SnowSquirrel
April 11th, 2009, 4:17 am
"Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." -Frederick Douglass
As a soldier, would you carry out an order that you knew to be illegal? As a policeman, would you enforce an oppressive law? As an government administrator, would you knowingly assist in violating fellow citizens' rights? These questions are not hypothetical, and they deserve our attention.
When we pledge allegiance "to the Flag," or to the country, where exactly are we placing our loyalty? Says the modern Pledge: "To the Republic... One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all." There are several aspects to that wording. "The Flag" is not just a particular graphic design, but the ideal behind it: the concept of America with its history and values. "The Republic" is a government established by our Founders through the Constitution. "The Nation" is America as a group of people united by a common culture. This culture accepts human rights as the product of natural law or of "Nature's God" -- something that no earthly authority can rightly take away. Consider these ideas together. We grant our loyalty to the ideal of freedom, something that belongs to every individual, and that unites us in spirit to a glorious history. To be a patriotic American means something different than to be a patriotic German, Mexican, or Iranian. Behind the symbolism of flags and anthems are real differences in ideology. Are you loyal to the unique ideals of this country, or is your allegiance only like loyalty to a favorite sports team?
Our ideal of liberty is threatened. The government of the United States has faltered in its defense of our freedom, and has even actively attacked that freedom. Our education system does not consistently teach our history and principles. Our Constitution has been violated, and re-interpreted in ways that the Founders specifically warned us not to do. Worst of all, our culture is no longer united by the idea that our rights of life, liberty, and property are involable. Do we identify loyalty to America as loyalty to the President, Congress and Supreme Court, "right or wrong?" If so, we risk turning our backs on the Flag, the Republic and the Nation.
What will happen when American ideals come into conflict with the government? For instance, the House of Representatives recently considered tiptoeing towards a national forced-labor system. A permanent peacetime draft. (HR 1388 (http://thomas.loc.gov/), As Reported, Title VI.) Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, advocated such a forced-labor requirement in his book "The Plan," and President Obama has spoken ambiguously about "requiring" community service in college. Fortunately, the House's planned study has been abandonded for now. But its existence shows how bold our politicians are becoming, and how little regard they have for our Constitution and our liberty. The question is: if a similar bill is ever signed into law, will you do your part to enforce it? Will you help identify, arrest, or harass the people too patriotic to obey the law?
Nor is forced labor the government's only ambition. There has been serious talk of reviving censorship of talk radio for the purpose of controlling what opinions that medium expresses. We are likely to soon have a national health care system that orders all citizens to purchase insurance, despite the utter lack of constitutional authority for such a thing. What about the proposed new tax and regulation scheme for carbon dioxide, that the President himself said will make energy prices "skyrocket?" Or new restrictions on gun ownership, or active subversion of our existing immigration laws? Or the Law of the Sea Treaty, which effectively grants ownership of the world's vast ocean-floor resources to the UN? Or handing a few more trillion dollars to banks and corporations, in what Mussolini supposdly called "the merger of state and corporate power?" All of these proposed acts, and more, are attacks on the freedom to which we have granted our loyalty. Some of these acts are, for various reasons, not things that can be undone simply by winning the next elections. If they pass, the damage is permanent.
It is time to ask ourselves where our allegiance rightly belongs. If the national government has become destructive of the ends for which it was created, are we morally bound to obey it? If the Constitution is the supreme earthly law of America, and if the acts of our government violate the Constitution, then do those acts have legal force? Is the Supreme Court the final authority for deciding what rights we have? The level of actual power that our government has, ultimately rests with the people themselves, through their willingness to tolerate oppression and injustice. We must be willing, if it becomes necessary, to say, "Stop! Your actions are illegal! They are beyond reasonable political debate, and you have no authority to force them on us!"
Now is not a time for violence. Our people do not fully appreciate the basic moral conflict; our government's intentions are uncertain; and we have not exhausted the ballot box and peaceful resistance. Still, it is a time to keep watch. The rattlesnake of Gadsden's yellow flag must shake her rattles in warning.
