Reposted from February 27, 2018
There has been a long-term agenda to change these United States from the conception birthed by our Founding Fathers to something where the power elite control the “Great Unwashed” through the cooperation and demands of the rank and file sheep of the flock. Some parts of the agenda span only a few years while others take over a century to unfold. You might call it a “ten-point program”, a “new world order” or “hope and change”. Over the next two weeks the plan will be presented in no particular order.
The Agenda — Part Ten: Gather and centralize power in the Federal government leading with the non-elected agencies and bureaus of the Executive Branch.
The federal government has exceeded its constitutional bounds. Congress functions far beyond its “few and defined” powers, to encroach on those reserved to the states and the people. Examples include education, health care and various criminal laws.
Even more intrusive, however, are the more than 400 federal agencies that issue thousands of regulations controlling every aspect of our lives, from our air and water to our farms and factories.
The executive branch chooses which laws to enforce and issues its own laws through executive orders and administrative rules.
The federal courts now routinely decide matters of public policy historically reserved to the states, including life, marriage and morality.
Why does any of this matter? As long as we have food on the table and a car in the garage, why does it matter if we are governed from our state Capitol or Washington — by legislators or federal administrators? Unchecked federal power is not only oppressive, but a distant central government is less efficient, less responsive and more expensive.
The answer in one word — liberty — for ourselves and our posterity.
“Federalism is more than an exercise in setting the boundary between different institutions of government for their own integrity. State sovereignty is not just an end in itself. Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power. … Federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power. When government acts in excess of its lawful powers, that liberty is at stake.”
— Justice Anthony Kennedy
In short, the unchecked growth of federal power — without a counterbalancing state power — restricts individual liberty and threatens tyranny.
Here are just a few examples where the Federal government, (and our elected officials who are supposed to serve us) has ignored rather than honor the Constitutional liberties guaranteed to us as Americans.
1) dictate school curriculum, testing, lunch menus and transgender use of bathrooms and locker rooms;
2) prohibit mining and burning of coal;
3) regulate ditches and canals as “waters of the U.S.”;
4) revoke accreditation of colleges whose standards are not “politically correct”;
5) force private religious employers to provide contraceptive services;
6) dictate overtime pay in private employment;
7) revoke tax-exemptions for nonconforming religious beliefs;
8) protect wildlife that damages property or threatens domestic livestock;
9) force one-size-fits-all health care plans;
10) limit use of public lands; and so forth.
Despite what some may think, the Constitution is no magical incantation against government wrongdoing.
It’s only as effective as those who abide by it. However, without courts willing to uphold the Constitution’s provisions when government officials disregard it and a citizenry knowledgeable enough to be outraged when those provisions are undermined, it provides little to no protection against SWAT team raids, domestic surveillance, police shootings of unarmed citizens, indefinite detentions, and the like.
Unfortunately, the courts and the police have meshed in their thinking to such an extent that anything goes when it’s done in the name of national security, crime fighting and terrorism.
America no longer operates under a system of justice characterized by due process, an assumption of innocence, probable cause and clear prohibitions on government overreach and police abuse. Instead, our courts of justice have been transformed into courts of order, advocating for the government’s interests, rather than championing the rights of the citizen, as enshrined in the Constitution.
The rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, once the map by which we navigated sometimes hostile terrain, has been unceremoniously booted out of the runaway car that is our government, driven over and left for road kill on the side of the road. All that can be seen in the rear view mirror are the tire marks on its ragged frame.
What we are dealing with is a run-away government hyped up on its own power, whose policies are dictated more by paranoia than need. Making matters worse, “we the people” have become so gullible, so easily distracted, and so out-of-touch that we are ignoring the warning signs all around.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the NDAA indefinite detention case—which challenged whether the government can lawfully lock up American citizens who might be deemed extremists or terrorists (the government likes to use these words interchangeably) for criticizing the government—is one such warning sign that we would do well to heed.
The building blocks are already in place for such an eventuality: the surveillance networks, the militarized police, the courts sanctioning the government’s methods, no matter how unlawful, and the detention facilities, whether private prisons or FEMA internment camps, to lock up the troublemakers.
Americans haven’t been overly concerned about the rights of others, whether non-citizens or suspected terrorists, and now we’re the ones in the unenviable position of being targeted for indefinite detention by our own government.
It will only be a matter of time before they learn the hard way that in a police state, it doesn’t matter who you are or how righteous you claim to be—eventually, you will be lumped in with everyone else and everything you do will be “wrong” and suspect.
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed.”
— Ayn Rand
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(c) 2018 Uriel Press
