There is an excellent post on The Blaze today, and I strongly urge you to read it.  It deals with Cato’s Letter IV from the Anti-Federalist Papers.  If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you may remember that I frequently point out that history has proven the Anti-Federalists’ concerns were well founded and their reasoning correct.  Well, you may be very surprised to see just how accurate those ‘old dead white men’ actually were – and why they are even more relevant today than ever before.  Here’s the link:

This Anti-Federalist paper about presidential power from 1787 will give you goosebumps

Here’s a pull-quote from this Anti-Federalist letter.  See if it reminds you of anyone in the news today:

The ten miles square, which is to become the seat of government, will of course be the place of residence for the president and the great officers of state–the same observations of a great man will apply to the court of a president possessing the powers of a monarch, that is observed of that of a monarch–ambition with idleness–baseness with pride–the thirst of riches without labour–aversion to truth– flattery–treason–perfidy–violation of engagements–contempt of civil duties–hope from the magistrate’s weakness; but above all, the perpetual ridicule of virtue–these, he remarks, are the characteristics by which the courts in all ages have been distinguished.

Now, do you understand what it means?  In short, it means that – regardless of what they call themselves – anyone who exhibits these signs is not a President, but a monarch.  And since the monarchs of the times in which this letter were written had no check on their power, we can translate monarch to mean what we know call a dictator.  What’s more, if that dictator uses their power without regard to justice, then we may also call that person a tyrant.  I submit that Obama is exactly the ‘type’ Cato is describing in this Anti-Federalist paper.  Thus, the rule of law has been destroyed and Natural Law ignored.

But I do not want to stop here.  There is more.  How is it that these ‘old dead white guys’ could so easily predict the characteristics of a dictator?  Is it just because they had practical experience with them, or could it be that they had an understanding our modern world has rejected and forgotten?  I submit this is exactly the case: these ‘old dead white guys’ understood things we do not (or at least, that we will no longer admit to in public).  Take another look at the characteristics described:

ambition with idleness–baseness with pride–the thirst of riches without labour–aversion to truth– flattery–treason–perfidy–violation of engagements–contempt of civil duties–hope from the magistrate’s weakness; but above all, the perpetual ridicule of virtue…

Then, read the post I wrote on The OYL and compare this list from the Anti-Federalits to the list in this post:

TRUTH: Anti-Christ is a Spirit or ‘Type,’ not just a Person

Scripture refers to The Anti-Christ as ‘The Lawless One,’ and the ‘Son of Perdition (destruction).’ I ask you, how is it that what we are seeing from our government today is not an act of destruction brought on through lawlessness?  Just because someone claims something is a law does not make it so.  The law, to even be a law, must be in agreement with God’s Natural Law.  Otherwise, it is sin.  Even the pegan, Cicero, realized this to be true:

“True law is right reason in agreement with nature;  it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting;  it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions…It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely.  We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it.  And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and at all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst punishment.”

I submit to you that our society is nowhere near as ‘enlightened’ as we like to believe.  Nor do we have anywhere close to the understanding, the wisdom that these ‘old dead white guys’ commanded.  And I further submit that this is a large part of our problem: that we have rejected God.  Unless and until we return to Him and repent for going astray, things will only get worse.

If you consider yourself to be a ‘Conservative,’ this post is going to be very difficult to accept.  However, if you consider yourself to be among any of the various Left-wing political camps, I suspect this post will be totally beyond your ability to understand or accept.  Now, I understand how condescending that may sound, but it is the truth.  This post is founded solidly on the principles of Natural Law, and the heart and soul of all Leftist ideology is the rejection of Natural Law.  Therefore, I do not see this post being of any use to Left-leaning readers.  So, to those of you who consider yourselves “Conservative’ and think this means you are in line with the original intent of our founders, let me see how much you really know about the founding philosophy you claim to embrace.

Let me start by quoting a famous political observer of the young United States:

Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.

–Alexis de Tocqueville

Now, de Tocqueville over-simplified the matter with those words, but he did put his finger on a fundamental principle of Natural Law: the dead should never be allowed to rule over the living.  This principle is explained fairly well in a post on the Rio Norte Line, Usufruct.  The only thing I would take issue with in this post is that it does not go far enough.  This principle must not apply only to individuals, but also to artificial entities, such as the law and corporations.  Otherwise, the principle is violated and people long since dead will still be governing over the living.  This is what de Tocqueville was driving at when he penned his words.

