Killing the Beast
The tyrannical enemy we face is indeed formidable. The Federal Government is huge. Looking beyond the few elected members, consider the myriad of agencies staffed by two million government employees. That does not include the armed services, employees of the postal service and other contractors. All these employees are there to create and implement all the rules and regulations we live under, tens of thousands of pages every year. They are also there to spend/waste the trillions of dollars they squeeze out of us every year. Our national government, ruling over a vast empire at home and abroad, is larger, richer and more powerful than any in history. That government is, and has been, bent on imposing its totalitarian will upon every freedom loving person at home and now, every democracy abroad. Its momentum toward this goal has become nearly irresistible.
Many look to our electoral system to tame the beast. In one hundred years we have had fifty congressional elections and twenty five presidential elections. Some of them were even called “revolutions”. Yet every year government grows, more money is collected and spent and our freedoms are confined in an ever shrinking box. Our national vehicle is speeding towards the grand canyon. A slight shift to the right or left is not going to keep us from going over the edge into the chasm of fiscal disaster and absolute tyranny. Gerrymandering and other electoral tricks are designed to maintain the status quo and continuity of leadership within the parties. The occasional seat turnover or even changes in party control do nothing to change our direction. The most they do is make slight adjustments in heading or speed.
Beyond even that, consider the people we elect, even if they promise “change”. Who will we be replacing our current crop with? Most of them will still be career politicians who are in “public service” because they believe, fundamentally, that government is the solution, it just hasn’t been done right. Whether Democrat or Republican, each one believes, with few exceptions, that they have the solution to any problem and that solution is the proper utilization of government. That, however, is the problem. Most politicians, and a majority of the population, have come to accept the idea that the proper solution to any problem is a government solution. Of course too often any government solution creates ten more problems. But to the politicians that doesn’t matter. They increase their power and prestige and such a paradigm brings people, rich and poor alike, to their feet begging for favors. As long as there are millions, billions, and now trillions of our dollars in the hands of our politicians at every level, things will not change. For most men and women in public service, the temptation is simply too great. And for far too many, the utilization of such a system is the fulfillment of their dreams.
“We the People” need to change our thinking about our government. It is not a mischievous puppy that we just need to train properly. It is the many headed hydra bent on eating even the marrow from our bones. Cutting off a head here and there is not going to do any good. They just seem to grow back. Consider welfare reform. It may have curbed some of the abuses and was a turn in the right direction but it needed only a new majority to put it back the way it was. How many times have we heard politicians say they are going to eliminate this or that agency? Have any of them disappeared? No. Its heads continue to grow and multiply every year with every election. The only weapon we have utilized up to this point is a two edged sword; one edge has a “D” and the other has an “R” and it has the consistency of overcooked spaghetti. It would almost seem hopeless, and we don’t have the head of Medusa to turn it to stone.
The beast does have an Achilles' heel, however. The beast feeds upon us, our wealth and our liberty. We stand out in the open, willingly yielding our flesh to its insatiable appetite even while we mouth empty protests. The only chains that hold us before the monster are the ones we voluntarily place on ourselves. Those chains are a misguided loyalty to what the beast once was. Before it was the hydra, the beast that is our government was a relatively docile beast of burden. It was well secured by the chains of the constitution and it served us well for over one hundred years. Then an alien organism from Europe infected our animal and it gradually morphed into the horrific monster that threatens us today. It has broken and discarded its chains and now demands our servitude. It no more resembles its original form as the cute gecko from the Geico commercials resembles a Tyrannosaurs Rex. It may have four extremities, a tail and scales but that is where any similarity ends. We are no longer dealing with a constitutional republic or even a democracy but an authoritarian oligarchy. In our fight against our government we do no disservice to the vision of Adams, Madison, Jefferson or Washington. The beast trampled their vision long ago. I would think they would be rather proud of our efforts to resist the its tyranny.
That understood, how do we kill the beast? How do we exploit its “Achilles' Heel”? Every government requires money to operate. Ours requires trillions of dollars. Right now it devours around a third of everything we produce in this country. It won’t be long until it demands half. New taxes for health care, higher taxes to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, a Value Added Tax are all coming. And we keep paying. Voluntarily we offer up our flesh and blood to feed the beast. Sure we complain. Sure it hurts because there are a lot of things we would rather do with that sizable chunk of money. Sure it annoys us because we know our money is being used to forge ever tighter chains or simply turned into worthless manure. But we stand there and take it because we think we have no choice, because we are afraid of the beast, because we have been brainwashed into thinking we asked for it so we have no right to refuse. We have every right to refuse. No man or government has the right to demand our involuntary servitude. No man or government has the right to seize our property. No man or government has the right to annihilate our liberty. It is time to finally stand up and say NO. NO, you may no longer take the fruits of my labor. NO, my property is mine and I do not own it simply at your pleasure. NO, my rights and liberties come from God and not you and you may not manipulate them or take them as you wish. It is our refusal as a people that will bring down the beast.
