Are our Founding Principles, Declaration Of Independence, Constitution and the Individual Freedom & Liberty it was established to secure, now to be considered archaic, out of style, or even a threat to the security of “Modern Society”?  Is our Individual Freedom contingent upon population?  Would we be better off if we no longer had to pursue happiness, and our “Blessings of Liberty” were exchanged for ‘a measure of entitlements’? Would we be more secure if “We The People”, the ‘True Militia’  and “Palladium of Freedom”, that won us our Independence and Freedom from one oppressive government, were to Surrender our Post and Arms to another government’s “Civilian National Security Force”…“that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded” as the US Military? Will we be healthier and live longer when our personal and family health, medical procedures, medication, and the need for them are determined by, and at the mercy of a ‘State Doctor’ and the Department Of Finance, instead of you and your Family Doctor?  Did our Founding Fathers intend that our Freedom and Liberty be protected in all the land, or only where the government so chooses to allow them?  Does the Constitution guarantee Freedom OF religion or Freedom FROM religion?  Has it gone unnoticed that there has been an increasing number of government owned or subsidized properties/institutions across America that have become, or are proposed to become “Gun Free Zones”?  Now that most have become OK with losing their Second Amendment Rights on school property, aren’t more and more people being routinely denied their Freedom of Speech and Religion there as well?  Have not our schools, and other government properties effectively become “Constitution Free Zones”?  As government seeks to expand, impose on, and control more and more of our life and the private sector,  such as banks, mortgage companies, factories, insurance companies, education, agriculture, dairy, energy, free-market values, labor, housing, and health care, what’s to stop them from expanding these restrictions into any aspect of our personal lives, even into our own homes?  Does the Constitution protect the rights of “We The People” and limit government, or does it empower government and sacrifice our Liberty for the greater good of “The Collective”?    

             As our Founding Fathers warned it would be, our Constitution has been Under Assault of increasing intensity, going back to the days of Woodrow Wilson’s “Living Constitution” allowing government to strengthen beyond it Constitutional constraints. Then it was FDR and the New Deal (that was even then deemed Unconstitutional by the Supreme Court), a “New Bill Of (economic) Rights” listing government backed entitlements, and as called for by John Dewy, “Organized Social Control” of a “Social Economy”. Dewy also called for an educational system that would down play empowered ‘self reliance’ and ‘rugged individualism’ in favor of a more government dependent generation. Dewy might not be one of history’s standouts to a ‘Free People’ but his writings have often been referred to by Mr. Obama’s long time associate Bill Ayres to justify his explosive form of “Social Justice”. Under Clinton we got the “Assault Weapons Ban” and “Brady Bill” that further limited our Right to Arms mostly according to their appearance. Under GW Bush we got the “Patriot Act”, “Stimulus Checks”, “Too Big To Fail” and “Bail-Outs”.  Under Obama, our Constitution is considered nothing more than “a Charter of Negative Liberties”, as was taught to him by the “Marxist Professors” he himself has said he ‘preferred to associate with’ in college. Under Obama the “Power of Persuasion” has been exchanged for Union Style “Persuasion of Power”, and our debt has been both dramatically increased and monetized (printing of money to cover overspending). In so doing, the groundwork for the dollar to crash and “Super-inflation” has been laid. If this happens, at best prices will go way up fast, at worst…. just look at what happened in Zimbabwe. At 4 million percent inflation, how many $50Billion bills (Zimbabwe’s largest bill in 2008) will it take to go get groceries?  Under Obama ethics have become relative to “Rules for Radicals”, the free market has been over-run by government, and the dollar trashed. Under Obama upward to 40 Czars have effectively become an unchecked 4^th branch of government, most being appointed without being properly vetted by the either the FBI or Congress. These Czars include not only Globalists and Anti-Capitalists, they include one to study our Independent and Freedom loving spirit, reverence for the Constitution, and how to change them, and an EX-CONVICT who has braggingly referred to himself as a MARXIST and a RADICAL COMMUNIST ACTIVIST.  Those businesses still left in the private sector are now forced to compete against a government, funded by their own tax dollars, that has no need to profit. Under Obama the government is intent on subsidizing Pro Socialist / Anti Freedom political propaganda both in print and on the radio that has no market value of it’s own, via a “Fairness Doctrine”, Political Diversity Czar, or both. Under Obama, taxpayers are being forced, unwillingly, to subsidize more and more unproven utopian theories through government mandates and/or giveaways such as “Cap & Trade” and “Cash for Clunkers” making energy prices “Necessarily Skyrocket”, cause a shortage of used cars and parts, create a temporary false demand for union labor, destroy assets, and “Nudge” us from our Liberty. Under Obama we got ‘SPREAD THE WEALTH and FLAG@WHITEHOUSE.COM so progressive statist liberals would have a place to ‘rat out’ their neighbors who talk about championing the Constitution, Freedom, and standing against unconstitutional government powers. Wonder if this brings back any bad memories to anyone in the Jewish Community?    

