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President Obama Takes Oath of Office for Second Term
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The “I Just Want to Be Left Alone to Be Free” Sound-Off Blog
After a while, it gets fairly redundant trying to think of things to write about. Clearly, the pros are very talented. Walter Williams, Krauthammer, George Will, Perry Willis, Jim Babka, and J. Hornberger – those are all brilliant thinkers and writers.
That being written, on the cusp of the 2012 election, what is that you need to get off your chest? Please feel free to write it here. No matter how seemingly trivial or insignificant that you think it is, post it here.
What is the Answer to the Question: “Now What?” (to Do About Government?)
An acquaintance of mine here in Yorktown, VA emailed me this morning. He simply writes: “Robert, I just re-read your letter……you have it right……now what?” GG
GG is a highly successful businessman in real estate who has been working hard to revamp our local Republican Committee for the last several years. Back in early April of this year, I sent the below email to our local Board of Supervisors and cc’d the “who’s who of conservatives” here in York County, VA. It was a reply to GG having emailed us about a tragic story of property rights being violated by a local government in GA to the point that the property owner took his own life (see below).
So GG left me thinking, “Now what?” If you are reading this, do you have any ideas? If you do, please post them here to share with me and any other readers.
Thanks,
Robert E. Lehman #WakeUpAmerica!
Subject: RE: What county does this sound like? You will be shocked to read this !!
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 08:46:39 -0400
From the below linked article http://lfb.org/today/death-by-regulation/ :
“The political class is not really running things. As I’ve written many times, the political class is only the veneer of the state; it is not the state itself. The state is the permanent bureaucratic structures, those untouched by elections. These institutions make up the real ruling apparatus of government.”
I have no doubt that every individual who works for York County government as either an elected official or as a paid employee is just as much in support of the Constitution and individual liberty as most ordinary people. They want to live their lives the way they want as free citizens of these here United States.
But what often goes unnoticed by most people is that despite these individuals who work for the county government being in favor of limited government, as direct workers for the government, they can’t help, no matter how hard they try to not grow the government bureaucracy , to do the exact opposite.
The government at any form at any level is a cancer to freedom. It naturally grows even without conscious awareness on the part of those otherwise good people who work for it who think themselves to be in fact a proponent of limited government. The mere act of participating in a political party and/or serving as an employee for government leads to MORE government and LESS freedom. Why is this? After all, isn’t York County composed of a majority of so-call limited government conservatives?
Why is York County government more of a citizen burden than it has ever been before and inserting itself more and more into the private lives and encroaching on violating the freedoms of its citizens? Because that is what government is supposed to do by its very nature – even when we think we are electing conservatives to keep it limited.
Here is the county BOS mission from its website:
As stewards of the public trust and resources, the Board of Supervisors will maintain and improve the quality of life for all County citizens.
The Board will:
- emphasize efficiency, effectiveness, and openness of County government
- protect the physical, historical, and environmental heritage of the County
- ensure that growth and development are positive forces on the quality of life
- value and respect the individual
(emphasis added)
I have to laugh, as how are they to even truly know how they can improve the quality of life for anybody other than themselves as individuals? Even with their good intentions, they trample the individual, despite the last bullet. The last bullet is complete hogwash when coming from any government. Government by its natural definition is anathema to the individual’s rights.
When good liberty minded, limited-government people get involved in running the government, the government still grows, because those good natured people mean well and through their good deeds as servers to the “cause of government” that is the mission above, get sucked into the black hole leviathan that is liberty killing government bureaucracy.
Yes, you read it right. The otherwise good and caring people who run York County government are conscientious and hard working and successful. They do not fail. So naturally, they become good at running government. After all, working to support government is how most of them make their living and support their families. They need to do a good job to keep earning their paychecks. But make no mistake, no matter what they try to do to prevent it, the government will grow. Nothing they do to try not to grow it will work. They are powerless to stop it.
Only the citizens who support the government through their hard earned tax dollars and by their voting for elected members of the governing board can stop the growth of government. The only tool the citizens have between their freedom and the heavy hand of government is its elected board members. For the BOS members to be successful at keeping government growth at bay, they MUST dig deeper and look past the administrator or attorney and other appointed leaders of the government staff to see the waste and to truly see the initiatives that lead to less citizen freedom and that add to citizen burdens. BOS members cannot rely solely on senior administrative staff for the real picture. After all, they administrative leaders of county government are working to save their jobs. Does it make sense that any of them will commit harakiri with respect to their careers? No, of course they wouldn’t!
