As Freedom Is Slowly Extinguished

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I've been reading LIBERTARIAN literature and I have to admit that it makes one re-think some of the things once considered set in stone.

Pretend there is an acre of ground surrounded by a fence. a hundred people live within the fence and a hundred live outside the fence. Those within have a meeting and develop rules they all agree to follow in order to live in harmony. They appoint 20 people to write down the rules and enforce them. The 20 are called the GOVERNMENT. The rules (laws) are quite simple. Essentially they are the 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule, and the responsibilities of the GOVERNMENT to enforce the rules  and defend the people and property within the fence.

The land within the fence is called the STATE, and the people within the STATE are called the CITIZENS. Every person within the STATE agrees to be policed, protected, and defended by the GOVERNMENT they selected. When the CITIZENS agree to the rules and authorise the GOVERNMENT to ensure that they are followed, the CITIZENS lose some of their freedom. If a CITIZEN acts outside of the rules, he or she has agreed to suffer the consequences.

The CITIZEN'S, in order to have a GOVERNMENT employed for their benefit, must pay the GOVERNMENT'S expenses. They must do so whether or not they agree with the actions of the Government or not. Can legitimate GOVERNMENT functions be accomplished better or more fairly without a GOVERNMENT? I don't think so. CITIZENS need some sort of GOVERNMENT.  LIBERTARIANS however, believe ALL GOVERNMENT is a criminal enterprise that feeds on the private property of CITIZENS. They think GOVERNMENT is an unnecessesary burden on society.  I don't agree.

When the founders created the documents outlining our new kind of GOVERNMENT, they seem to have instinctively known that LESS GOVERNMENT was better than MORE GOVERNMENT, so they enacted restrictions. They also knew that GOVERNMENT, however well intended, needed to be balanced between oversight sections to prevent the abuse of power. America's GOVERNMENT, from the very start, was divided between three branches; the EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE, AND JUDICIAL. Two branches were designed to provide oversight of the third, etc.

It was an ingenious and fairly effective construction, but it has since become increasingly subject to the abuse of power. This, despite the original oversight provisions. The abuse has arrived in small stages over many years and has now accumulated to the point that it is destroying America.

Consider the much abused SOCIAL SECURITY program as typical:

      +++  It was initiated by F.D.R. as a voluntary program.

              It is no longer voluntary.

      +++  The money invested in S.S. could be deducted

              from the Income Tax.

              Not any more.

      +++  Lyndon Johnson closed the federal Social Security
              account and moved the money to the nation's
              general fund where it could be spent on other things.

              It was spent.

      +++  Social Security Payments to retirees were never
              to be taxed as income, but under the Clinton
              Administrtion, up to 85% of those payments can now

              be taxed.

      +++  Social Security payments were intended to
              supplement retirement funds for American workers.
              Now a large percentage are the ONLY retirement

              money a worker has.

               

       +++  Under Jimmy Carter's administration immigrants 
              began receiving S.S. payments even though they
              never paid a penny into the program.

The point  is that there are thousands of rules, laws, programs, and spending schemes that are no longer functioning as they were designed to. The standard LIBERTARIAN question is WHY IS OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INVOLVED IN THE FIRST PLACE?  How have we strayed so far from the limitations outlined in our Constitution and other founding documents? Those are fair questions and particularly imporrtant today.

Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people. Not even Jimmy Carter. Mr. Obama has never abandoned the campaign trail, and he has cynically changed our national interest to his partisan desire to  embarrass Bush & Cheney. Mr. Obama's world tours, bowing and licking the boots of all the bad guys, have exicited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they say, is a sucker we can really take to the cleaners.

No one seems to know why Mr. Obama hates America so badly. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Mr. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. His administration of ultra-left-liberal-socialists is kicking America to death as it moves against American traditions and values.

The flame of freedom is going out.