Motion vs Action
Benjamin Franklin once wrote “Never confuse motion with action.” Over the last two years there has been a lot of motion. Many, like myself, have taken to the streets of their towns, or Washington DC itself, and raised their voices in protest, sometimes controversial protest. Concerned citizens read their congressmen and women the riot act at town hall meetings. Others, myself obviously included, write blogs or create websites to complain, educate or simply have an outlet for creative energy. Is it important to protest? Very much so. Our right to assemble, speak and petition for redress is enshrined in our founding document. Is education crucial? Of course. Our government school system has taught revisionist history and discouraged critical thinking and that must be revived among the American people. Is it alright to complain? Sure, if it leads to news getting out or fresh ideas being considered. Finally, the Internet is a great tool within which we can hear from people whose creativity we would have otherwise been unaware of.
That is all well and good as far as it goes. There is the old saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” That is only true insofar as the pen motivates people to real action. So far, amidst the volumes of writing, the multitude of “right wing” talk shows and television programs and the legion of organizations that have sprung up, no real action of consequence has afforded more than a speed bump on the headlong rush to socialism we have embarked on over the last eighty years. Consider more recent history. In 1994 Rush Limbaugh declared himself the “Majority Maker.” With the Republicans in control did government get any smaller? Were any government programs eliminated? Did spending go down? Did government become less intrusive? Did the people’s liberty grow? No, no, no, no and no. Why? Because the Federal Government has a momentum all its own and the election of one party or another is not going to change that. The Democrats want to expand government in their way, the Republicans another. Each usually gets what they want and neither tears down what the other has created. Every program, every special interest, creates a new layer of everlasting bureaucracy that just makes the momentum all the more irresistible.
What have we really been doing in the face of this onslaught on our liberty? We have been trying to defend some small area not yet affected by the bombardment. We are like a fighter in the ring adhering the the rules laid down by the Marquess of Queensberry. We think that if we can just keep our opponent from hitting us in the right eye, we will have won the fight. But while we have been holding up our gloves and protecting that one eye, our opponent long ago shed his gloves for brass knuckles and has been breaking our ribs, knocking out our teeth, hitting us below the belt, kicking us in the shins with steel toed boots and anything else he can think of to bring us down. Now and then we reach out with a gloved hand and touch him, occasionally with enough force to get his attention and cause him to pause. Such a reprieve, however, only lasts a moment while he regroups, perhaps changes tactics, and renews the assault. We have allowed ourselves to be backed up into a corner, reduced to simply reacting to any attempt to hit us in the eye, conceding the fact that we will be continuously battered everywhere else and any area already damaged cannot be restored.
There is no way to win such a fight, and our fight isn’t for money or prestige. This fight is for our and our children’s future. It is the fight for liberty over tyranny. It is the fight over whether we control our destiny or the government determines it for us. It is the fight over whether we will have the freedom to exercise our God-given rights or if we will be condemned to live within the constraints of a totalitarian government. Look at your children or grand-children. Look at them right now. What kind of future do you want for them? Do you want them to live in the socialist utopia of France or the people’s paradise of Cuba? If a terrorist came into your home with a gun to beat your children and rape your wife, would you assault him with words or grab the wiffle bat? No, a real man defends his family any way he can with whatever he has until he prevails or the life finally drains from his body. Yet this government has broken into our homes, stolen our money, enforced its will at the point of a gun, herded our children into indoctrination centers, and forced our wives into slavery to help us pay for the growing multitude of chains with which we are bound. What do we do? We write a blog or a letter to the editor, we start an organization, we lodge a protest, maybe even a loud one. Yet every year the government gets bigger, more money is borrowed and spent, more constraints are placed on our liberty and every few years the same corrupt politicians are returned to office to do it all over again. The chains multiply and our families remain doomed. Isn’t it the height of folly to continue to do the same thing again and again and expect different results?
Let me ask you a few questions;
Has the Federal Government consistently and flagrantly violated its contract (the constitution) with the states and the people for the purposes of increasing its power at the expense of our liberty?
