old child so she can go party at the bars all night…and gets away with it. Welcome to America void of constitutional restrictions.

by: Keith D. Rodebush