A Plea for the Republic

With each passing year, America’s foundation becomes more unstable. Had you asked me 7 years ago where America would be today, I would have answered “what America”. I was so sure after September 11th, 2001 that our last remaining treads of constitutional republic would have been severed by now and replaced with the dreaded dictatorship. I consider it a small miracle that a thread still remains.

Still, the Republic is barely hanging on. At this point, I know that what I have to say will be ignored by most and rejected by the rest, yet I cannot help but remember what our founding fathers said to a future latter-day prophet when they demanded their temple ordinances be completed, that they had “followed the will of God unwaveringly”. How many of us could ever say the same?

Today, were I to ask any student in this county what form of government we employed, they would respond, “a democracy of course”. If I were to ask them what country they lived in, they would respond, “United States, duh”. Yet these two obvious answers couldn’t be more wrong. And America was based on freedom right? Wrong again.

For the past several generations, new developing media technologies and world turmoil have allowed Americans the opportunities to witness the government creation process as new countries formed and old governments reformed. We know that it a long and complicated endeavor. It is times such as those that inspire some to reflect upon America’s own beginnings that took over 6 years to complete since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and a generation of debate before that.

It was the conclusion of our forefathers that America would be a country based on the God given right to be free from government interference, the definition of liberty (look it up). And out of all the forms of government to choose from, they settled on the only one based on liberty, a republic. But they didn’t stop there, those men who were following the will of God unwaveringly, they erected boundaries to the powers granted to the Republic in a constitution.

But what do these terms mean? Today, modern usage seems to imply that liberty is synonymous with freedom, and republic synonymous with democracy. Yet 226 years ago, it was common knowledge that a republic is a form of government based on individualism where people assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents; A democracy is a form of government based on socialism where people assemble and administer it themselves.

To illustrate the difference of Liberty and freedom, I like to picture the difference between an average household canary and the wild eagle. The canary is free to choose which perch to stand on, free to eat whenever it wants to, and free to sing whenever it wants. In fact, it is free to do whatever it wants to do within the confines of it’s cage. Contrast that with the eagle, it is free to nest in any empty tree, free to soar from mountain peak to mountain peak, free to hunt, free to mate, free to protect itself, free to live, and free to die. The eagle is unrestrained in the things it is free to do, it has liberty where as the canary has mere freedom.

I am not a conspiracist. I do not believe that there is a group of people or an individual anywhere on this planet who seeks the destruction of liberty. In fact, I believe that our liberty is being eroded as a direct result of good intentions and lack of information by honest people who have simply been mislead by various propaganda. Propaganda, which, in my experience, can often trace it’s origins to socialism and/or America’s socialist party, which has sought the usurpation of the Republic in favor of a democracy for over 150 years now.

For years I thought that the best way to defend our republic and it’s constitution was through our congressmen, but then I realized that the problem does not lie with them, for there isn’t a single U.S. Congressmen who doesn’t know that their powers are limited; that the statutes they write can never subjugate a single American Citizen. They know that America’s legislatures may only write statutes which pertain to matters that concern every citizen but that cannot be attained by any single citizen. But they also know that the majority of Americans do not know that.

The fact of the matter is, that everyone who is subject to any given statute knows he is subject. This includes civilians (elected office holders, government agencies, agents, and employees, etc.), military personnel, corporations, and foreign entities within American boarders, such as immigrants who do not seek naturalization, tourists, etc.. In every case, subjects are notified of their subjugation through office oaths, employment agreements/contracts, visas and licenses, and charters, etc..

The problem is that local governments are populated by an uninformed public. It is the local legislatures that assume the ordinances they write are laws which apply to all inhabitants within it’s geographical jurisdiction. It is they who are the most unaware that statutes are not law, but that they may become law only when tested on a case-by-case basis in a legal court of law.

To compound the issue, many local legislatures use a monkey-see-monkey-do method of writing the statutes in the first place. A statute in New York, which is written because of it’s large population of unnaturalized foreigners, or corporations would be constitutional when applied to those, but unconstitutional when adopted by a small town without a single corporation, or unnaturalized foreigner. Property taxes, Eminent Domain, are perfect examples of monkey-see-monkey-do statutes. Local legislatures often focus on the fact they exist, but neglect to understand why they exist or to whom they apply.

To make matters worse, even sheriffs, the only legal law enforcement entity in America, are now “enforcing” those statutes without the least regard to Due Process; making arrests when no warrant for arrest has ever been issued, no conviction or even trial has ever occurred. Even the least informed American is familiar with the phrase “innocent until proven guilty”. Yet most dismiss it as how things used to be. Well, it’s not just the way things used to be, it’s the way it is. Every time you see a “law enforcer” making an arrest when a trial has not resulted in a conviction which warrants that arrest, you see a citizen’s liberty being violated.

And this is what it means to have constitutions hanging by a thread. It means that the constitutions exists, but the people aren’t taking the time to learn them, and as a result, they don’t know how to utilize them. It means that until such time that America’s citizenry begins to uphold and sustain our constitutions by disallowing local sheriffs to make arrests without lawfully issued warrants, and stopping prosecutors from pressing charges against citizens, and recalling any civilian who refuses to operate within their limits, the government is going to continue to infringe upon our liberty.

Most of the country’s sentiment is that this election year will be a pivotal turning point for America. On the U.S. Presidential front, voters must choose between what many are calling the worst of the worst. The socialist party is in full force and even it’s rival counterpart has a candidate with heavy socialist views. It is entirely possible that the federal Republic may not last another term regardless of who is elected its president.

On the local front, this county must decide on both the sheriff and the prosecutor. The major deciding factor appears to be the voters stance on how the jail issue was or should have been handled. An issue that has plagued many Idaho counties these past several years. County legislatures and sheriffs everywhere seem to think that new or more or bigger jails are needed. To prove it, more arrests are being made, and they’re getting away with it because no one is suing the sheriffs for false imprisonment, unlawful arrest, personating a law enforcement officer, and liberty and Due Process violations.

In the end it’s not going to matter which candidate is elected, but whether or not they are willing to start adhering to the supreme law of the land by honoring the limits therein. As equally important is whether or not the American Citizens uphold and sustain those same constitutions by enforcing them through the impeachment, and recall processes. A civilian who fears to lose his position and credibility will tend to go out of his way to stay on track. America cannot afford to continue to let it’s governments reign without responsibility or accountability if we expect to retain and maintain our liberty.

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with this thought, when a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken, or quit being honest. And for those of you who still haven’t figured it out, we live in America, which is the official short version of the States of America, which is a union of states, and is abbreviated U.S.A.. The United States is a legal term, which bears different definitions depending on the statute which uses it. In the Constitution of the United States of America, it refers to the federal government itself, or the seat of the federal government when used in a geographical sense.

Long live the Republic.