But before de Tocqueville, our founders asserted this same argument, and they did so with much more force and reason:

“All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”

–Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783, Ref: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1

“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:45

Clearly, our founders understood that there are forms of property that can only exist as a result of civil legislation.  Furthermore, as the product of civil legislation, our founders understood that these forms of property rightly remain under the control of the people, through whom the civil laws were written to create that property in the first place.  However, if one of these types of property were to ever be given the status of personhood, then the Natural Law by which it was created will be violated.  And when Natural Law is violated, society suffers from the resulting chaos.  Well, a corporation is such an artificial property which – in many nations – has been given legal personhood.  And predictably, society is suffering for it because it allows the dead to dictate to the living.  The same applies to legal constructs such as trusts.

This is why the founders originally restricted corporations.  They had clearly defined areas within which they could operate, and even then, only for set periods of time.  After which, the corporation – or charter – had to be renewed or the corporation/charter was automatically dissolved.  Furthermore, and most importantly, the laws were such that those who had ownership and the responsibility for running the corporation were held personally accountable for the corporation’s actions.  If a law was broken, the corporation didn’t just pay a fine; people went to jail and the corporation was dissolved.  This was in keeping with Natural Law; the way we do things today is not.

Finally, the founders were aware that every generation must be allowed to find its own way.  To allow an accumulation of wealth through generational inheritance was a violation of Natural Law because it established a pre-existing ‘favoritism’ or advantage for those who inherited it.  At the same time, the founders were aware that they could not handle this issue the same way their role models did.  In the Bible, the land was divided up between families, or clans.  Each individual could buy and sell land as they wished within the confines of the law, but every so many years, all of the land reverted back to the original family and the buying and selling of that same land started all over again.  This served to renew the natural order of things by preventing accumulations of wealth and power that could threaten Natural Law.  But because this system was impractical in the United States, the founders looked instead to the system of inheritance to serve the same function:

“If the overgrown wealth of an individual is deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816. ME 14:466

By this system, those who have the necessary talent will be able to exploit their inheritance and, thus, they will have an advantage.  But the natural order of things is such that the majority of people will squander their money, and thus, they will return it to the system in general – only in a manner much more equitable than anything directly governed by civil authority.

We need to understand that, when the Left complains about the unjust influence of large corporations and the very wealthy on society and government, it has a point – just for the wrong reasons.  Corporations allow the dead to rule the living, and the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth allows individuals to subvert the natural order of things.  Our founders knew this; it is what de Tocqueville was driving at in the first quote I cited and what Jefferson is explaining in the last.  So, if we are to have any hope of righting the economic ship in this nation and restoring opportunity and prosperity to the individual in this country, we are going to have to deal with this issue.  Natural Law must be restored or the problems we’re having will continue to grow until we have a Fascist tyranny where the interests of large corporations and government cooperate to rule over us all, or we’ll succumb to a single dictator.  In both cases, the whole of 20^th Century European history testifies to the pattern in which we now find ourselves.  We can only hope that we remember the principles of Natural Law and liberty in time to correct our mistakes, and the first step in doing that is to remember The Source of that Natural Law and liberty.

This is a point that cannot be said too often nor too loudly.  When a person declares that he or she does not believe themselves to be bound by the law, they are declaring themselves to be lawless.  But when that person is the leader of a nation, that person is openly declaring themselves to be a dictator.  This is exactly what Obama has done: declared himself dictator of the United States:

Obama: ‘That’s the Good Thing as a President, I Can Do Whatever I Want’

During a visit with French President Francois Hollande at Monticello in Charlottesville, Va., President Barack Obama reportedly quipped, “That’s the good thing as a president, I can do whatever I want.”

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Many a truth is said in jest?”  Well, in this case, Obama is not ‘jesting.’  He is openly defying the laws of this nation.  What Obama is doing in this story is ILLEGAL!

White House Announces It’s Delaying Obamacare Employer Mandate…AGAIN!