Government, no matter how well intentioned its conservative leaders are is a cancer to freedom. If you have read Atlas Shrugged or Animal Farm, you can appreciate the very natural tendency that government has to take otherwise good people who work for it and almost hypnotize them into having to do whatever it takes to grow it. It is a very real system that has the structure of a self-reinforcing feedback loop that inevitably leads to MORE government and LESS freedom.
When permitted to run unabated, you get the tragedy of Death by Regulation and the sad story Andrew Wordes of Roswell, GA. Ladies and gentlemen of York County, VA: do no think that we are immune to the ills of uncontrolled big government. It is happening to us now and many people are blind to it. Use this sad story as a lesson. What will be your role in York County’s history?
Respectfully Yours,
Robert E. Lehman
Yorktown, VA
From: GG
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 22:37:22 -0400
Subject: What county does this sound like? You will be shocked to read this !!
To: list
I am sending you this because you are on my short list as a local patriot….
If you have 4 minutes, you will want to cry about this story…
If you do, please let me know which County this reminds you of and where you think this type of tyranny could exist? …………………we have to decide if WE are going to allow it to get to this level here !!!
A tragic story resulting from bureaucratic bullying.
http://lfb.org/today/death-by-regulation/
http://lfb.org/today/death-by-regulation/
GG
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave
As we celebrate another Memorial Day weekend, let’s give pause to pay homage to the brave men and women who paid the ultimate price to secure our freedoms. There was a time long ago when the government of the United States of America respected the natural rights of man to be free. As a result of the American Revolutionary War that saw great sacrifice, bloodshed, and loss of life, our nation was established on the principles of limited government. It was recognized and respected that the people are endowed with certain unalienable rights and the government is given its limited authority from the people through very specific and enumerated powers as charted in our Constitution.
Fast forward to today. The world is a much smaller, more connected, and very different place from what it was in the late 18th century when our country was founded and the Constitution was enacted. Despite the changes in international relations and the technological advances that have advanced human civilization, the natural rights of man remain a timeless philosophy backed by the principles of liberty. These concepts serve as the bulwark of our society of freedom loving people. The rights and the laws that protect them should not be tampered with, regardless of geopolitical current events.
Recent congressional votes from 1st District Republican representative Rob Wittman can only lead to the conclusion that he no longer believes that the USA is the land of the free and the home of the brave. How else can he explain his “yea” vote on the NDAA with its American citizen terror suspect detention authority given to the military as directed by the President? How else can Wittman explain his “nay” vote that would have amended that provision just 2 weeks ago to remove the unconstitutional power of the military to detain American citizens without due process? It was reported that he thought long and hard about his “nay” vote on the Smith-Amash amendment but decided it was more important to violate the constitution in the name of safety so as to assure that terror suspects would not have more rights on our soil than U.S. military service members under the United Stated Code of Military Justice.
Being afraid to uphold and defend the constitution as per the once revered congressional oath of office now seems to be a prerequisite to serve as a member in congress. With all of the “protection” and “security” federal laws already on the books (TSA full body pat downs and searches at airports, NSA wire tapping under FISA, and Real ID to just list a few), American people have a better chance of winning the jackpot lotto, drowning in their bath tub, or getting struck by lightening than they do getting harmed or killed by a terrorist here in the United States.
Wittman’s and congress’s spineless and gutless approach to securing our liberty through the destruction of the 4th Amendment to our Constitution is yet another sad and disrespectful way to memorialize the Patriots who fought for our freedoms and founded our nation. Ironically, liberally appointed Federal district Judge Katherine B. Forrest issued a preliminary injunction barring such detentions of American citizens on the ground that the law is unconstitutional. Unlike the supposedly constitutionally conservative Wittman, perhaps she appreciates the warnings that founder Benjamin Franklin alluded to when he opined that those who sacrifice liberty in pursuit of security are deserving of neither. Wittman fails to realize that we will have to pay hell to regain our freedoms that he just voted away. Home of the brave…yeah, right….apparently not any more when it comes to our Congress. Try and feel proud about your Memorial Day tomorrow.