There are two ways to go about this. Keeping with our analogy, we can run or we can hide. If we hide we follow the lead of the characters of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Those men and women walked away, refusing to feed the voracious appetite of the looters any longer. Some of us can just walk away, some can sell their businesses and homes and put the proceeds where the government cannot confiscate them and wait until the beast collapses from malnourishment. If the ten percent that pay the vast majority of the taxes stop creating wealth for a while, the end will come quickly. The other way is to “run”. Not really literally. This would be following the path of resistance movements throughout history, including our own revolutionary generation. Create an underground economy and stop cooperating with the government. Do not obey their mandates or collect their taxes. Work on a cash (or gold/silver/barter) basis with your fellow patriots. Starve the beast of our money and cooperation. Riskier perhaps, but it also accomplishes something important that hiding does not. It creates tightly knit and organized communities that will be necessary when the beast succumbs. And it will fall. We are already stretched to the limit and even if we do nothing, the whole system, governmental and economic, is going to collapse. It is “unsustainable”. A good case could be made that our current crop of rulers is trying to hasten that end.
The question becomes, then what? When the government can no longer meet the needs of the looters and we “test the bonds of social cohesion” as Moody’s said, what happens next? The crisis will be messy and difficult for all. At that point there will be those who are going to try to “fundamentally transform” this country, getting rid of the last vestiges of the American ideal and the vision of the founders. If they succeed, they will use the crisis, a crisis they precipitated, to impose an absolute tyranny and our God given rights and liberties will be reduced to a distant memory. We and our children will be consigned to perpetual slavery for there is no great power that will rescue us from that despotic regime. Or we can resist in whatever way is necessary. That takes preparation and coordination. We cannot wait until the last minute, we cannot procrastinate. We must ready ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually for this ultimate contest. If we resist with courage and conviction, putting aside even the fear of death to secure freedom for our children and grandchildren, we could restore the constitutional republic of the founders and see the spectacular rebirth of America as its people rediscover the power of freedom that made this country great.
Many look to our electoral system to tame the beast. In one hundred years we have had fifty congressional elections and twenty five presidential elections. Some of them were even called “revolutions”. Yet every year government grows, more money is collected and spent and our freedoms are confined in an ever shrinking box. Our national vehicle is speeding towards the grand canyon. A slight shift to the right or left is not going to keep us from going over the edge into the chasm of fiscal disaster and absolute tyranny. Gerrymandering and other electoral tricks are designed to maintain the status quo and continuity of leadership within the parties. The occasional seat turnover or even changes in party control do nothing to change our direction. The most they do is make slight adjustments in heading or speed.
Beyond even that, consider the people we elect, even if they promise “change”. Who will we be replacing our current crop with? Most of them will still be career politicians who are in “public service” because they believe, fundamentally, that government is the solution, it just hasn’t been done right. Whether Democrat or Republican, each one believes, with few exceptions, that they have the solution to any problem and that solution is the proper utilization of government. That, however, is the problem. Most politicians, and a majority of the population, have come to accept the idea that the proper solution to any problem is a government solution. Of course too often any government solution creates ten more problems. But to the politicians that doesn’t matter. They increase their power and prestige and such a paradigm brings people, rich and poor alike, to their feet begging for favors. As long as there are millions, billions, and now trillions of our dollars in the hands of our politicians at every level, things will not change. For most men and women in public service, the temptation is simply too great. And for far too many, the utilization of such a system is the fulfillment of their dreams.
“We the People” need to change our thinking about our government. It is not a mischievous puppy that we just need to train properly. It is the many headed hydra bent on eating even the marrow from our bones. Cutting off a head here and there is not going to do any good. They just seem to grow back. Consider welfare reform. It may have curbed some of the abuses and was a turn in the right direction but it needed only a new majority to put it back the way it was. How many times have we heard politicians say they are going to eliminate this or that agency? Have any of them disappeared? No. Its heads continue to grow and multiply every year with every election. The only weapon we have utilized up to this point is a two edged sword; one edge has a “D” and the other has an “R” and it has the consistency of overcooked spaghetti. It would almost seem hopeless, and we don’t have the head of Medusa to turn it to stone.