As a soldier, would you carry out an order that you knew to be illegal? As a policeman, would you enforce an oppressive law? As an government administrator, would you knowingly assist in violating fellow citizens' rights? These questions are not hypothetical, and they deserve our attention.
When we pledge allegiance "to the Flag," or to the country, where exactly are we placing our loyalty? Says the modern Pledge: "To the Republic... One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all." There are several aspects to that wording. "The Flag" is not just a particular graphic design, but the ideal behind it: the concept of America with its history and values. "The Republic" is a government established by our Founders through the Constitution. "The Nation" is America as a group of people united by a common culture. This culture accepts human rights as the product of natural law or of "Nature's God" -- something that no earthly authority can rightly take away. Consider these ideas together. We grant our loyalty to the ideal of freedom, something that belongs to every individual, and that unites us in spirit to a glorious history. To be a patriotic American means something different than to be a patriotic German, Mexican, or Iranian. Behind the symbolism of flags and anthems are real differences in ideology. Are you loyal to the unique ideals of this country, or is your allegiance only like loyalty to a favorite sports team?
Our ideal of liberty is threatened. The government of the United States has faltered in its defense of our freedom, and has even actively attacked that freedom. Our education system does not consistently teach our history and principles. Our Constitution has been violated, and re-interpreted in ways that the Founders specifically warned us not to do. Worst of all, our culture is no longer united by the idea that our rights of life, liberty, and property are involable. Do we identify loyalty to America as loyalty to the President, Congress and Supreme Court, "right or wrong?" If so, we risk turning our backs on the Flag, the Republic and the Nation.
What will happen when American ideals come into conflict with the government? For instance, the House of Representatives recently considered tiptoeing towards a national forced-labor system. A permanent peacetime draft. (HR 1388 (http://thomas.loc.gov/), As Reported, Title VI.) Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, advocated such a forced-labor requirement in his book "The Plan," and President Obama has spoken ambiguously about "requiring" community service in college. Fortunately, the House's planned study has been abandonded for now. But its existence shows how bold our politicians are becoming, and how little regard they have for our Constitution and our liberty. The question is: if a similar bill is ever signed into law, will you do your part to enforce it? Will you help identify, arrest, or harass the people too patriotic to obey the law?
Nor is forced labor the government's only ambition. There has been serious talk of reviving censorship of talk radio for the purpose of controlling what opinions that medium expresses. We are likely to soon have a national health care system that orders all citizens to purchase insurance, despite the utter lack of constitutional authority for such a thing. What about the proposed new tax and regulation scheme for carbon dioxide, that the President himself said will make energy prices "skyrocket?" Or new restrictions on gun ownership, or active subversion of our existing immigration laws? Or the Law of the Sea Treaty, which effectively grants ownership of the world's vast ocean-floor resources to the UN? Or handing a few more trillion dollars to banks and corporations, in what Mussolini supposdly called "the merger of state and corporate power?" All of these proposed acts, and more, are attacks on the freedom to which we have granted our loyalty. Some of these acts are, for various reasons, not things that can be undone simply by winning the next elections. If they pass, the damage is permanent.
It is time to ask ourselves where our allegiance rightly belongs. If the national government has become destructive of the ends for which it was created, are we morally bound to obey it? If the Constitution is the supreme earthly law of America, and if the acts of our government violate the Constitution, then do those acts have legal force? Is the Supreme Court the final authority for deciding what rights we have? The level of actual power that our government has, ultimately rests with the people themselves, through their willingness to tolerate oppression and injustice. We must be willing, if it becomes necessary, to say, "Stop! Your actions are illegal! They are beyond reasonable political debate, and you have no authority to force them on us!"
Now is not a time for violence. Our people do not fully appreciate the basic moral conflict; our government's intentions are uncertain; and we have not exhausted the ballot box and peaceful resistance. Still, it is a time to keep watch. The rattlesnake of Gadsden's yellow flag must shake her rattles in warning.