Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

28 March 2010

Law Should Minimize the Violence in a Society

Our Founding Fathers in America thought of the function of government in very fundamental terms.  They realized that a people with no government were the prey of internal gangs of thieves and warlords and of foreign nations whose armies might sweep over them and extract tribute and servitude from them.  On the other hand, they also knew that where nation states existed, they had usually generated too many laws and had too arbitrarily changed those laws with the effect that their people were subjugated and suppressed.  The government itself, not brigands, was the main source of violence against the people in these nations.

The People of America could not freely and effectively exercise their sovereign, unalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without a government to protect them or with a government whose powers were too great, as was the case with every government of Europe at that time and of most governments throughout history.  Rational laws were essential for the purpose of giving the People the protection they needed to exercise their individual rights, but these laws had to be developed in a careful balance and with great care to keep them from becoming excessive restraints on the freedom of the People.

How could the right balance be attained?
  • It had to be clear that any law was justified only to the extent that it protected the equal rights of the individual.
  • The laws must be consistent with justice.
  • The laws must be consistent with domestic tranquility.
  • They must be consistent with the general welfare of the People and their posterity.
  • The laws must be within the powers delegated to the federal government, which powers were few and explicitly delineated by the Constitution.
  • The laws should be few enough and simple enough to be understood by the People.  The Supreme Law of the Land, the U.S. Constitution, was written as such a simple example.
  • The laws were to be made by a bicameral legislature and had to be signed into law by the President, which was to ensure that laws were made deliberately and with a high measure of consensus by the representatives of the People.  The process was to be rather slow and to help ensure that too many laws would not be passed and that the laws could not become too complicated.  This slow, cumbersome process was also to keep the laws from changing too often.
  • Because some rights of the individual had been commonly trampled by governments, many of those most often trampled were explicitly protected in the Bill of Rights and then in later Amendments to the Constitution.  In realization that men had still other rights, the 9th Amendment provided for their protection.
  • Some legitimate functions of government were recognized as being best provided by the states and other local government.  The federal government was prevented from interfering with the state governments' powers by the 10th Amendment.
The Framers of the Constitution carefully crafted a federal government with all of the above limitations.  They recognized that the federal government did not have the purpose of providing for the General Welfare of the People in a broad sense, because much of the General Welfare was provided by the People for themselves and by their local government.  It had the purpose of protecting their equal, unalienable individual rights within the context of exercising some few and precisely defined powers in a manner consistent with their General Welfare.  This was an additional restriction, not a source of unenumerated powers.  One can similarly substitute the words Justice or Domestic Tranquility for General Welfare in the sentences above in this paragraph.

What is the consequence of a federal government exceeding these many strict limitations laid upon it by the Constitution?  The consequence is almost always one of suppressing the freedom of the individual to exercise his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  In almost every excessive law, or every law exceeding the powers granted to the federal government by our Constitution, there are acts of violence called for against the individual.  This is because the individual has the sovereign, unalienable right to his life, his liberty, and his pursuit of happiness.  Every American individual has the right to think for himself, to express his thoughts in speech, to associate with and trade with others, to earn his living, to develop and own property, to choose his own values, and to manage his life in accordance with his chosen values.  But, if an individual asserts his rights and tries to defend them against their suppression by an excessive government, the response of government is to use force to enforce its laws.  But government which does not protect the rights of the individual is illegitimate and tyrannical, just as our Declaration of Independence clearly states, and such government is properly overturned by the People.  Fortunately, in the United States of America, we can do that in the next few elections.

It is a constant tactic of the Democrat socialist party that when the People become angry at the federal government and the socialists in control, that they scream that the People angry about their endangered individual rights are violent.  In the wake of the recent socialist federal government's takeover of medical care in complete disregard for the rights the People and their clearly and vehemently stated opposition to this takeover, the Democrats have used this tactic shamelessly to frighten other Americans and to seek sympathy.  Yet, these same Democrat socialists have just passed an unconstitutional law for which they have no delegated power in the Constitution and which is a clear violation of the individual's right to his own life, his own freedom to act to preserve his health and the ownership of his body, and his ability to pursue his happiness.  They have also forced the states to take on duties, which they have no power to do.

The law has established several layers of penalties for individuals who do not bow to this suppression of their liberties.  It tries to intimidate those who would dissent by putting us all further under the heel of the much despised IRS.  It forces many companies to provide a health insurance plan to be determined by government for its employees or pay a fine of $2,000 per employee.  In some cases, if a company does provide this health insurance coverage, the government may still fine it $3,000 per employee if the employee complains that the plan is too expensive for him.  In some cases, the fine for someone non-compliant with the law is $25,000 and up to 5 years in prison.  These are draconian threats which are meant to scare the People into compliance and submission to this tyrannical and unconstitutional law.  In this way, the socialist rulers hope to avoid the awkwardness of actually having to use force often to suppress the many angry Americans who rightly see this law as an infringement of their rights.  Of course, should any American proceed to actually protect his rights by taking up arms against this tyrannical government, he will be killed.  After all, these socialists are great admirers of Mao and Castro and other great socialist leaders, who would brook no resistance on the part of any backward peasants who had ancient and out-dated ideas of having individual rights.

It is socialists who are the ultimate in violent people.  They are brutal in enforcing their tyrannical laws and decrees.  It takes a great deal of violence to overcome a People's love of their individual rights, especially a People who have a long tradition of enjoying such rights, as the American People have had.  The socialists have added laws enforcing new socialist powers of government over the last 100 years at the federal government level and, periodically, the People have pushed back.  When these laws have been added slowly and in pieces, the socialists have generally managed to suppress more and more of our individual liberties.  Since Obama became the great socialist leader with the socialist radicals Pelosi in the House and Reid in the Senate, they accelerated their socialist program for the suppression of the American People.  Over and over, they have taken our hard-earned money, put us in intolerable debt, and mandated that we will do this, that, and everything else at their command.  They have consistently attacked the private sector and sucked its blood and vitality to feed the carnivorous public sector.  They have bought off some industries and special interests and damaged many others.  They have attacked our property rights and our freedom of contract.  They have gained even stronger control over education, so they can better indoctrinate our youth.  They want more power to deny us energy, which they largely do already.  They want more controls over industry and our finances.

How ridiculous that these violence-loving, tyrannical socialists are making a habit of complaining that Tea Party Americans are violent.  I have been at several Tea Party demonstrations and the police have never put on shields and visors for protection, they have never been attacked, and they have never been verbally abused to my knowledge.  The Tea Party People believe in the bulleted principles I laid out above, including the desire for Domestic Tranquility.  To be sure, if the ruling socialists were to refuse to hold the 2010 election or they were to steal even more votes than they usually do, then perhaps some Tea Party People might decide the time for armed rebellion had come.  After all, that is what our Declaration of Independence says the People will do.  It says:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
The socialists have certainly shown us real Americans, who love our individual rights and our liberty, this long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, and evincing a Design to reduce us under an absolute Despotism.  They had better not interfere with the elections in 2010 and 2012, or freedom loving Americans will throw off such a tyranny, as is their right and their duty.  However, it is unlikely that these cowardly socialists will interfere with those elections to such a degree that we will not throw all of the rascals and scalawags out of office.  We must then roll back the many laws anchoring socialist tyranny about our necks and renew American understanding of the necessity of constitutional, republican government in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.  We must renew our commitment to the leadership of our Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution who tried so hard to establish the Principles of individual Rights in the great American Experiment, making America the most Exceptional Beacon of Freedom and Prosperity the World has ever known.  It is the Right of the American People and their Virtue to live their Lives in American Liberty.

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