Is the government seeking to impose a system of totalitarian rule in which no activity remains outside their control and subject to rules and regulations that carry severe penalties?
Have the politicians in the Federal Government continuously misused our tax dollars to enrich themselves and their friends and to cement their hold on power?
Have the parties used fraud and intimidation to steal elections to maintain their power?
Has the Federal Government sought to use its various powers to silence opposition in direct contradiction to the Bill of Rights?
Has the Federal Government stolen our money and property and intimidated us through the fraudulent application of the Income Tax?
Has the government purposefully neglected border security in order to create more dependent voters and in so doing, endangered the very lives of its citizens through violence and disease?
Has this government sold our sovereignty to foreign powers and become beholden to their interests at the expense of ours?
Has the Federal Government sought to indoctrinate our children with the aim of producing generation after generation of promiscuous, ignorant government stooges?
Has this government embarked on a path of owning or controlling any and all means of economic production?
Has this government maimed and killed its own citizens in its various ‘wars’ on drugs, terrorism or religion?
Has this government, through word and action, declared war on the moral, religious and free market capitalist principles that have provided the foundation upon which our liberty and prosperity is based?
Has this present administration sought to paint those who oppose their totalitarian Marxist agenda as terrorists in order to take more aggressive action against them?
Has the progressive/Marxist/totalitarian agenda ever been implemented anywhere in the world were it did not result in economic destruction and the imprisonment or death of those who love liberty?
(For a more complete list of government offenses go to http://patricksamuels.com/page9.html for a contemporary Declaration of Independence.)
Did you answer yes to most or all of the questions, excepting the last? If it were the government of another country that sought to silence opposition, steal the property of its citizens, rig elections through fraud, propaganda and intimidation, bring all economic activity under the umbrella of its power, used unwarranted deadly force against its own people and in general disregarded the lives and liberty of its citizens, we would rightly be outraged. If the oppression continued in scope and depth, we may even try to help the poor peasants resist such a regime. The regime is ours and no one is going to help us.
The Federal Government is not going to change. It is not going to get smaller. It is not going to give back one ounce of the power it has appropriated over the years. If congress changes hands in 2010 do you really believe that even one program is going to be eliminated, that any liberty will be returned to the states and the people? If a different president is elected in 2012, is there any hope for more than a slight deceleration in our headlong rush into economic disaster and totalitarian repression? If you think so, is there any past evidence you can present that would support your assertion? The Federal Government is not going to return our freedom or respect our rights out of the goodness of its cold, dead heart. If we want our liberty returned, we need to get out there and take it. We need more than the motion of waving our gloved hands in front of a deadly opponent. It is time to take the gloves off.
What do I have in mind? Perhaps you are motivated by this presentation yet worried about what I may propose once you’ve reached this point. Be assured, I am not advocating violent resistance, we are not there yet. As an individual citizen asserting your sovereignty and God given rights, you have little chance of making a significant impact, although you certainly occupy the moral high ground. As a group within a legal entity, however, power is multiplied exponentially. The legal entity I propose is a state within the union. If the sons and daughters of liberty across this once great nation were to concentrate their time and treasure on one state with the goal of bringing that state under the political control of those who love and understand liberty and the tenth amendment to the Constitution and they were backed by an educated public who also understood the value of freedom and had experienced its benefits, the issue of ultimate sovereignty could be forced. If that state were to refuse federal dollars and control over any area not explicitly stated in the Constitution and implemented a libertarian (with a small “l”) agenda within its borders, I believe it would start a movement among other states who would follow a similar pattern of reasserting their tenth amendment rights. Courage is infectious. Such a state would also provide a stable life raft when the seas of fiscal and regulatory insanity become dangerously chaotic in the near future. In response, the Federal Government will either attempt to use the “persuasion of power” or it will have no choice but to return to the states and the people the sovereignty that rightly belongs to them.