The beast does have an Achilles' heel, however. The beast feeds upon us, our wealth and our liberty. We stand out in the open, willingly yielding our flesh to its insatiable appetite even while we mouth empty protests. The only chains that hold us before the monster are the ones we voluntarily place on ourselves. Those chains are a misguided loyalty to what the beast once was. Before it was the hydra, the beast that is our government was a relatively docile beast of burden. It was well secured by the chains of the constitution and it served us well for over one hundred years. Then an alien organism from Europe infected our animal and it gradually morphed into the horrific monster that threatens us today. It has broken and discarded its chains and now demands our servitude. It no more resembles its original form as the cute gecko from the Geico commercials resembles a Tyrannosaurs Rex. It may have four extremities, a tail and scales but that is where any similarity ends. We are no longer dealing with a constitutional republic or even a democracy but an authoritarian oligarchy. In our fight against our government we do no disservice to the vision of Adams, Madison, Jefferson or Washington. The beast trampled their vision long ago. I would think they would be rather proud of our efforts to resist the its tyranny.
That understood, how do we kill the beast? How do we exploit its “Achilles' Heel”? Every government requires money to operate. Ours requires trillions of dollars. Right now it devours around a third of everything we produce in this country. It won’t be long until it demands half. New taxes for health care, higher taxes to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, a Value Added Tax are all coming. And we keep paying. Voluntarily we offer up our flesh and blood to feed the beast. Sure we complain. Sure it hurts because there are a lot of things we would rather do with that sizable chunk of money. Sure it annoys us because we know our money is being used to forge ever tighter chains or simply turned into worthless manure. But we stand there and take it because we think we have no choice, because we are afraid of the beast, because we have been brainwashed into thinking we asked for it so we have no right to refuse. We have every right to refuse. No man or government has the right to demand our involuntary servitude. No man or government has the right to seize our property. No man or government has the right to annihilate our liberty. It is time to finally stand up and say NO. NO, you may no longer take the fruits of my labor. NO, my property is mine and I do not own it simply at your pleasure. NO, my rights and liberties come from God and not you and you may not manipulate them or take them as you wish. It is our refusal as a people that will bring down the beast.
There are two ways to go about this. Keeping with our analogy, we can run or we can hide. If we hide we follow the lead of the characters of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Those men and women walked away, refusing to feed the voracious appetite of the looters any longer. Some of us can just walk away, some can sell their businesses and homes and put the proceeds where the government cannot confiscate them and wait until the beast collapses from malnourishment. If the ten percent that pay the vast majority of the taxes stop creating wealth for a while, the end will come quickly. The other way is to “run”. Not really literally. This would be following the path of resistance movements throughout history, including our own revolutionary generation. Create an underground economy and stop cooperating with the government. Do not obey their mandates or collect their taxes. Work on a cash (or gold/silver/barter) basis with your fellow patriots. Starve the beast of our money and cooperation. Riskier perhaps, but it also accomplishes something important that hiding does not. It creates tightly knit and organized communities that will be necessary when the beast succumbs. And it will fall. We are already stretched to the limit and even if we do nothing, the whole system, governmental and economic, is going to collapse. It is “unsustainable”. A good case could be made that our current crop of rulers is trying to hasten that end.
The question becomes, then what? When the government can no longer meet the needs of the looters and we “test the bonds of social cohesion” as Moody’s said, what happens next? The crisis will be messy and difficult for all. At that point there will be those who are going to try to “fundamentally transform” this country, getting rid of the last vestiges of the American ideal and the vision of the founders. If they succeed, they will use the crisis, a crisis they precipitated, to impose an absolute tyranny and our God given rights and liberties will be reduced to a distant memory. We and our children will be consigned to perpetual slavery for there is no great power that will rescue us from that despotic regime. Or we can resist in whatever way is necessary. That takes preparation and coordination. We cannot wait until the last minute, we cannot procrastinate. We must ready ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually for this ultimate contest. If we resist with courage and conviction, putting aside even the fear of death to secure freedom for our children and grandchildren, we could restore the constitutional republic of the founders and see the spectacular rebirth of America as its people rediscover the power of freedom that made this country great.
Comments