{"id":25044,"date":"2015-07-04T00:06:50","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T07:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/?p=25044"},"modified":"2015-07-02T17:07:01","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T00:07:01","slug":"happy-changing-of-the-guard-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/happy-changing-of-the-guard-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Changing Of The Guard Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ericpetersautos.com\/2015\/07\/02\/changing-of-our-guards\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/images\/IndependenceDay.jpg\" hspace=\"5\" align=\"left\" alt=\"\" \/>EricPetersAutos.com<\/a> | Do the inmates of Rikers Island throw a party when they get a new warden? To celebrate the changing of the color of the uniforms worn by their cagers?<\/p>\n<p>And yet, we do.<\/p>\n<p>This coming weekend, Americans will celebrate not being free to \u2013 among other things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Buy and display fireworks themselves.<\/li>\n<li>Choose whether to wear a seat belt.<\/li>\n<li>Say \u201cno thanks\u201d to the health insurance mafia.<\/li>\n<li>Travel without permission (and decline to produce your \u201cpapers\u201d on demand).<\/li>\n<li>Smoke in a privately owned bar or pool hall.<\/li>\n<li>Freely associate \u2013 or not. <\/li>\n<li>Ever truly own a home or land outright, free from yearly rent payments (in the form of real estate taxes) to the government.<\/li>\n<li>Educate your children as you (rather than strangers in a distant capital city) see fit.<\/li>\n<li>Consume substances decreed (arbitrarily) to be \u201cillegal.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Possess \u201ccontraband\u201d items (including firearms, without which the right to self-defense is a nullity).<\/li>\n<li>Open a business without permission.<\/li>\n<li>Contract your labor without permission \u2013 and under \u201cterms and conditions\u201d decreed by the government.<\/li>\n<li>Elect not to provide the government with evidence (the income tax form) that can and will be used against you, despite the Fifth Amendment.<\/li>\n<li>Produce and sell milk and other farm products that haven\u2019t been \u201cinspected\u201d by the government and without the permission of the government.<\/li>\n<li>Defend oneself against even the most egregious violation of the law by the law\u2019s enforcers.<\/li>\n<li>Rent a room or apartment you own to whom you wish.<\/li>\n<li>Fish (or hunt) without a license\u2026 even on your own land.<\/li>\n<li>Use your car to provide taxi service.<\/li>\n<li>Collect rainwater for personal use.<\/li>\n<li>Opt not to have your home connected to \u201cgrid\u201d electricity.<\/li>\n<li>Have your young daughters set up a curbside lemonade stand on a hot July afternoon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The \u201clong train of abuses\u201d (as Jefferson described them 239 years ago this Saturday) is extensive. Far more so today than it was back then. And yet, we \u2013 most Americans \u2013 continue to play their part in the annual July Fourth kabuki theater. We pretend we\u2019re \u201cfree\u201d \u2013 and the government pretends it has the \u201cconsent of the governed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Few stop to ask themselves: If the Fourth Amendment guarantees that we are to be \u201cfree from unreasonable searches and seizures\u201d how it can be that all of us are legally subject to completely random searches \u2013 without even a whiff of individualized suspicion \u2013  whenever we go for a drive in our cars or travel by airplane?<\/p>\n<p>If the Bill if Rights \u2013 which is legally part of the Constitution \u2013 is (as we are told) the law of the land, how is it that other laws \u2013 \u201cinterpretations\u201d issued by judges at odds with the crystal clear language of the Constitution \u2013 have come to supersede it?<\/p>\n<p>How does one \u201cconsent\u201d without actually having given consent? How does the fact that a question was put to a vote \u2013 and some people voted in favor \u2013 come to mean that you have given your consent to the measure?<\/p>\n<p>Try quoting the Constitution \u2013 the Bill of Rights \u2013 in court.