Easy? Of course not. Possible? Yes. But it takes more than talk and motion, it takes action and commitment. It also needs to happen sooner rather than later, before the remainder of our liberty and the resources by which we would resist are stolen by this government. Once that happens, once the United States becomes Europe at best, where will we go to escape the reach of the progressive totalitarians? If the US throws its weight behind all the ridiculous United Nations treaties and taxes, what nation will stand up under he pressure? There is no longer a “New World” in which to start over. Sure, we could go underground or live in the jungles or high in the mountains of some third world country but is that the life you want for your children? Are we really going to allow ourselves to be pushed to the margins of the world? Have we allowed the American spirit to degenerate so far as to convince ourselves to accept servitude or exile as acceptable alternatives in the face of tyranny? Is that who we have become? Is that who you are? If not, what are you really willing to do, how far are you willing to go? If a state were to adopt such an agenda, many of us would be more than willing to pack up and move there. It is easy to travel a road that has already been paved. In 1776 there was no road, there was no trail, there was hardly a deer path that led to liberty. We rightly admire the founders of our nation for their courage, their commitment, their ability to accomplish the unthinkable against overwhelming odds, to pledge their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to ensure liberty for themselves and their posterity. These men did more than talk and write, they took concrete action against the tyranny of the great power that was England. They believed that the rewards of liberty for themselves and their children far outweighed the risks, as great as they may have been. “Give me liberty or give me death” was not just a slogan invented by Patrick Henry but the reality of the situation for the original patriots. For us, the trail has already been blazed by these men with their blood and toil and has been followed by millions around the world. But it has become horribly overgrown. It requires only a dedicated group of patriots to open the path once again for the many who would follow.
I ask you, how will history remember this generation? How will your family remember you? Will we be the ones who rose up against a growing tyranny and removed the chains of oppression from ourselves and our children? Will we be the ones who were no longer satisfied with grasping the scraps of liberty allowed by a totalitarian government but pushed back against oppression and advanced the cause of freedom? Will our children be living in a situation of servitude for which they resent us or will we be celebrated among our posterity for removing their shackles? What kind of man or woman are you? Will we join together to act, believing the price we pay is worth it to reestablish freedom for ourselves and our children or will we simply continue to protest until the only voices of opposition heard emanate from the prisons or the grave.
“We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin
If such an endeavor on behalf of freedom for this generation and those that succeed us appeals to you, please e-mail me at; psamuels76@yahoo.com with the tag line “liberty”.
“The principles on which we are engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights.” Thomas Jefferson
For those of you for whom such an appeal is foolish or laughable, for whom the principles of liberty sanctioned in our very being have been so dulled by servitude and distraction as to spurn all appeals to reignite them within you, I leave you with this quote from Samuel Adams;
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
That is all well and good as far as it goes. There is the old saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” That is only true insofar as the pen motivates people to real action. So far, amidst the volumes of writing, the multitude of “right wing” talk shows and television programs and the legion of organizations that have sprung up, no real action of consequence has afforded more than a speed bump on the headlong rush to socialism we have embarked on over the last eighty years. Consider more recent history. In 1994 Rush Limbaugh declared himself the “Majority Maker.” With the Republicans in control did government get any smaller? Were any government programs eliminated? Did spending go down? Did government become less intrusive? Did the people’s liberty grow? No, no, no, no and no. Why? Because the Federal Government has a momentum all its own and the election of one party or another is not going to change that. The Democrats want to expand government in their way, the Republicans another. Each usually gets what they want and neither tears down what the other has created. Every program, every special interest, creates a new layer of everlasting bureaucracy that just makes the momentum all the more irresistible.
What have we really been doing in the face of this onslaught on our liberty? We have been trying to defend some small area not yet affected by the bombardment. We are like a fighter in the ring adhering the the rules laid down by the Marquess of Queensberry. We think that if we can just keep our opponent from hitting us in the right eye, we will have won the fight. But while we have been holding up our gloves and protecting that one eye, our opponent long ago shed his gloves for brass knuckles and has been breaking our ribs, knocking out our teeth, hitting us below the belt, kicking us in the shins with steel toed boots and anything else he can think of to bring us down. Now and then we reach out with a gloved hand and touch him, occasionally with enough force to get his attention and cause him to pause. Such a reprieve, however, only lasts a moment while he regroups, perhaps changes tactics, and renews the assault. We have allowed ourselves to be backed up into a corner, reduced to simply reacting to any attempt to hit us in the eye, conceding the fact that we will be continuously battered everywhere else and any area already damaged cannot be restored.