This story nails home the illegality of Obama’s continual delays in Obamacare:

Krauthammer Goes Off on Latest Obamacare Delay: ‘This Is Stuff That You Do in a Banana Republic’

Everyone reading this post needs to understand that the rule of law is dead in the United States.  This nation is no longer the land of the free, and the fact that Obama has not been impeached, convicted and removed from office also confirms that we are no longer the home of the brave.  If this is not the case, then where are the Patriots whose duty it is to impeach this man?  Why haven’t they filed articles of impeachment yet?  Nay, the republic that freed the majority of this world is dead, and it died by suicide.  He won people have done exactly what the Germans did in the 1930’s: they sold their rights, their liberty and their conscience for promises of bread.

Suddenly, I hear these words pounding loudly in my ears:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

–Samuel Adams

It is popular for authoritarians to claim that the second amendment is out-dated, that it refers only to fire arms and that it doesn’t even apply to the individual but to the National Guard.  These people also couch the debate over the second amendment in terms of ‘reasonable’ control.  All of this is straw man, and it is high time we set these straw men on fire and kick the ashes in the face of those who made them.  The truth is, the Natural Right to self-defense is among the most self-evident of all Natural Rights, and this is what the second amendment is all about.  It was not included in the Bill of Rights so we could go hunting or sports shooting; it was included so we would retain the right to defend ourselves from this:

The Militarization of Policing in America

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America

Defense Department gives local police equipment designed for a war zone

Police Militarization

SWAT-Team Nation

The Militarizing of Local Police

[NOTE: please, click on the links and check the sources of these stories – it’s important.]

The next time you hear someone advocating for gun control of any type, you need to understand that you are not listening to a ‘reasonable’ person; you are listening to someone who wants to control you.  They want to disarm you so that you cannot resist them.  Even if they are saying they just want to feel safer, they are advocating disarming you so that others can control you to keep them safe.  Any way you slice it, advocating that you be disarmed is a violation of your Natural Right to self-defense.  And if you cannot defend your life, then you do not control your life; and if you do not control your life…who does?  The people who seek to disarm you, that’s who.

Now, remember this:

BTW: would you have trusted the German Storm Troopers?  Then why do you trust anyone in these militarized police forces?

OH!  And just in case you don’t think anything like what happened in Germany could ever happen here – you’re wrong!  Because it already has, and it will again:

Justice Scalia: You Are ‘Kidding Yourself’ If You Think World War II-Style Internment Camps Will Never Happen Again

And THAT is what the 2nd Amendment is all about!

Our founders studied all of the governments that had ever been in constructing our own, and they concluded that the best way to preserve individual rights and liberty is through a constitutional republic based on the rule of law and not men.  So long as the people insist that the nation’s laws are obeyed and its rulers are held accountable to them, then individual rights and liberty will continue.  But once a nation’s rulers learn that they can pick and chose which laws to obey at will and without any consequences, then the rule of law ends and anarchy begins.  I can prove it with two simple words:

Lawless

: having no laws

: not obeying the law

Anarchy

: a situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, organization, etc., are not controlled by rules or laws

Now let me ask you something: how much longer do you think you will retain your rights and liberty when this is being permitted?

‘A Pattern of Lawlessness’: Ted Cruz Outlines Why Even Democrats Should Be Concerned About Obama Administration’s Actions

The only mistake Senator Cruz makes in his analysis is that, if there were a Republican President in office, this level of lawlessness would not be permitted.  The Progressive propaganda machine we know as the ‘main stream media’ would see to it that any President who truly opposed their agenda who acted outside the law was driven from office.

But this brings another question to mind.  What do we have when our President is not held accountable to the law and the nation’s supposed watch dog (i.e. the media) is actively protecting him instead of exposing his lawlessness?

And what does it say about those people who were so quick to find Fascism in the Bush Administration, yet they have nothing to say about what is happening now?

As the inevitable result starts to manifest itself as a total breakdown in society, it will create a perception of crisis, which will then be exploited to demand ‘emergency powers.’  Capitalism and greed will be blamed for the chaos that lawlessness actually created and then the people who created that chaos will demand these emergency powers promising that only they have the solutions and can save us.  And those solutions will involve theft of wealth to buy the complacency of the masses and – most likely – the imprisonment or even elimination of those innocent people who will be blamed for the mess that the lawless ones created.  This is how republics die, and we are well into the fourth stage of the malignancy.