Libertarian Party Of Santa Cruz
contact:
Patrick Dugan
Email: Patrick.Dugan@lpsantacruz.com
4310 Capitola Road
Capitola, CA 95010
Phone:  831.476.3600

164803

Reviving The Spirit Of '76

    If we're lucky, future generations will look back on the Bush-Obama era as the low point of American liberty. Victory in the Cold War made the U.S. political elite insane, feeding the delusion that it can run the world. Use of the fiat dollar by foreign nations as reserves has made our politicians unaccountable. Who needs to worry about angry voters or taxpayers when you can print all the money you need? As a result, the federal government is out of control and dangerous. Our problem goes too deep to be cured by the election of this or that "reformer." We need to think about fundamental change.

    America is fortunate. The principles needed to regenerate our society were articulated in the formative years of our republic. The principles of Jefferson and the Spirit of '76 are still in our hearts, but our minds need to rediscover them. This Fourth of July I can think of no better way to celebrate than by reading our libertarian classics. Begin with the Declaration of Independence, especially the part about how only government by consent is legitimate, and then ask yourself if you have consented to all the powers government has assumed. Next, read the Bill of Rights, that great gift of the anti-federalists. Pay particular attention to the 9th Amendment; its author knew that since the machinations of tyranny are too numerous to list, there can be no exhaustive list of our liberties. Finally, read Madison and Jefferson's Virginia and Kentucky resolutions against the Alien and Sedition Acts, and learn that the Supreme Court doesn't have a monopoly on declaring laws unconstitutional.

    Beacons to light our path can be found throughout our history. The first generation after George Washington dealt with the same sort of problems we face today. During the Panic of 1819, our first national recession, many contemporary writers clearly saw that it was caused by issuance of "bank paper" in excess of gold and silver, which created "fictitious capital" that needed to be liquidated. John Randolph's antiwar speeches against the War of 1812 contain passages that could have been written about our wars today. John Taylor, writing in the 1820s, understood how special interest politics works, and that without a check more effective than the balancing of the three federal branches, special interest politics would lead to tyranny. If these Old Republicans of Virginia are not to your taste, consider those Yankees who were both abolitionists and successionists, especially the orneriest of all, Lysander Spooner, who showed that the notion of "tacit consent" isn't worth the paper that it isn't written on. In Spooner's "Essay on the Trial by Jury" he argued that juries may judge the law as well as the defendant and nullify criminal laws that punish pseudo crimes. As the state continues to elaborate a body of criminal law beyond the natural civil law, this right of juries becomes even more important.

    In case you didn't learn about our heritage of liberty in public school, it's not to late to go on the internet and explore. Along the way you might even meet a patriotic successionist, a law-abiding nullifier, or someone who thinks that we only needed a simple revision of the Articles of Confederation.

---- Bill Anderson
(permission to copy this is freely granted)

An Open Letter to the President-

    This email to his constituents and "Open Letter to The President" was written by Pennsylvania State Representative Samuel E. Rohrer (PA 128th District). [Authorship verified].

July 3, 2009
Dear Friends,
    In just another day, we will all observe Independence Day. Yet, like you, we all realize that our freedoms have never been so threatened both from within and without. We wonder what actions we should take. We wonder what happens if we wait too long? I know we all wish for some clarion call from some leader with a response commensurate to the challenges we are seeing. A recent news analysis from Rachel Maddow (MSNBC News) of a major policy speech made by our President in May prompted me to write this open letter to the President as my next step. I hope my letter will further develop your thinking as we celebrate Independence Day. While I stop short of suggesting a specific collective action that American citizens can take, I believe that history lays out the pattern.

---
Dear Mr. President,
    I write to you as one elected official to another on behalf of average American citizens. We listen to your words and measure them carefully. With hope, we watch your actions. We then look to history and compare the events of our day with the events of yesterday. We look to our Founders and read carefully their intellectual discourses and their moral debate. They ultimately concluded that the actions of the king were best described as tyranny, because they could not be honestly described any other way. Having come to such a serious and reasoned conclusion, their path was charted—unknown as to its outcome—but certain as to its demand upon them. Mr. President, we are doing what Americans have done before.