There is no way to win such a fight, and our fight isn’t for money or prestige. This fight is for our and our children’s future. It is the fight for liberty over tyranny. It is the fight over whether we control our destiny or the government determines it for us. It is the fight over whether we will have the freedom to exercise our God-given rights or if we will be condemned to live within the constraints of a totalitarian government. Look at your children or grand-children. Look at them right now. What kind of future do you want for them? Do you want them to live in the socialist utopia of France or the people’s paradise of Cuba? If a terrorist came into your home with a gun to beat your children and rape your wife, would you assault him with words or grab the wiffle bat? No, a real man defends his family any way he can with whatever he has until he prevails or the life finally drains from his body. Yet this government has broken into our homes, stolen our money, enforced its will at the point of a gun, herded our children into indoctrination centers, and forced our wives into slavery to help us pay for the growing multitude of chains with which we are bound. What do we do? We write a blog or a letter to the editor, we start an organization, we lodge a protest, maybe even a loud one. Yet every year the government gets bigger, more money is borrowed and spent, more constraints are placed on our liberty and every few years the same corrupt politicians are returned to office to do it all over again. The chains multiply and our families remain doomed. Isn’t it the height of folly to continue to do the same thing again and again and expect different results?
Let me ask you a few questions;
Has the Federal Government consistently and flagrantly violated its contract (the constitution) with the states and the people for the purposes of increasing its power at the expense of our liberty?
Is the government seeking to impose a system of totalitarian rule in which no activity remains outside their control and subject to rules and regulations that carry severe penalties?
Have the politicians in the Federal Government continuously misused our tax dollars to enrich themselves and their friends and to cement their hold on power?
Have the parties used fraud and intimidation to steal elections to maintain their power?
Has the Federal Government sought to use its various powers to silence opposition in direct contradiction to the Bill of Rights?
Has the Federal Government stolen our money and property and intimidated us through the fraudulent application of the Income Tax?
Has the government purposefully neglected border security in order to create more dependent voters and in so doing, endangered the very lives of its citizens through violence and disease?
Has this government sold our sovereignty to foreign powers and become beholden to their interests at the expense of ours?
Has the Federal Government sought to indoctrinate our children with the aim of producing generation after generation of promiscuous, ignorant government stooges?
Has this government embarked on a path of owning or controlling any and all means of economic production?
Has this government maimed and killed its own citizens in its various ‘wars’ on drugs, terrorism or religion?
Has this government, through word and action, declared war on the moral, religious and free market capitalist principles that have provided the foundation upon which our liberty and prosperity is based?
Has this present administration sought to paint those who oppose their totalitarian Marxist agenda as terrorists in order to take more aggressive action against them?
Has the progressive/Marxist/totalitarian agenda ever been implemented anywhere in the world were it did not result in economic destruction and the imprisonment or death of those who love liberty?
(For a more complete list of government offenses go to http://patricksamuels.com/page9.html for a contemporary Declaration of Independence.)
Did you answer yes to most or all of the questions, excepting the last? If it were the government of another country that sought to silence opposition, steal the property of its citizens, rig elections through fraud, propaganda and intimidation, bring all economic activity under the umbrella of its power, used unwarranted deadly force against its own people and in general disregarded the lives and liberty of its citizens, we would rightly be outraged. If the oppression continued in scope and depth, we may even try to help the poor peasants resist such a regime. The regime is ours and no one is going to help us.
The Federal Government is not going to change. It is not going to get smaller. It is not going to give back one ounce of the power it has appropriated over the years. If congress changes hands in 2010 do you really believe that even one program is going to be eliminated, that any liberty will be returned to the states and the people? If a different president is elected in 2012, is there any hope for more than a slight deceleration in our headlong rush into economic disaster and totalitarian repression? If you think so, is there any past evidence you can present that would support your assertion? The Federal Government is not going to return our freedom or respect our rights out of the goodness of its cold, dead heart. If we want our liberty returned, we need to get out there and take it. We need more than the motion of waving our gloved hands in front of a deadly opponent. It is time to take the gloves off.
