“Even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Independence Day is a now a day that has no real meaning for far too many Americans today, as nearly half the nation works tirelessly to destroy our republic and the principles it was founded upon, and the rest of us can barely believe that some who want to lead the nation, Democrat communists and Republican globalists [RINOs], hold a vision, that would reduce us all to serfs serving the government rather than the government serving the will of the people; and a good portion of both sides simply want a barbecue and a good time.

America’s domestic enemies see state power as paramount over individual liberty, and unless America’s youth starts standing up and remembering how much blood was shed for their freedom and the rights they so casually abuse as they trash America in so many ways, from their anti-American speeches to their attempts to destroy the basis of America and our Judeo-Christian principles, everyone, my children and grandchildren and yours too, face dangerous times ahead.

Anyone who listened to Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren share her horror over states making gains in halting abortion understands that true liberty and individual rights, even states’ rights, mean nothing to the Democrats. Warren called for a federal law that codifies Roe v Wade, with the certain knowledge that the federal government treasury would be used to coerce states to fall in line, as has been done regarding so many other federal laws.

Even at the local city and county governments, citizens witness elected officials, claiming to be “conservatives” — who think they know better than the people — go against the will of the people, just as the city council in Murfreesboro, TN and also Rutherford County council did recently when they voted a thirty-five percent and six percent tax increase respectively to pay for services and pay raises and to preserve a government “savings account”.

Our republic uses democratic mechanisms to govern, while certain checks and balances and the Bill of Rights were also put in place to protect the individual’s rights. The principle of good governance as set forth by Thomas Jefferson and many of the Founding Fathers acknowledges that the rights of the individual are paramount over anything else one might consider in any government.

Read the unredacted parchment drafted by Thomas Jefferson. It presents an important distinction, in that it reads the “Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America”, not the “Declaration of the United States of America.

These were thirteen independent states, on that hot summer day in 1776, not a “United” States in the singular, a State to be held together at gunpoint or through coercion, and these sovereign states were comprised of sovereign individuals who gave their consent to be governed, not ruled. However, today a stark contrast exists between the single State governed by the central authority of the federal government and the once sovereign states that have become nothing more than administrative districts.

Since 1865, “consent of the governed” has become a heretical phrase and must not be spoken of due to its implications. No one now living consented to such an all powerful centralized government, and if consent is a moral prerequisite to legitimate government, the government of the United States — the singular behemoth, the Leviathan — is illegitimate on the face of it. And we have allowed ourselves to become subjects, not citizens, speaking holistically, since some of Us have fought government intrusions on individual liberty and states’ rights all our adult lives.

Think You’re “free”? Try not paying excessive taxes, as we recall that the War of Independence was fought, in part due to the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Tea Act of 1773 and three pennies added to the cost of a pound of tea.

The fact that government can levy an excessive tax against Us today and take any amount of our money it arbitrarily determines is “fair” belies the notion we are free. Whatever of our own finances we retain is only by sufferance and not by right.

Even though you are an adult, who is responsible for your own choices concerning your safety, try not fastening your seat-belt as you cruise down the highway on a sunny Saturday drive.

One never really owns their property either. No matter how much one paid for it or how many years it has been paid off in full, one is forced to continue paying money to a government whose exactions and existence were never consented to by him.

And for many Americans, such as President Trump and even myself, who have often stated, “America will never be a socialist country”, America is already well on its way to being just that, if not an authoritarian fascist state, noted by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to be “corporatism” and the “merger of corporate and state power”. Think of “too big to fail”, Bear Stearns and American International Group and the 2008 economic collapse and today’s Big Tech subsidies.

America began a major slide into fascism around 1913, and from that point on, when America enacted many of the ideas enumerated in Marx’s ‘Communist Manifesto’, like a progressive income tax, a national centralized bank, government ownership of land, government ownership and control of communications and transportation, government schools, regulation of installment buying, price controls and farm subsidies [corporate farms], government housing, social security and “free” education, and several other items. This has essentially resulted from a convergence of capitalism and socialism, a bit at a time, and not only has it slowly destroyed our economy [note that the current economic “boom” won’t last] education and the nation’s moral compass, it gave rise to the utter corruption of our political system and the Deep State.

By contrast, in a true capitalist system an actual free-market exists that is unfettered by government interference, finding its own level as the market demands at any given time. Supply and demand are self-regulating, and government controls are unnecessary limitations on economic freedom.

Today, far too many Americans have come to see government as their “rescuer” in their longing to have every need met by someone else. They expect government to solve all their problems, and that’s a real problem, since everything the government “gives” us exacts a price from our individual liberty, not to mention that D.C. draws sociopaths to it like a pile of cow manure draws flies.

Just as in Venezuela, our Deep State actors, in cooperation with billionaire socialist George Soros, have been most thorough in representing the current economy as a “capitalist economy”, even though America has not had a truly free-market capitalist system in over a hundred years, and they have facilitated full socialism into the political realm. And, when our economy finally does collapse under the weight of the current out-of-control spending and the ever growing fascism and socialism, these anti-American, anti-freedom authoritarians will attempt to fool Americans that capitalism is the problem and socialism is the cure, laying the blame at the feet of capitalism.