Legal Argument: Use of Case Law or Refer to the Constitution as Supreme Law of Land in Analysis of ACA
Here is an amazingly thought provoking argument against the Affordable Healthcare Act that uses the Constitution and not established Commerce Clause case law as its underpinning. Several blog posts ago, I wrote that I wondered how much of my rights were left due to erosion from bad court decisions serving as precedent such as Wickard v. Filburn or Gonzales v. Raich before I actually became a full fledged ward of the state. In my amateur judicial mind, new case law appeared to just keep being based and built upon errant case law that was centered on politically expedient court decisions rather than constitutional interpretation. If every new or subsequent challenge of unconstitutional law was brought before the court and weighed by the court only against established case law that was – to be frank, a bad opinion, then I postulated that our freedoms are quite doomed. Supreme Court case law of the early to mid 20th century is not exactly a bulwark of pro-Constitutional rulings. Fortunately, true legal scholars and professionals who understand the Constitution thought the same thing and banded together to write this argument as to why the Affordable Healthcare Act is unconstitutional. These friends of the court include one of my favorite organizations that support Liberty, The Downsize DC Foundation and DownsSizeDC.org
The analysis in this amicus urges the Supreme Court Justices to discard the bad habit of relying on Commerce Clause case law since much of the key decisions were from a politically packed court during FDR’s administration. Instead, the respondents urge the court to look at the health mandate with a fresh new perspective, going back to the actual textual law that is the Constitution – The Supreme Law of the Land. It really is an argument to behold with awe and great appreciation. Hopefully a majority of the court will see the wisdom in this argument and overturn the low courts upholding of this constitutional abomination. The Congress does not have free rein to do what it wants under the Commerce Clause.
Former Ronald Reagan solicitor general Charles Fried, now a Harvard Law Professor, thinks the opposite and that the current Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts should follow the bad precedent set by previous Supreme Courts and not overturn the ACA law as unconstitutional. “It would be plainly at odds with precedent, and plainly in conflict with what several of the justices have said before.” Here is a link to this opinion of the former conservative lawyer who served under Ronald Reagan.
It would be my hope that a fresh check against the text of the Constitution take place. I don’t understand exactly what Fried is worried about if today’s court makes its own assessment of the Constitutionality of the law. What is exactly is wrong if this court abandons the poorly thought out decisions from its predecessors? Are not mistakes permitted to be corrected?
Waiting on the Supreme Court Decision Regarding Obama Care
The wait on the Supreme Courts ruling of whether or not the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) is constitutional is akin to waiting for the surgeon to come out of the operating room after having just performed surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from a loved one’s lungs. Only the surgeon can say whether or not the patient is going to live. The ACA is the tumor. The deathly ill patient is a country once known to be a Constitutional Republic that went by the name of the United States of America.
Obama Care Gets its Day in Court and a Few Other Things on My Mind
My writing has slowed quite dramatically this past month or so. It seems that not much is really happening that inspires me to write. I mean, how much can any body rail against socialism and big government before it becomes redundant? So what else is there to write?
Things taking place now for which I am paying attention none the less are:
- Supreme Court hearing the constitutionality of Obama Care. Hopefully they will find limits to the government’s powers with respect to the commerce clause. Once they find it legal to compel an individual to have to purchase something from a private entity, then I am sure our constitutional republic is dead. Charles Krauthammer’s recent article call Obama Care: The Reckoning has me so very optimistic.
- The stock market and its pointless fluttering day in and day out. Maybe the above will cause it to do something – anything to give an indication of where this economy is headed. I still harbor convictions that holding gold and silver are necessary to not falling prey to the federal reserves monetary policy.
- The reconstitution of the York County Republican Committee here in Virginia. I have left the committee in protest the last 2 bienniums as a result of the committee refusing to admonish the big government embracing on the part of supposed limited government members of the party (see https://livinghereinamerica.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/the-necessary-evil-of-local-gop-party-politics-to-engage-or-not-to-engage/ ) The Committee has a pro-Ron Paul supporter who is running for the chairmanship and there a numerous pro-Constitutional and Ron Paul supporters looking to make the party more conservative in terms of limited government than the other times I participated.
- The remaining period of free agency in the NFL
- The NCAA final four
- The NFL Draft
So as the above plays out, I lay low. I get up, go to work, come home, enjoy some rest and relaxation with my family and do it again…wondering how long all of it is going to last.