What do I have in mind? Perhaps you are motivated by this presentation yet worried about what I may propose once you’ve reached this point. Be assured, I am not advocating violent resistance, we are not there yet. As an individual citizen asserting your sovereignty and God given rights, you have little chance of making a significant impact, although you certainly occupy the moral high ground. As a group within a legal entity, however, power is multiplied exponentially. The legal entity I propose is a state within the union. If the sons and daughters of liberty across this once great nation were to concentrate their time and treasure on one state with the goal of bringing that state under the political control of those who love and understand liberty and the tenth amendment to the Constitution and they were backed by an educated public who also understood the value of freedom and had experienced its benefits, the issue of ultimate sovereignty could be forced. If that state were to refuse federal dollars and control over any area not explicitly stated in the Constitution and implemented a libertarian (with a small “l”) agenda within its borders, I believe it would start a movement among other states who would follow a similar pattern of reasserting their tenth amendment rights. Courage is infectious. Such a state would also provide a stable life raft when the seas of fiscal and regulatory insanity become dangerously chaotic in the near future. In response, the Federal Government will either attempt to use the “persuasion of power” or it will have no choice but to return to the states and the people the sovereignty that rightly belongs to them.
Easy? Of course not. Possible? Yes. But it takes more than talk and motion, it takes action and commitment. It also needs to happen sooner rather than later, before the remainder of our liberty and the resources by which we would resist are stolen by this government. Once that happens, once the United States becomes Europe at best, where will we go to escape the reach of the progressive totalitarians? If the US throws its weight behind all the ridiculous United Nations treaties and taxes, what nation will stand up under he pressure? There is no longer a “New World” in which to start over. Sure, we could go underground or live in the jungles or high in the mountains of some third world country but is that the life you want for your children? Are we really going to allow ourselves to be pushed to the margins of the world? Have we allowed the American spirit to degenerate so far as to convince ourselves to accept servitude or exile as acceptable alternatives in the face of tyranny? Is that who we have become? Is that who you are? If not, what are you really willing to do, how far are you willing to go? If a state were to adopt such an agenda, many of us would be more than willing to pack up and move there. It is easy to travel a road that has already been paved. In 1776 there was no road, there was no trail, there was hardly a deer path that led to liberty. We rightly admire the founders of our nation for their courage, their commitment, their ability to accomplish the unthinkable against overwhelming odds, to pledge their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to ensure liberty for themselves and their posterity. These men did more than talk and write, they took concrete action against the tyranny of the great power that was England. They believed that the rewards of liberty for themselves and their children far outweighed the risks, as great as they may have been. “Give me liberty or give me death” was not just a slogan invented by Patrick Henry but the reality of the situation for the original patriots. For us, the trail has already been blazed by these men with their blood and toil and has been followed by millions around the world. But it has become horribly overgrown. It requires only a dedicated group of patriots to open the path once again for the many who would follow.
I ask you, how will history remember this generation? How will your family remember you? Will we be the ones who rose up against a growing tyranny and removed the chains of oppression from ourselves and our children? Will we be the ones who were no longer satisfied with grasping the scraps of liberty allowed by a totalitarian government but pushed back against oppression and advanced the cause of freedom? Will our children be living in a situation of servitude for which they resent us or will we be celebrated among our posterity for removing their shackles? What kind of man or woman are you? Will we join together to act, believing the price we pay is worth it to reestablish freedom for ourselves and our children or will we simply continue to protest until the only voices of opposition heard emanate from the prisons or the grave.
“We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin
If such an endeavor on behalf of freedom for this generation and those that succeed us appeals to you, please e-mail me at; psamuels76@yahoo.com with the tag line “liberty”.
“The principles on which we are engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights.” Thomas Jefferson
For those of you for whom such an appeal is foolish or laughable, for whom the principles of liberty sanctioned in our very being have been so dulled by servitude and distraction as to spurn all appeals to reignite them within you, I leave you with this quote from Samuel Adams;
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
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