   Labor Unions, whose members are only 8-12% of the work force, and are privileged enough to earn wages 3 to 4 times their market value, are not only slotted for the lions share of Obama’s “Stimulus Bill”, they have somehow come to own almost 40% GM. No conflict of interest there, but who will represent the workers against their union bosses now, a union union? Truth is union shops could never be low bidder on any work if government didn’t “level the playing field” for them with “Prevailing Wage Laws”. Under Obama proposed government health service, written by the APOLLOW ALLIANCE(?), that includes the Service Employees International Union or SEIU, public employee unions such as SEIU, will eventually be adding every health care worker and related service workers to their dues paying ranks. Considering Great Brittan’s government health care system is the third largest employer in the world and America’s would dwarf it, that’s a lot of new dues. “Card Check” will insure anybody who votes against them will be known by all. Under Obama “We The People” have been brushed off as an astro-turf, swastika carrying racist “mob” of complaining “Bitter Clingers”, put on a “Potential Domestic Terrorist Watch List”, and even threatened into silence.  

          Do those of you who support such government intrusion and control, at the expense of Liberty, realize that you must argue against your own Freedoms, and the Freedoms of your children, to do so?

          How has it come to pass that the same Freedoms “We The People” considered so sacred and worth dying for at the time of our Founding, are now to be just tossed aside for a new and improved, kinder, gentler, fairer provider and protector?  Are we to see government entitlements as our ‘New Freedom’?  As the likes of Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo desperately fought to maintain their Freedom, do you think they viewed those of their own People who, in Treaty after Treaty, surrendered their Freedom and Liberty for a rations card and the “promised protection” of the US government as ‘Enlightened Progressives’?  Do you think those who came to be known as “Hang Around The Forts” waiting for their ‘measure of rations” are the example we should now follow?  Do you think Harriet Tubman, the “Moses Of Her People”, would have risked her life and that of the thousands she led through the “Under Ground Railroad” for the freedom of such ‘measured entitlements’ as food stamps, wic, welfare and other various social services that is today’s inner cities? Or do you think they had something else in mind? Where is the empowerment in working to qualify for such ‘entitlements’, in the People, or in government? Who has the brighter future? When the British were committing their “Long Train of Abuses” against the Americans, and we had no choice but to fight for our Independence or lose our Freedom, would the Liberal, Progressive, Socialist, and Statist crowd of today have fought along side of our Founding Fathers and Freedom against tyranny, or would they have attacked Liberty and those who championed it then, as they attack Liberty and those of us who champion it today? What I’m asking is… if the pro-government control ‘progressives’ had their way from the beginning, would there have ever been a Free and Independent America?    

             I am of the line that our Rights, Liberty, and Freedom are gifts from the Creator and preexists both the Constitution and government, as is recognized by our Founding Documents. Our government is born “Of The People”, and our Individual Liberties are “Above It’s Pay grade”.  I will continue to invoke all the Freedoms and Liberties of the ‘Free America’ that I, my family, and my Children are the rightful heir to…. A “Free America” where the Constitution is “Supreme Law of The Land” from “Sea To Shining Sea” without exception.

           To my “representatives”, be it state or federal, know this:

It’s the Constitution Stupid!!!!  I don’t care if you could guarantee me that I will never have to “fail” or “assume the risk of business” ever again, my Freedom is NOT FOR SALE, “Don’t Tread On Me”!!! I don’t care if you could guarantee that I will live disease-free until I’m 153 for free, my Freedom is NOT FOR SALE, “Don’t Tread On Me!!!! I don’t care if you could promise me a Police escort for each and every American 24/7, my Freedom is NOT FOR SALE, “Don’t Tread On Me!!! I don’t care if you could promise me you’ll make it rain in every desert, re-grow every forest, end all hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires and droughts, and the return of the do do bird, my Freedom is NOT FOR SALE, “Don’t Tread On Me!!! I don’t even care if government cheese is as good as you say, my Freedom is NOT FOR SALE, “Don’t Tread On Me”!!!  There is nothing that you or government can give me or my family, the only thing you can do is take from us what we have always had. What you say you have for me, give it back to those from whom you have stole it!

