Political Power

                    The topic of discussion for this Freedom Friday is that the ideal circumstances for freedom is for the political power to be in the center and not either far "right" or far "left."  Our Founding Fathers had a way to measure the political power of any selected type of government that is different than the "yardstick" we use today.  The Founders did not measure political issues in the terms we use today.  When we think of Democrats being on the left and Republicans being on the right or in terms of leftist or rightist, do we really understand what we are talking about?

                    The terms "Left" and "Right" refer to the way the various parties are seated in the European parliaments.  The radical revolutionaries sit on the far left, and the military dictators sit on the far right; all other parties sit somewhere in the middle.  The people in the farthest left group are usually communists, and the people in the farthest right group are usually fascists - even though communists and fascists are simply two different names for the police state and are practically identical.

                    Government is considered to be a "system for ruling or controlling."  Since the Founders understood this meaning of the word, they realized that the yardstick to measure any system of government was political power.  The Founders took their imaginary yardstick and marked one end anarchy and the other end tyranny.  The Founders considered anarchy to be the name or description of no government, no law, and no control, and they considered tyranny to be the opposite extreme or too much government, control, and oppression.  The Founders wanted to establish a government that was mid-way between the two extremes; they wanted a system where there was "enough government to maintain security, justice, and good order, but not enough government to abuse the people."

                    Our Founders wanted their fellow Americans to recognize the "subversive characteristics of oppressive Ruler's Law which they identified primarily with a tyrannical monarchy.  Here are its basic characteristics:  1) Authority under Ruler's Law is nearly always established by force, violence and conquest.  2) Therefore, all sovereign power is considered to be in the conqueror or his descendants.  3) The people are not equal, but are divided into classes, and are all looked upon as subjects of the king.  4) The entire country is considered to be the property of the ruler, who speaks of it as his `realm.'  5) The thrust of government power is from the top down, not from the people upward.  6) The people have no unalienable rights.  The King giveth and the King taketh away.  7) Government is by the whims of men, not by the fixed rule of law which the people need in order to govern the affairs with confidence.  8) The Ruler issues edicts which are called `The Law,' who then interprets the law and enforces it, thus maintaining tyrannical control over the people.  9) Problems are always solved by issuing more edicts or laws, setting up more bureaus, harassing the people with more regulators, and charging the people for these `services' by continually adding to their burden of taxes.  10) Freedom is never looked upon as a viable solution to anything.  11) The long history of Ruler's Law is one of blood and terror, both anciently and in modern times.  Under it, the people are stratified into an aristocracy of the Ruler's retinue while the law to the common people is one of perpetual poverty, excessive taxation, stringent regulations and a continuous existence of misery."

                    When I read through those characteristics for a tyrannical monarchy, I realized that our government is slowly - and lately not so slowly - moving towards tyranny.  Our government has not yet conquered us by force or violence, but more and more the people in Washington, D.C., considered themselves to be more knowledgeable and better than the common citizen.  President Obama works at keeping the citizenry divided between races, between economic levels, between education levels, etc.  The continual increase in regulations is forcing the government to be from the top down rather than people up.  Our rights are being steadily eroded in the name of "security."  The Constitution apparently doesn't mean much to the Obama Administration, and our President rules by Executive Order or "recess" appointments and not by law.

                    While typing this article, I've been thinking about the differences between the American Revolution and the French Revolution.  The American Revolution consisted of the people rising up against tyranny, establishing independence, and then organizing a government "of the people by the people and for the people."  The French Revolution became anarchy with no law, no control, and no government.  Control and more tyranny came to France in the name of a conqueror.

                    As Americans we need to measure the political power in our nation by the "yardstick" used by the Founders.  Do you think we are moving towards tyranny or anarchy?  What do you think is the best way to keep our government in the center where the political power is in the people?  When the political power is in the center with the people, there is total freedom.

                    Many of the ideas and all of the quotes for this article are from W. Cleon Skousen in The Five Thousand Year Leap - 28 Great Ideas That Changed the World, pp 11-12.  If you do not yet own a copy of this book, I suggest that you purchase a copy of it as soon as your finances will permit.  This book is very informative as to the principles of freedom and will increase your knowledge of freedom.  Any group of people who desires freedom should at least know what freedom is!

                   

                   

People Power

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is that the people retain all powers not specifically defined and delegated to the government. The Founders of our unique and great nation feared that a federal government would grow so powerful that it would crowd out the rights that legally and morally belonged to the people and/or the states. They spent much time and effort to carefully define the powers delegated to the government. They wanted to limit the authority of the government by the use of legal chains written into the Constitution.

W. Cleon Skousen wrote, "It will be recalled that one of the reasons many of the states would not adopt the original draft of the Constitution was that they feared the encroachments of the federal government on the rights of the states and the people. The first ten amendments were therefore added to include the ancient, unalienable rights of Anglo-Saxon freemen so there could be no question as to the strictly limited authority the people were conferring on their central government."

After writing the first eight Amendments to the Constitution, the Founders added two more that specifically limited the power of the government. The Ninth Amendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Tenth Amendment makes their meaning even clearer: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Our Founders were familiar with governments in the past that were corrupt and abusive. By limiting the power of the federal government and dividing the powers between the states and the central government, the Founders hoped to provide more security for the people.

Alexander Hamilton explained, "This balance between the national and state governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from over-passing their constitutional limits, by certain rivalship which will ever subsist between them."

As the Constitution was originally written, states could protect themselves from legislation taking their rights. The Founders wrote that the two Senators from each state were to be selected by the legislature of that particular state. Because the Senate could veto any legislation by the House of Representatives, the Senators were able to protect the rights of their states. When the Seventeenth Amendment in 1931 changed the election of Senators to a popular vote, the States lost their representatives and therefore some of their protection.

The illegal immigration problem in Arizona is just one example of how the federal government is trying to crush the state's right to protect its citizens. It may be time for the people of the United States to force a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. I believe that the rights of the states and thus the rights of the people would be better protected if Senators were chosen by the legislature of their particular state.

Ideas and quotes for this post came from The Five Thousand Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen, pp 161-164.

Power to the People

The topic for discussion today is that the God gave the right to govern to the people. In other words, the people have the divine right to govern themselves and to exercise the power to select and/or depose their leaders. The leaders should understand that they are merely servants and are responsible to represent the will of the people as a whole. When an elected or appointed official misuses the authority of the people and form an abusive type of government, the people have the authority to "alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…." (Declaration of Independence).