The socialist Presidential candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, who wants to forgive all university tuition debt and make healthcare “FREE” also, argue that “capitalism” has failed, and while it is true that the gap between the rich and poor is greater today than it has ever been in modern times, and that the middle class is shrinking and the elite oligarchy of the upper class is growing wealthier, it is due to the insertion of socialist policies into the economy. Pointing to capitalism as the problem is based on more falsehoods and fallacies than I can list; such claims are undeniably false.

Capitalism has not failed, but rest assured that the socialists’ dream of making education and healthcare — the two largest rackets in America — “free” only further ensures that Americans will be turned into debt slaves and bankrupts; and, to date, socialism has always failed in the basic mission to prepare young minds for life’s reality and to “first do no harm.”

All of the socialists’ policies in education and healthcare would still do nothing to reform the patent idiocies of the gender studies departments and the current misinterpretation and application of Title IX that infringes on heterosexual rights. Those policies also cannot rescue the “victims” of self-inflicted obesity and diabetes from their toxic consumption of Big Macs, Frosty dairy desserts and fries, since these dynamics rest on the wheels of futility, often depression and self-loathing, for which there is no happy ending outside of drastic changes in behavior.

One must also fully understand governments, especially under Obama and even under President Trump, always move in a direction of more control; just look the politicization of the IRS, FBI and the DOJ and the passage of the FISA Reauthorization, bumpstock regulation and various new bill proposals. Given enough time, governments always create a state of despotism, and historically, governments never voluntarily reverse their level of control and introduce greater liberty.

Although the number is disputed by some, even President Ronald Reagan once noted that there are roughly 20,000 laws regarding gun control alone, and that’s just the federal illegitimate “laws”. So many other “laws” exist that it’s been estimated the average American commits approximately three felonies each day, and this makes the authorities’ task very simple, if for any reason they wish to victimize you. Just ask the Bundy Family, Hammond Brothers, LaVoy Finicum’s Family, Lt General Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen and a few others.

Thomas Jefferson once stated: “Even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

God help America if the the Democrats take the majority in the Congress and the Oval Office anytime in the near future and implement a more stringent and authoritarian form of the morally corrupt, economy destroying and de-civilizing ideology of socialism and the sick social system it embodies. Their system must be exposed for all the obnoxious, abhorrent and hellacious ideas it represents.

Too large a segment of America no longer cares for individualism, free markets, personal freedom and free minds, and in fact, they now mock the very virtues America was founded upon. They may have some ill-formed, nebulous notion on ethics that they borrowed from the Boy Scouts, but they basically assert that socialism and communism are as equally good as capitalism, while their reigning philosophy is a mixture of Marxism, identity politics, anti-male feminism and anti-white racism.

The institutional damage along the way has been epic, and the scene today is a debris field of broken ideas, that strayed far and away from the Founding Principles and the Original Intent of the U.S. Constitution. The far left still advocates the failed Marxist vision as having national support and purpose, as they rush to implement and organize a chaotic demolition of pretty rigorous American values and traditions and even historic monuments and paintings, in their insane desire to eradicate our republic, a country that still may be the “home of the brave” but is now barely recognizable as the “land of the free”.

America is the only country in the history of mankind that was founded on the principles of individualism and personal freedom, that manifested in the early rugged American independent nature of America’s people. America is still special, still unique and still that Oh So Exceptional nation that has millions across the globe rushing towards Her shores, even if it’s becoming harder to see the fact and the light of liberty shining from Lady Liberty’s torch is growing dimmer each day.

As the Founders’ spin in their graves, America is now rapidly nearing the point of the ultimate inversion, where the government is free to do anything it pleases and our individual liberty is suppressed and we must bow to the altar of the state and beg permission to act. And this is the stage of the darkest times of human history, the stage of total dominance and rule by violence and brute force.

Is it too late to restore and save our beloved America? Nothing is ever too late if it serves a righteous cause, and I defy anyone to name any better causes for Us to firmly stand together and defend than our God Given Rights, the Bill of Rights and individual liberty in America, even if it takes us into the streets of our nation in armed conflict and civil war.

A certain chapter in American history is closing and the future of America and freedom is at risk. Those of Us who love freedom and liberty and America must grab hold of the moment to seize the 21st century for our children’s children and their children and generations beyond to ensure their economic prosperity and liberty and a 21st century that becomes all the Founders envisioned, full of an appreciation for life and all America originally represented, God’s glory and grace.

June 29, 2019

~ The Author ~
Justin O. Smith has lived in Tennessee off and on most of his adult life, and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, with a B.S. and a double major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – minors in Military Science and English, for what its worth. His real education started from that point on. Smith is a frequent contributor to the family of Kettle Moraine Publications.