        To be continued….  

                                                              Joe Marshall / Free American

                                                                  Aurora(Montana), NY  

         At the risk of joining the many other American Patriots now being ‘Profiled’ by the Obama Administration’s Dept. of Homeland Security, and being placed prominently on their ‘Right Wing Extremist’ Potential Domestic Terrorist Watch List, I would like to thank Mr. K. Henderson for his common sense response to Mr. Weiskopf’s latest plug for the Brady Campaign’s assault on our Constitution on 4/16. Attacks on our Constitutional Rights must be getting a little slower than the Post would otherwise have it, as both of Weiskopf’s published letters on 2/8 and 4/14 are substantially identical.  It’s good to see you guys working so nicely together.

         How is it that, from the time of our Founding, that we have come to have so many among “The People”, who have come to so fear their own freedoms? To argue point counter point against those who would have America, relinquish her liberty, though easy enough, is to attempt to reason with the unreasonable. In any regard, the only true argument for our Arms and their direct relation to our Liberty is in our history, Our Revolution, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the context in which they were forged. And not the least of which lies with those who fought, sacrificed, and died for the “Miracle” that is The Constitution of our Republic..

          Pre-Revolutionary Americans traced what they saw as not only their Right, but their Duty, to Keep and Bear Arms as far back as the Act of 1645 in Massachusetts. This law required “That all inhabitants… are to have arms in their houses fit for service”. As English subjects certain: “true, ancient and indubitable rights”,allowed “That the Subjects which are Protestants, may have Arms for their Defense suitable to their Condition, and are allowed by Law”. (Founders Second Amendment, 11)

            On word the King intended to disarm Americans, it was announced by the anonymous Patriot “ABC” in the Boston Gazette on September 26, 1768, that there were, “Three Things in Command from the Ministry, more grievous to The People than anything hitherto made known. It is conjectured 1^st that the inhabitants be disarmed...” (FSA, 8)

                          Samuel Adams would quote William Blackstone to prove the colonists had, “the right of having and using arms for self- preservation and defense… personal security, personal liberty and privet property and when… the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression”. ( FSA, 20). Whig philosophy had it that “The instant a King violates his part of the contract…a Whig thinks that the legislative power of course returns to the People, and they are at their full Liberty to take Arms, and drive the tyrant from the throne.”(Founder’s Second Amendment, 67)

                         The British (not unlike Mr. Weisenkopf), saw the armed populous or, Militia, as treasonous, but the Patriots (not unlike gun owners today), saw them selves as law abiding and well within the rights. In February 1769 Samuel Adams published an editorial regarding Boston saying, “that the inhabitants had been ordered to bring in their arms”. The People were promised that if they complied their arms would be returned at a later time, and they would be allowed to leave Boston. It was a lie. After surrendering 1,778 firearms, 634 pistols, 273 bayonets and 38 blunderbusses (shotguns), they were held there imprisoned for months.  (FSA, 11-13)

             On April 18, 1775 General Gage (British) was ordered to “seize and destroy” all the ammo and arms in Concord. That night Gage’s own wife hung two lanterns in the church steeple. Paul Revere, knowing the British were coming to disarm “The People”, made his famous ride and call to arms, just hours before the “Shot Heard Round The World” was fired at Lexington. The Essex Gazette ran a piece on 4/25 that read, “The Militia of Lexington & Concord consisted of all able bodied men 16 to 60 be it gentlemen, yeomen, laborers, and apprentices…All providing their own arms, except a few poor who had to borrow them”.   Captain John Parker was the Commander of the Militia at Lexington. His musket still hangs today in the Massachusetts Senate Chamber as an “Icon of American Freedom”. It was bound by a trigger lock mandated by the Massachusetts Gun Control Act of 1998. (FSA)  

             British soldier David Ramsay said of The Bunker Hill Battle, “None of the provinces in this engagement are riflemen, but they were all good marksmen. The whole of their previous military knowledge had been derived from hunting, and the ordinary amusements of sportsman. The dexterity which by long habit they had acquired in hitting beasts, birds, and marks was fatally applied to the destruction of the British Officers.” (FSA, 97).    