BREAKING NEWS: Athens-Clarke County, GA Republican Delegate Fraud
The purposeful mistreatment of Ron Paul supporters on the part of Republican party insiders at the national , state parties, as well as local and district levels is going to become known one way or another.
It is well known among people who were there at the time at the 2008 national convention in Minnesota that the Republican National Committee used security staff to subdue legitimate Ron Paul supporters from being permitted to express their support in any way shape or form for Ron Paul as legitimate party delegates.
You can view the Georgia GOP party woman discussing that 2008 snub at the start of the video below. Yet despite her apologies and assurances, we soon see that the intended snubbing of legally registered party delegates is again to take place, and the Ron Paul delegate support is once again suppressed and not permitted to be fully vetted and transparent.
What is happening in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia with the Republican Party inappropriately disregarding established party procedure when it comes to tallying the delegates won by the Ron Paul campaign is happening across the country. Ron Paul supporters are joining GOP committees and they know the rules. The old GOP establishment that remains in control is breaking them. That has got to be some sort of electoral fraud or malfeasance. Please share the news of this story with others to bring this to light. It is not isolated to Georgia. There needs to be transparency and accountability to how the GOP arrives at a nominee.
http://runronpaul.com/interest/breaking-news-athens-clarke-county-ga-republican-delegate-fraud/
The Stresses of Recurring Letdowns From Being an Individualist Amongst the Mainstream Masses
After reading what I just wrote below, this is sort of a disjointed non-cohesive writing. I appreciate your indulgence should you choose to proceed. Thanks in advance – Robert 🙂
Super Tuesday has come and gone. This is one of the busier days of the primary season leading up to the November 2012 general and presidential election. This is the second consecutive presidential election campaign cycle that I have supported Ron Paul.
In between these two election cycles, I spent some of my free time attempting to be efficiently politically active in relating to my opposition to various congressional activities that are eroding freedom in the U.S.A.
Most people reading these words would agree that beyond the 2010 Republican house cleaning, not much seems to have changed in the “Big Brother and Big Government” landscape. I am so very much looking forward to the Supreme Court of the U.S.A giving Obamacare its day in court. That noted, I know I am also setting myself up for a let down, because I find it almost a no-brainer that the Patient Protection – Affordable Health Care act is a Constitutional abomination. If I see it as clearly being a no-no from a constitutional perspective, then I believe the liberal appointees to the Court will rule it as permissible. Hence the let down.
A problem with the judiciary process as it stands today seems to be the issue of bad case law being allowed to remain in effect. Previous judicial opinions set precedent upon which future decisions are handed down from other courts. I could never quite wrap my mind around the issue of what if decisions that are delivered are wrong – even if the final decision is upheld on appeal? That then leaves future courts to lean on these erroneous decisions, until at some point further into the future, all court cases have their decisions based on faulty application of the law. What I am describing is a domino effect built on case law that gets further and further away from proper application of constitutional interpretation. This seems to have been happening for the last 70 years.
Let me be clear that I know I am not a lawyer and will gladly cede superiority in this regard to the constitutional scholars. But I am confident that the interpretation of the law will continue to be misconstrued and applied the more errant decisions are allowed to stand and serve as bulwark for future decisions. That is why the Supreme Court nominating process is so important to conservatives. We need a qualified judiciary to protect our constitutional rights from being trampled through erroneous legislative and regulatory outcomes.
Coming back from the sidetrack musing, it appears that my candidate Ron Paul is not doing well in the popular vote process that will lead to the GOP nomination for the 2012 presidential nomination. That noted, the key is to seat delegates, and the mainstream media is not even reporting much on the dedicated base that Ron Paul has working at the grass roots level to secure delegates at the various local, district, and national GOP conventions. With providential intervention, perhaps we can get some influence in the process. I was left feeling defeated after the 2008 campaign.
So while we wait to see how this campaign process plays out, I will get a “fix” on repairing the damage from Obamacare by tracking the Supreme Court hearing and sending out Tweets, emails, and posting my thoughts here on this blog.
Lately though, all of my energy and action put towards this effort of trying to remain free has exacted somewhat of a toll on me. I know I can’t be alone in this regard. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are supporting Ron Paul and the cause for saving Liberty. If you find yourself feeling alone and frustrated and stressed out at the recurring letdowns that your efforts to push back big government are not yielding the results that you would like to see, then it might be time to try something different.
