EMBRACING OR LIMITING GOVERNMENT
by Michael Gaddy, ©2016
(Oct. 13, 2016) — “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worse state, an intolerable one.” ~ Thomas Paine
Down through the pages of time, governments have done that which they do best; they transform from necessary evil to intolerable evil. Our country has followed in those footprints and has become as tyrannical as their predecessors. Also, traversing the annals of history are those with uncompromising principles and an unquenchable thirst for freedom and liberty. I truly believe it is genetic. History tells us this unusual breed of man has been referred to most often as Rebels. He is often rebelling against tyranny masquerading as a strong centralized government. Imagine if you will the last scene in the movie Braveheart in which with his dying breath William Wallace screams “Freedom.”
As hard as it is for most folks whose strongest attachments are to the worship of government, this country owes its founding and very existence to a band of Rebels who bore the names of Hancock, Revere, and Adams, among others. Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Marines admonished those brave souls on Lexington Green who had the audacity to challenge the most powerful force on the planet by the name Rebels when he ordered them to “disperse.” Being the stalwart men they were, they refused a direct order from those in charge. Today, the majority of people in this country would condemn the actions of the Rebels as subversive and would have referred to Major Pitcairn as a “hero” who was just doing his duty. After all, he was wearing a government costume!
Then, in 1861, the people of the South rebelled against one of the most evil tyrants in history as they resisted the Yankee invader of their homes and firesides. 94% of those who took up arms to defend their states, families, and homes did not own slaves, yet revisionist court historians have painted them all as racists in order to legitimize their crimes. Ironically, it was the Rebels of the South who embraced the Constitution and Bill of Rights against Lincoln and the Radical Republicans in Congress who were working diligently to destroy them both.
After the surrender of Robert E. Lee on April 9, 1865, the tyrannical government of Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens and William Seward, imposed martial law and the horrors of the Reconstruction Act of 1867 on the people of the South. This epidemic of treason and tyranny would be known as Reconstruction. To ensure the Rebels learned their lesson and future generations would look upon those who dared to resist the forces of a government which had become “an intolerable” evil, the Radical Republicans sent legions of “Carpetbaggers” and other useful idiots into the South to teach these Rebels a lesson. The government “of the people, by the people and for the people” referenced by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address did “perish from the earth,” at least the earth of the South. (It had long since perished from the earth of the North under Lincoln) The Radical Republicans sent legions of faithful servants into the South to take over the education of the young. The children were commanded to sing songs glorifying the Yankee cause and its servants. The children were also ordered to pray for the Yankee government each day. Just as General Patrick Cleburne had predicted, almost immediately the children of the South were taught “the history of the heroic struggle” was being taught by their enemies, and through “the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as subjects for derision.” This paradigm continues still today.
The Yankees also sent new ministers to the churches throughout the South during Reconstruction to preach the Yankee sermons and to pray for the Yankee cause and to teach the people to repent from their Rebel proclivities.
Senator Charles Sumner, in eulogizing Lincoln, said the Gettysburg Address was more important than the battle itself. Others eulogized Lincoln as “Of the noblest personage,” comparing him to Jesus Christ. But, I believe a more accurate assessment of Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address came years later from H. L. Mencken when he wrote,
“The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost child-like perfection—the highest emotion reduced to one graceful and irresistible gesture. Nothing else precisely like it is to be found in the whole range of oratory. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous.
But let us not forget that it is oratory, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it! Put it into the cold words of everyday! The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle an absolutely free people; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and vote of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that vote was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely any freedom at all. Am I the first American to note the fundamental nonsensicality of the Gettysburg address? If so, I plead my aesthetic joy in it in amelioration of the sacrilege.”
Yes, Mencken too was a Rebel, albeit a literary one. He had the vision to see through the veils of civic religion and hypocrisy and to write the truth.
So, how does a government morph from a necessary evil created to protect the rights of the individual to an intolerable one of totalitarian proportions? It requires a majority of the people to accept a world in which their government becomes a proxy religion. It must especially envelop those who claim to be Christian as well as those who call themselves humanitarians and those who are considered, according to Tolstoy, as “nice and kind.” Tolstoy speaks of this paradigm as a problem in psychology. He states to get these people to “commit the most heinous crimes without feeling any guilt” these “good Christian folk” must be made into governors, superintendents, officers or policemen.” By becoming servants of the government, these people can completely ignore their blatant acts of hypocrisy. By accepting “something that goes by the name of government service” this allows these pillars of the community to treat people of other countries and their own fellow citizens “like inanimate objects, precluding any humane or brotherly relationships, and, secondly ensures that people working for this government service must be so interdependent that responsibility for any consequences of the way they treat people never devolves on any of them individually.”
Tolstoy nails it. What better example than the “law enforcement” officer who enforces unconstitutional, immoral laws on his fellow man, taking their lives if they resist while claiming “I don’t make the laws, I just enforce them.” And “if you have a problem with that take it up with the courts.” Therefore he/she can then claim to be good “public servants” while completely ignoring their responsibilities to society which was included in their sacred oath to “uphold and defend” our rights against “all enemies foreign or domestic.” How many of them will then assume the mantle of Christian, humanitarian or a nice and kind neighbor? Of course, judges and prosecutors will use the very same excuse when taking people’s money and freedom, claiming, of course, they too do not “make the laws.”
Then for the politicians who also deviously refer to themselves as public servants. My life’s experience has taught me the most dangerous of these are those who claim to be Christians. A great example, other than George W. Bush, who claimed God told him to invade Iraq which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, has to be a current candidate for Vice President named Mike Pence. First of all, he demanded the government aid the destruction of religious liberties in Indiana reference the demands of homosexual activists and corporate bullies. His support for Common Core flies in the face of those who oppose that program on principle. Also having taken a sacred oath to uphold and defend our Constitution and Bill of Rights, Pence voted for the Patriot Act on several occasions and also voted as a globalist instead of a representative of the people who elected him. He consistently voted to fund the UN and the Import-Export Bank, both of which destroy our country’s sovereignty. Most revealing, this professing Christian, voted to veto an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act that would have blocked Obama from illegally and unconstitutionally detaining American citizens without due process. Probably the most truthful thing Pence has said during the campaign is that he would model his vice presidency after Dick Cheney. Rebels throughout this country should be cringing inside knowing that if elected this man will be a “heartbeat” away from the presidency. But the majority of the species Ignoramus Americanus will judge him not by his record but how well he does debating a socialist clown by the name of Kaine. No true Rebel will ever vote for the lesser of evils, knowing full well evil cannot be quantified and evil in any amount is the destruction of all he holds dear.
Rebels are the outcasts of a society as revealed by Tolstoy, but throughout history, Rebels have stood firmly for liberty and freedom and have stood steadfast on those principles in the face of monumental opposition. Undoubtedly, that is why they and their symbols are seen as apostate to those who embrace government as their god.
I stand as a proud and unreconstructed Rebel defending the principles of Liberty. Where do you stand?
“Let them call me Rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.” ~ Thomas Paine, The Crisis.
IN RIGHTFUL LIBERTY