<\/p>\n<p>1776 began nobly enough \u2013 but by 1787, the revolution was over. Meeting in secret conclave \u2013 what was that about the \u201cconsent of the governed\u201d? \u2013 the elite of colonial America met for the sole purpose of re-creating what had been overthrown, only with themselves in charge of the operation rather than the English monarch. \u201cThe people\u201d \u2013 held in contempt by men like Alexander Hamilton \u2013 never gave their consent to these \u201crepresentatives,\u201d who proceeded to enact the 18th century version of a Beer Hall putsch. Charged with amending the Articles of Confederation \u2013 nothing more \u2013  they proceeded to rip it to shreds and in its place, substituted the \u201cvigorous\u201d and \u201cenergetic\u201d (Hamilton\u2019s words) Constitution we suffer under today. The sole purpose of which was to  establish a federal leviathan of in-principle unlimited power. Which \u2013 exactly as intended \u2013 grew into a leviathan of unlimited-in-fact power. One so unlimited, even your \u201chealth care\u201d is now its business rather than your own.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander Hamilton was many things, but not a fool. He \u2013 and his fellow \u201cfederalists\u201d \u2013 knew precisely what they were doing. In private conversation, some (including Hamilton and also John Adams) admitted their admiration of the British system. That is, of an authoritarian mercantilist (what we would today call corporatist) state, directed by a coterie of Wise Men (themselves) who knew better than the public what was in the \u201cpublic interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And told them so.<\/p>\n<p>Thus it has been ever since. Especially since the failure of the southern states \u2013 which realized what had happened but reacted to it too late and not adroitly when they finally did react \u2013 to rescind their purported \u201cconsent\u201d and go their separate way in peace. What was denied the states was then \u2013 and ever since \u2013 denied the individual. We, as Americans, have no more right to say \u201cno thanks\u201d \u2013 to go our way in peace, to be left in peace provided we ourselves our peaceful \u2013 than an inmate of Rikers Island.<\/p>\n<p>You may reply: The inmates of Rikers Island have committed \u2013 and been convicted of \u2013 crimes. They deserve to be caged, their liberty taken. Fair enough, perhaps. But what crime have you committed?<\/p>\n<p>Whom have you harmed by not wearing a seatbelt?<\/p>\n<p>Why should innocent people \u2013 who\u2019ve given no reason to even suspect them of having committed any offense \u2013 be subject to random stops and searches?<\/p>\n<p>How is it that armed men can threaten you with lethal violence for deciding it\u2019s ok to let people who freely wish to enter (and who may just as freely leave) your privately owned bar or pool hall smoke, if they wish to?<\/p>\n<p>Have you hurt your neighbor by selling him milk he freely wished to buy at a price mutually agreeable to both parties?<\/p>\n<p>Why do any of us \u201cowe\u201d money to people we\u2019ve never met, never injured, never agreed to pay?<\/p>\n<p>If we are free, why are we so controlled, regulated, micromanaged? Under almost constant threat of harassment, fining \u2013 and caging? Why is there literally almost no decision \u2013 even to the extent of what goes on in our own homes and bedrooms \u2013 that\u2019s left entirely up to us?<\/p>\n<p>The truth is we\u2019re in the same prison as the inmates of Rikers Island \u2013 only our \u201cyard\u201d is (for now) a bit more generous. This is an uncomfortable fact, but no less true because it is uncomfortable. The differences are merely of degree, not of principle. The guards at Rikers are the absolute masters and the prisoners are free to do as they are told.<\/p>\n<p>Our \u201cfreedoms\u201d are of a piece.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Changing of the Guard Day.<\/p>\n<p>By Eric Peters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EricPetersAutos.com | Do the inmates of Rikers Island throw a party when they get a new warden? To celebrate the changing of the color of the uniforms worn by their cagers? And yet, we do. This coming weekend, Americans will celebrate not being free to \u2013 among other things: Buy and display fireworks themselves. Choose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-25044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-independence-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oooorgle.com\/BeyondTheCorral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}