“THE RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION”
by Michael Gaddy, ©2016, blogging at The Rebel Madman
(Jun. 25, 2016) — “Old forms of Government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.” ~ Herbert Spencer
The philosopher Thomas Hobbes is reported to have said, “Freedom is government in very small fragments.” On the 23rd of June, just two days ago, Britain voted to leave the European Union and be ruled by a smaller fragment of government. Perhaps they heard the echo of the voice of Winston Churchill and his admonishment to Charles de Gaulle in 1944 that if Britain were forced to choose between the rest of Europe and the “open sea” she must always choose the open sea. The battle of consolidation of government and the resultant loss of freedom in such an association has resulted in a rage for freedom throughout recorded history. America exists only because of this rage for freedom and the power which resides in the people known as nullification and separation.
Those brave souls who settled this country from Europe who decided to leave the consolidated oppressive government of the English empire and find their way to the new world did so not to find a larger more consolidated government with better benefits but to seek freedom in a world across the sea which had no government at all. The people who founded this country did so on a quest to escape from the oppressions and tyranny of consolidated government.
James Madison once referred to the two types of people who made up society. There were the people who just wanted to be left alone to succeed or fail on their own merits and the larger segment of society that sought power and control over others to achieve their selfish ends. From this we should learn that the great majority of those who seek positions in government do so to exercise dominion and control over others, while those who embrace the tenets of freedom and liberty prefer to be left to their own devices with no outside interference. People of this ilk avoid large cities and consolidated government like the blight on humanity that they are.
The recorded history of man is saturated with the battle between those who want to control others for their own benefit and those who seek freedom.
America’s first constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation, was created and written to protect those who cherish freedom from those who would use the powers of government to impose their will on others. This was defined in Article XIII.
“Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.”
Here we see a form of government in which the States must observe the decisions of Congress without alteration and a Union which would be perpetual. But the key that is of much importance was that any and all decisions by that Congress had to be confirmed by the legislatures of every State. In other words, any laws set down by the Congress had to receive the unanimous approval of all involved. Imagine if you will how small would be the number of laws in this country today if any and all legislation required the unanimous consent of all the states and with how much less tyranny would the people be burdened? This is the very seed of self-determination. Tyrants realize the greatest weapons to be found in the administration of government are coercion and force. Individuals do not routinely accept tyranny and oppression, it must be forced on them.
“We have probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation. Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into execution the best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power.” George Washington to John Jay, August 1, 1786.
People who cherish freedom quickly find that freedom cannot exist within the framework of coercion and they naturally seek to remove themselves from what is in essence slavery. In a society in which you cannot say no—you are certainly not free—you are a slave to the wishes of the majority with all too often that majority controlled by the desires of a ruling cabal. The ruling cabal garners the devotion and allegiance of the majority with promises of sharing the wealth of those who produce with those who do not. The most interesting revelation is: those in the ruling cabal are usually quite wealthy but it is not their wealth they intend to share.
If Hillary is really concerned with poverty, why does she not donate her speaking fees to charity? What about the almost one billion in her campaign fund? How much food could that buy for the poor were it possible to spend it for that purpose? Socialists do not seek power in government to help the unfortunate or the oppressed, they seek power to increase their own wealth and position.
The more centralized and consolidated any government becomes, by default, it must become more oppressive and controlling because the increased promises and multitudes of laws made by that government demand a steady decline in the rights and freedoms of the minority. Toss in perpetual wars and the unrestrained immigration of refugees from those wars and the resultant costs of both and true freedom quickly ceases to exist on any plane in that society. Then arises the winds preceding the raging storm for freedom such as that just witnessed in the UK.
But, the financial markets took a dump because of this exit from the larger union we are told with alarm. Financial markets which suffer large losses or collapse based on a perceived loss of coercion are not markets based on free enterprise and trade but are markets based on the ability of a strong centralized government to routinely confiscate the private property of its citizens. When the number of citizens from which money can be extracted diminishes, the amount others must pay increases and government coercion intensifies.
We often point with pride to our Constitution, the product of the Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. The truth is: this convention was led by many who sought the coercion of government over the people and the creation of a strong, more centralized government which could enforce its will on everyone under its control. Remember, the Articles of Confederation required the unanimous consent of every state; the new constitution only a majority.
We have the Affordable Health Care Act today even though a clear majority of states and people do not want it because of a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who is controlled by the power cabal and does not answer to the states or the people. Under the Articles of Confederation, it would have taken but one state to veto this oppressive piece of garbage. This is but one example of the tyranny imposed on the people by a ruling cabal. And we wonder why people tire of such oppression and seek redress through nullification and/or separation from the source of their oppression.
The Southern states in 1860-61 sought to escape the tyranny of a government in which they had no voice. (Lincoln was not even on the 1860 ballot in 10 Southern states) The Southern states voted through conventions in their respective states to terminate their association with the central government just as the UK voted to leave the EU. When the Southern states seceded, the financial markets in the North began to collapse just as we witnessed yesterday throughout the world. In 1861 these financial markets began their decline because the power of coercion and the ability to tax those states in the South would cease to exist. The South had been contributing over 80% of the total income for the entire country, therefore Lincoln and his radical republican backers knew the North could not survive this loss of income and decided war was the only answer. Pay up or die.
When the Confederacy outlawed protectionist tariffs in its Constitution the die was cast. Shipping and possibly manufacturing interests in the North would move from New York, Providence and Boston to Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans. It was simple economics: less taxes meant more profits.
It is really hard to sell the world on the proposition a government is willing to kill its own citizens if they seek freedom through the right of self-determination so moral high ground became a necessity. Slavery became the canard used to justify an oppressive war which killed almost one million people including almost 25% of the black population in the South. Karl Marx and Lincoln’s assorted socialists in his government (Charles A. Dana, Horace Greeley, and many others) provided the political propaganda cover needed for this deception which is still the excuse for the denial of rights and removal of all things Confederate trotted out by the cultural Marxists currently in vogue in our society today.
Anyone among the masses who denies the right of Nullification and Secession is at heart a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist. Anyone who is involved in the battle for freedom and liberty knows when the ability to “just say no” to oppressive, unconstitutional laws, exorbitant taxation, perpetual wars, unlimited immigration, rapidly increasing debt, an ever growing police state coupled with the loss of the means to protect one’s self (gun control) and those he/she loves no longer exists, we are not free—we are slaves.
Thanks to the folks in the UK we know the battle for freedom still rages. We whose hearts reside with our ancestors who fought this battle over 150 years ago salute you. On June 23, 2016, many folks in the UK became Rebels when they assumed the cause of the Rebels of 1776, the Rebels of 1860-65 and the remnant which remains today. Now, if enough people in this country could just borrow a little of your courage!
“Our government is deeply disordered; its credit is impaired; its debt increasing; its expenditures extravagant and wasteful; its disbursements without efficient accountability; its taxes enormous, unequal and oppressive to the great producing classes of the country.” ~ John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)
And being forcibly and physically coerced into remaining in the Union has improved our condition, HOW?
IN RIGHTFUL REBEL LIBERTY