The Tragedy of Liberty
The greatest of all earthly blessings-give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else. -Patrick Henry
The existence of such a centralized government as that which we now have, and unfortunately - and quite poorly - represents the States who are agreed under Constitutional compact and the people therein, is such a poor expression of self-government that its can only be defined as pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous.
Under the current system as it exists – not as it was intended to exist as laid down in the Constitution and agreed upon by the States through ratification – we are governed by a hyper-centralized oligarchical kakistocracy whose primary purpose is the retention of power and its further consolidation. As children we learned of checks and balances. Now, we see that there are only checks on the everyday citizen to further secure power for the oligarchy. The only thing now being balanced are the unnaturally weighted scales whose manipulation places immense power in the hands of the few at the expense of the everyday citizen. This government acts more along the lines of the relationship a prince has with a people. What was once a Republic cannot today be thought to be so. For if it were, and Republican principles were adhered to, then such immense centralization and the pernicious abuses we’ve seen from centralized authority in Washington just over the past few years would not have happened. We would have seen our rights retained securely by a moderate form of Representative government whose purpose would have been to act as able while remaining within the strict confines of the Constitution.
If we look back to 2020 and the tragedy of Liberty that has occurred since by both administrations and all branches & agencies of government, we can see that no great conversation was had in the halls of congress as to how we should limit or amend liberty in the face of what we are told is rolling crisis, which, in my opinion, ought to have taken its course at some length and with much deliberate consideration if government felt the need to take such an action. For what we have, as citizens, been subject to between the election, covid, recent geopolitics and now the economy has been nothing short of a radical revolution not against either party or against the government itself, but against the very people whom the Constitution is outlined to protect by limiting these very actions of government.
It can be said without hesitation that our rights and liberties are not endangered, no, but now entirely malleable to the whims of bureaucrats and considered interests, which I have spoken to at length in “A Primer on the Nucleus of Government”. And we can see ever so clearly that no exaggeration is taking place in what is being explained. Sovereignty and freedom of travel were all but banned at the height of Covid Regulatory Mania. The right to freedom of speech in the digital town square has all but been crushed by considered interests whose power aligns with and supports fully the centralized kakistocracy. The Freedom of the Press exists only in our dreams as now 90% of all media organizations in the US are owned by 6 corporations. These organizations are perhaps the least trusted in our nation, where one recent poll demonstrates that only “7%” of Americans have “a great deal” of trust in reports appearing in news, television, or other media outlets. Trial by jury is becoming increasingly difficult to perform in a fair and honest manner as that very same group of untrusted media outlets condemn and publicly crucify suspects in the court of public opinion before they are ever taken to trial. Even your right to self was made malleable in many ways over the course of the past several years by Covid Regulatory Mania as the entire centralized apparatus urged vaccination backed by the threat of joblessness and homelessness. The right to protest has been rendered insecure by lockdowns and health mandates declaring such gatherings super-spreader events and a harm to public health (depending upon who is protesting what).
All of these rights, and more, have been relinquished by a manipulated people afraid of the power now wielded by the centralized authority who calls itself “The United States Federal Government”.
How have the relinquishment of the rights and their continued abridgement increased trade? How have they led to us to become a greater, more united and powerful people? I hasten to say they have not. How have these abridgements secured the blessings of liberty and natural human rights for posterity? Of course, in their violation they have not. Had considerable efforts been made in Congress to serve the people through dialogue and debate as our founders intended (perhaps even carrying ideas from the people who make up the States to the Federal Congress) we would have seen different solutions. We would have seen less harm done to the Constitution, the States which ratified it, and the people whom it protects by the strict limitations it places on the Federal government. So, of course, in an effort to quickly consolidate power and make rights malleable none of these conversations were had. Administrators in the Executive and Bureaucratic leaders threatened the everyday citizen with the powers of the federal government if they dared not cede any rights required for whatever arbitrary length of time decided upon.
These abridgements led to not just a statewide or national reduction in trade but a near-global collapse of the entire economic system. The people of our nation were less united and more divided over covid policies than almost anywhere else on earth. And that divide remains to this day.
Was it really necessary to abolish liberty for the sake of such rapid administrative action? Was throwing out trial by jury in the way in which we have conducive to good government based upon Constitutional principles? Was forcing people to take a vaccination or face the loss of work and homelessness been a step towards liberty? I confess, it was not. And furthermore, sidestepping the system in such an offensive and malicious manner speaks only to the distrust and lack of care those in power have for our founding documents. They view them as little more than historical relics whose only value is as a museum piece representative of some long, lost society and those who existed in a time and place in which representation was relevant. The absolute destruction of the moral confidence we as a people have in our leadership demonstrates an awful truth: that we are led by the worst among us whose value is based on one's own ability to abuse authority for the continuity and further consolidation of that very same authoritative power.
How that premise represents a functional Republic only greater minds than my own can ever elucidate. How the malleability of sacred rights helps secure them for future generations is beyond me. What I have long feared is becoming a reality: that our attachment to our sacred rights, given by God, have become subject to the whims of a few unscrupulous agents of government in a very passive and nonchalant way.
When speaking of Liberty, Patrick Henry once said “the greatest of all earthly blessings-give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else.” In the face of all else, should we find a way to retain Liberty we can find a way to retain or reestablish all other blessings and rights over time. Let Liberty be our course.
Be Kind To Your Neighbors,
CulturalHusbandry, 1776/2022