Posted on 06/22/2016 12:26:41 AM PDT by Jacquerie
In view of the increasing failures of national, state, local government from San Jose, CA to Sweden to protect their citizens from thugs, both secular and religious, where do innocent people turn when the institutions designed to serve the community fail to do so, or worse, actually turn against the people?
From my last post, John Locke explained in Chapter XIX of his Second Treatise, the legislative power, or, simply the legislative, granted by society to government is the essence of republicanism. When any force, from outside or within, alters the legislative, government is dissolved. Locke writes:
"When the legislative or executive act contrary to their trusts, government ceases, and is dissolved. The people are at liberty to provide for themselves by erecting a new legislature, differing from the old by change in persons or in form, as they believe best for their safety and good. Society can never lose the native and original right to preserve itself, which can only be done by a settled legislative, and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it."
Yet, in the face of continued usurpations, he notes that “the greater part of the people are more disposed to suffer, than right themselves by resistance, and are not apt to stir.” If that sounds familiar, our Founders wrote, “All experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Locke explains, “But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable of using this remedy until it be too late.” In other words, society does not have to wait until the boot of slavery is on their necks before they take action. Compare Locke to what our Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “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.” Men can never be secure from tyranny when there is no means to escape it. Therefore, they have not only a right to get out of tyranny but a duty to prevent it in the first place.
So, nations are apt to accept assaults on their liberty when they should actually fight back at every insult.
But what of those who say calling for rebellion in response to every alteration of the legislative sets the stage for continuous civil war? Locke countered that when the legislative is changed or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they were constituted, those responsible, not the people, are guilty of rebellion. They take away the arbitration which everyone consented to, for a peaceable framework to decide their controversies, and prevent war. When they who remove or change the legislative, they take away a decisive power which nobody but by the consent of the people can provide. By doing so, they introduce a State of War.
In the opening paragraph I asked, “Where do innocent people turn when the institutions designed to serve the community fail to do so, or worse, actually turn against the people?”
To this Locke replies, the innocent people must turn to society to decide whether or not their trustees or deputies act well, and according to the trust reposed in them. When miscarriages of power occur, authority is forfeited to the society, and the people have a right to conduct themselves as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves or erect a new form, or put the old form in new hands as they think good.
End.
The legislative of the United States has not only been horribly altered too many times to count, the executive of national, state and local governments increasingly make war on the people they swore to protect and serve. Every usurpation becomes precedent for the next. The grip of tyranny tightens every day. It is our sovereign duty in society with hundreds of millions of Americans to fight back. There is little time.
We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Be proactive. Be a Re-Founder of the American Republic. Join Convention of States.
Ping
You are under attack. A siege in progress. Enemies from various directions.
You have one vintage gun. It isn’t very efficient, but it has kept you alive so far. Is this a good time to put it down and tinker with it?
You have a fortified castle here, but it’s been breached in several places. Maybe you could run out to a better hill, and they’ll let you build a stronger castle.
If it doesn’t work out you can always go back to the old castle and the old gun. Right?
BTTT
“Government ceases when the law ceases.”
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