I decided to take a few weeks off from it. I wanted to clear my head and spirit. So I read a fiction book and tried to distance myself as much as I could from the politics and news. Coming back from that, I am thinking I want to try a different tact and just share my thoughts with others. In support of that, I am also trying to introduce more people to an two organizations that can help by carrying the load, allowing me to be reminded that I am not alone. These organizations are The Campaign For Liberty and Downsize DC.
I am glad that I am blessed to have the mind and personality to not fall in lockstep with the masses and that I can think and act on my own accord. But sometimes that can stress the heck out of you and derail you from wanting to continue. A good way to recover from the stresses of this worldview is to connect with like minded individuals who share your viewpoints. We are not alone. The passions that fan the flames of freedom lie within all of us and we are all inextinguishable. Stay strong and stay passionate.
Sovereign Citizens, the Watchful Eye of the FBI, and the Founding Fathers
Recent news accounts like this of the FBI’s announcement that it has concerns with people who claim themselves to be Sovereign Citizens evokes thoughts of our country’s founding. The patriots who were associated with country’s founding fathers had to consider the threat of apprehension by the authorities when they were contemplating whether or not to break free from the rule of King George and Great Britain. It is no small thing to break free from an established government. That is why the American Revolution was so historic in the annals of human history.
Sovereign Citizens have taken a different interpretation of current prevailing viewpoints of what it means to be an American and living in the United States. In essence, they seem to want to separate themselves from the current laws of the land and live by a different set of rules from the mainstream citizens. They appear to describe the current laws as illegitimate when pitted against the rights American are described as having as written in the Constitution. In the video that runs on their website, the woman makes a reference to the USA as a corporation to which the Sovereign Citizens do not want to participate. I have come across other references about this Corporation over the years and have been interested in learning more about it but then abandoning the issue altogether due to time constraints and thoughts about what does it really matter any way? Maybe the Sovereign Citizens just had more time and interest in seeing what it is all about. I am not sure.
Today in the year 2012, the vast majority of citizens are law abiding taxpayers of which many have serious concerns and objections about how our elected / appointed representatives are managing our national, state, and local governments. It would be members of this segment of American society who organized the Tea Party and /or might be active in the Libertarian political party. Many people who follow the current rules of the electoral and political system have expended a good many years of their lives and personal resources to try and get more Constitutionally compliant leaders into government at all levels.
Anybody who has followed American political events over the past 70 years knows that the Republicans and Democrats backed by highly financed special interest groups have claimed wins in most if not all major political campaigns for public office. It would be very frustrating for any normal person to begin to think that there has to be a better way to push back the problem of the wrong people being elected to run the government because they have what appears to be an inappropriate ability to wield greater influence than a majority of most individual citizens in the election.
Maybe that is what led to this group that calls themselves Sovereign Citizens. When I think of them and why they do what they do, there is a part of me that can sort of relate and understand and maybe even agree with the rationale as to why they would want to “not play by the rules” of the prevailing form of government.
Let me be clear, I do not condone violence and aggression against other people including the lawful authorities. That noted, for purposes of trying to understand their behavior and actions so as to learn and maybe improve the situation that is causing the FBI to escalate their surveillance of this group, perhaps Sovereign Citizens simply have more courage to push back and defend themselves from the government in a fashion that based on their political beliefs, can lead to what looks like violence and aggression against the State.
Obviously there is a stigma that mainstream society attaches to people who are members of such fringe groups. But I get a sense that the fringe is growing. Maybe the Sovereign Citizens are just an early version, a way-out in-front organized group ahead of the game. Sooner or later it seems inevitable that more and more supposedly Free People who have become frustrated with their government run amok would form in this coalesced fashion if unable to realize the changes they see as being needed to save their way of life because of a corrupted and unconstitutional electoral and political system and government.
What I wrote above does not seem to differ much with what Thomas Jefferson and the Founders had to wrestle with when they decided to break free from Great Britain. On the outset of the Revolutionary War, they wrote and affirmed with sacred honor the Declaration of Independence. The words below from that historic document tied to our country’s founding seem to mimic in some part at least, to what might be compelling the Sovereign Citizens to opt out of the current rule of law.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Framed in this light, are the Sovereign Citizens really that bad or just that misunderstood by the current authorities?
Living in America 