    Many of your words, at face value, inspire and offer some level of hope. This is why many Americans cast their vote for you. Yet, now that you are in office, your actions are inspiring fear and distrust. At nearly every level, Americans, regardless of political party, are being forced to walk down the same road our Founders were forced to walk ­ questioning, analyzing, and looking deep within their souls. The similarities between the past and the present are amazing. If you desire to test the American people’s resolve and challenge their patience, you are accomplishing your goal. You know what is happening within the hearts and minds of the average American. That is why state legislatures are offering and passing resolutions, re-affirming the 10th Amendment and state sovereignty issue. That is why the Tea Party movement is growing by the day and is attended by rich and poor alike. That is why you and Congress are hearing from the American public in record numbers on an increasing range of major issues including the bail-out, the stimulus plan, “cap and tax”, and government intrusion into health care.

    Your speech sounds sensitive to the economic and emotional needs so heavy on our people. Yet, your continued references to being guided by the “Rule of Law” (our Founders knew this meant God’s Higher Law and the Highest Law of the Land ­ the Constitution) are hollow and disingenuous. Your recent speech in front of the original Constitution of the United States of America in the National Archives makes it all so clear that your words mean nothing. Your agenda and you yourself appear to be that “rule of law” ­ effectively setting aside all Constitutional constraints. It’s unfortunate that I must be so direct, but you are leaving the American people with very few options.

    Mr. President, it is clear by your speech and actions that your oath to the Constitution is not binding to you and, therefore, is a broken oath. On many fronts, so much of significance has happened in such a short time. You (and the Congress) are overriding state sovereignty and encouraging the states into unsustainable programs through Stimulus Funds: this will force them to beg you and the elite in Washington for help when the funding runs out. Your policies are destroying the wealth of hard-working Americans by plunging this nation into inescapable debt to our enemies and by justifying the disastrous printing of trillions in fiat money. What you and the Federal Reserve do not destroy immediately by exploding our debt, will be completely devoured by the ensuing hyper-inflation. What an insidious way for you and Congress to spend what you do not have by robbing it from every hard-working American who has responsibly worked and saved!

    You have violated historic contract law by choosing who wins and who loses, while Chrysler and General Motors is eviscerated and turned into ‘Government Motors’. You have thumbed your nose at the ‘Balance of Power’, so carefully conceived and implemented by our Founders, by appointing unaccountable “Czars” to function as your direct emissaries over fundamental areas of public policy, thereby blatantly by-passing the checks and balances of Congressional oversight. You pursue special interest agendas motivated by the faddish science of “Global Warming” or “Climate Change”, or whatever it will be called next. In the ‘cap and tax’ plan, you justify the biggest tax assault on the American people ever conceived. Yet, you boldly assure the American people that it will cost them nothing, since only the “polluters” will pay. But, in the process you will destroy thousands of truly sustainable jobs (in exchange for temporary “green” jobs ­ like insulating buildings and re-caulking windows). Bringing America to its knees in financial dependence, in energy dependence, and a gutted manufacturing sector is sadly what’s happening. It appears that in reality, the “Change” you promised is just your personal change—clearly not what the American people so desperately hoped for.

    So Mr. President, these things that I and the American people have come to observe and conclude are bringing this nation to a point closer each day that resembles the circumstances that forced the hearts, the minds and then the hands of our Founders. As we quickly approach the remembering of Independence Day ­ July 4, 2009, please remember that as you make your choices, so must we. May you and all the American people reread the Declaration of Independence ­ very carefully. Identify the principles they clearly stated and then apply them to today. Feel the intensity of the letter sent to the King. Understand the careful steps they undertook to make the moral case for freedom and independence in the context of the history of mankind. Note in particular the foundational precepts woven into paragraph two, written as much for the benefit of Americans yet unknown and unborn as it was a message to King George. As the President who holds the highest elected position in both honor and responsibility in this Republic, place yourself in the position of the King, look in the mirror, and then look across this great land at the faces of our great people and listen to their pleas. The King didn’t know for sure all that Declaration Letter would mean for him, but I am certain that he knew he had ignited the will and passion of a freedom-loving people for which only time would prove the outcome.

    So it is today. Now, we have the Constitution against which to compare the words and actions of those in public office. The people, Mr. President, are awaking. They are realigning their priorities, purifying their motivations, and galvanizing their wills. Their freedom and their families are what they love and, thankfully, what they will defend. As to what comes next, I cannot say. I do know that another Declaration Letter is not necessary since this country already belongs to us. Our freedom and this republic are already ours. It is the return of freedom they demand. It is nothing less than the adherence to the Constitution and to the oath we have both taken that they demand. We, continuing to carefully note and compare as our Founders did, are also coming to serious and reasoned conclusions. Our path is charted ­ unknown perhaps as to its ultimate outcome ­ but certain as to its demand upon us.

    From all those who love their Freedom

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