            One Virginia Gentleman wrote, “We are all in arms, exercising and training old and young to the use of a gun. No person goes abroad without his sword, or gun, or pistols…every plain is full of armed men, who all wear a hunting shirt, on the left breast of which are sewed, in very legible letters, “Liberty or Death”. (FSA, 107))

               General Howe (British) sent a letter Governor Gage that read “to prevent the Abettors of Rebellion in their dangerous designs of leading forth the People, in the four New England Governments, to appose in Arms the Restoration of the Public Tranquility & Constitutional Authority of Governments…all cannons and small arms.. be seized and destroyed”. (FSA) Hmmmm, so to disarm “The People”, is to restore public tranquility and the authority of government?  Sound familiar?

               On July 4, 1776,  Our Founding Fathers, some with prices on their heads, at great risk to themselves and their families,  accused of High Treason under penalty of death by hanging, signed the ‘Declaration Of Independence’,  “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to…assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…..We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness. - That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,-that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it…”.   Here-in lies the secret those who argue for stronger more controlling government don’t want you to realize. We The (Individual) People are born naturally with all of our Rights and Liberties as endowed to us naturally, by our Creator. The government was, and still is, instituted by us only to protect those rights, not limit or take them. 

.         Alexander Hamilton pointed this out in the Federalist Letters, as reiterated in the Constitution itself, “We The People...in Order to…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”.  All you have to do is read the words to understand that the Constitution was establish specifically to do what it says, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity; in perpetuity, as there is no expiration date.  And it was reaffirmed yet again in the “Bill of Rights”, Amendments I through X.  A couple  notes worth mentioning: although many things were debated before the final words written were chosen, no arguments are documented against the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms,… not one. And nowhere does it say that government had the power to choose when and where the Constitution would or would not apply. Gun Free Zones are Constitution Free Zones.

             Government, be it State or Federal, has no rights, only powers, and then only those powers specifically delegated to it by the Constitution. Any Power not specifically delegated is reserved to The People. And last but not least, “We The People” have surrendered none of our Rights, or Powers to any government, we have always retained them. The down side for some is that, with all these Rights, Powers, Freedom and Liberty, comes responsibility. There in lies the chink in armor of our Republic, as there will always be those who are eager for the opportunity to be rid of the burden of responsibility for the lure of redistributed leisure, without it.

            In 1790 Roger Sherman commented, “[E]very Power still remained in the People and the state governments, except what had been given up to the United States by the new Constitution. The House was not about to relinquish to the state governments any part of it’s power;… or the right of declaring who should bear arms(?) He conceived it to be the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made. The particular states, like private citizens, have a right to be armed, and to defend, by force of arms, their rights when invaded.” (FSA)

           On the 2^nd Amendment, Justice Joseph Story, in his ‘Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States’ (1833) noted, “The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject.  The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.  It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.  The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

       I humbly yield my time to argue tit for tat against the current assault on our Constitution, to those who were there, at the time of our Revolution, to secure our Liberty from Tyranny. For those who conspire to disarm “The People”, the ‘True Militia’ and ‘Protector of Liberty’, conspire against the Constitution itself, as they conspire against the blood of Patriots, every drop, that was spilled for the Freedoms they seek to take from us.

                                                                                        Joe Marshall / Free American

 “Do not separate text from historical background. If you do you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted bastardized form of illegitimate government.” - James Madison, primary author of the Constitution and US President.

      “On every question of construction of the Constitution, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be sqeezed out of text, or inveneted against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” – Thomas Jefferson

        “If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animated contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your council of arms, crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may your posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen.”               - Samuel Adams

     “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance, they are the peoples liberty teeth”   -  George Washington

   “The great object is that every man be armed… Everyone who is able might have a gun”               - Patric Henry

   “Government is not reason, it not eloquence, it is force; like fire a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action”           -   George Washington

  “I ask sir, what is the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feard we shall turn our arms each man to his own bosom? Congress have no power to disarm the militia”                

                                                                 -    Tench Coxe

  “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole of the people are armed.” 

                                                                    -   Noah Webster

     “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness, you have to catch it yourself.”                                    -Benjamin Franklin 

        “I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole of the people. To disarm the people is the best way to enslave them.”                 - George Mason

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain government, lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”                   Patrick Henry

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”           Benjamin Franklin  

                                                                 Matrix of Milk & Honey

               Although the promise of easy living doesn’t end at the city line, the contrast in the perception of government between Urban America and Rural America is unmistakable. It just may be what’s at the heart of why our nation has become so politically charged and polarized.

                  Those of us leery of an ever expanding government, who cherish our individual liberties, freedoms, and the philosophies of our Founding Fathers as set forth in the Declaration Of Independence and US Constitution, need to ask ourselves if people could ever see a government offering such benign accommodations as a threat? How does one unplug him/herself from the Matrix? Why would they want to when it offers so much? Who wants to consciously accept a reality where the most self reliant of them couldn’t perform the simplest of bodily functions without government? Who wants to acknowledge a reality where the US Constitution is meaningless, lawful productive citizens are the ones forcibly disarmed and bound by an ever tightening web of (unconstitutional) laws. Meanwhile the thugs, gangsters and the criminal element, by their nature as criminals remain unbound?

                Over time our society as a whole has become less and less self-reliant, not needing to provide for themselves. In so doing, urban Americans have long forsaken their individual identity and God given freedoms, for the lure of easy entitlements. Reducing a once vibrant, fiercely independent, and self reliant Free America to “hang around the forts” in a complacent state of ‘idle equalism’, begging for protection, and groveling for meager rations distributed by a most merciful government.  Is this freedom? Is it opportunity?  Or is it appeasement?   In truth it is a seductive narcotic, enmeshing the masses into statistical categories to be flaunted by government as trophy like political decoration, used to further their agenda. Is snuffing out the initiative, inspiration and faith in one’s self needed to achieve the ‘American Dream’ a cruel side effect of bad policy, or part of the plan?  How do we break it down for those ensnared by such government appeasement programs that the only real difference between the Matrix of milk & honey and prison, is the illusion of freedom.

               Although fewer and fewer, there are still those of us who do provide for ourselves by our own means, or we go without. If we have to go without, we do so not with envy of what we do not have, but with the sense of great satisfaction and contentment that comes from knowing what we do have, we have earned, and our bills are paid by the sweat of our own brow, not by any parasitic entitlement program force feeding me my rationed share of some successful host’s earnings.

                Pass me a cigar I want a smoke, while I still can.

         “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”                                                -George Washington

        “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness, you have to catch it yourself.”                                    -Benjamin Franklin  

        “I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole of the people. To disarm the people is the best way to enslave them.”                 - George Mason

        “If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animated contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your council of arms, crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may your posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen.”               - Samuel Adams

                                                                        Joe Marshall / Free American

                                               Rope and Chains

                     Therefore, to support the “Hope and Change” of Barack Obama, and his party, we must first surrender; Surrender as self-reliant, responsible, ‘Free Americans’ empowered with all our inalienable Individual rights and unlimited opportunity offered by our free market capitalist society, to support ‘The Man’ and his ‘Party’ who support:

-   “Only Government..” has the power to fix the economy.

-    Lifestyle taxes, be it on tobacco, soft drinks, fast foods, junk foods or thermostat settings.

-          Expanded anti-capitalist bailouts, giving government a ‘foot in the door’ to take over private businesses. AIG anybody? Ask dairy farmers who controls their milk prices, then ask where have all the family farms gone?

-     Extending our Constitutional rights to enemy prisonors of war, while limiting and/or eliminating those of our citizens.  .  

-     Giving convicted felons (including those with gun crimes) the right to vote, as a reward for their vote.

         -    Obama’s multi, multi -$Trillion ‘Stimulus Packages’, that have more to do with stimulating votes and perpetuating  ‘Party’ rule, than it does the economy. A close look reveals a well endowed political Kama Sutra, showing us just how many ways ‘Free America’ is going to be getting the screws put to her over the next generation or so.

                   The left will not stop expanding government control until the day our freedoms more closely resemble those of North Korea than they do the ‘Free America’ of our Founding Fathers. Hope & Change? More like Rope & Chains, and a sad irony it is, that it will be this nation’s first African American President, whose face history will remember as the one who led the charge to (re)bind ‘Free America’ and her people with the ‘Rope & Chains’ of tyranny; for the first time since the ‘Declaration Of Independence’ and ‘Emancipation Proclamation’. Obama and his “Party”, with their agenda just may succeed at destroying ‘Free America’ (A feat no foreign enemy ever could); and they just may be exactly who/what our Founding Fathers were trying to warn us about when they penned the Constitution.                         

   “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain government, lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”                   Patrick Henry

 “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; …The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole of the people are armed.”                        Noah Webster

 “Firearms are second only to the constitution in importance, they are the peoples liberty teeth.”                    George Washington

 “If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your council of arms, crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may your posterity forget that you ever our countrymen.”          Samuel Adams

 “Live free or die a slave” -"Do you think I'd let so many die for just one coward?"          Harriet Tubman (with gun in hand)