We Thought We Were Free

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand”, wrote Milton Mayer in his book They Thought They Were Free published in 1955.

What Mayer was describing in his book was the ever widening gap between the government and the people that happened “so gradually and so insensibly” no one seemed to notice.

“Each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) notes Mayer, “as a temporary emergency or associated with real social purpose…And all the crises and reforms so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter”.

Mayer could have easily been describing the ever widening progressive government we have here in America today. The largest of this gap being carefully created by “unknown, unnamed, and unelected bureaucrats who supplant regulations for what was once the law”, describes Mark Steyn.

This bureaucracy is summed up by an ever limitless governing set of rules that are not legislated by representatives accountable to the people, but invented by an activist government that determines transgressions and prosecutes infractions for rules they themselves have created hidden behind closed doors.

“Thanks to the ever more tangled spaghetti of preferences”, writes Steyn, “subsidies, entitlements, and incentives, apply to different citizens unequally”.

In the words of Victor Davis Hanson, what has happened under these preferences is that “old agencies are reinvented for new progressive missions” while the President is said to feel “liberated” in his revolutionary mode no longer constrained by Congress, the Constitution, or the voters themselves.

For instance, in our bureaucracy serving as the “senior lawyer for the largest government agency” while earning Obama’s personal and political loyalty will in-turn reward you with a promotion to a job you are completely unqualified for.

This was very much the case in regards to the Obama nominated Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson.

Less than four months after being sworn in as Secretary, Johnson was directed by Obama to do an “inventory of the Departments current practices” and relay back to the President on how it could “conduct enforcement more humanely”.

On the surface Johnson’s task to review DHS policies for humane purposes may have seemed inconsequential, but under the Obama adminstration, words have been reinvented to mask the unpleasant reality. In this case an “inventory of Department practices” masked the reality of what Johnson was in fact doing beneath the surface. For eight months Johnson worked as the architect to developing the basis for Obama’s announcement granting executive amnesty.

You may have missed it as the four different DHS memo’s were quietly released in conjunction with Obama’s announcement on November 20th to grant executive amnesty to illegal immigrants. Johnson wrote every single memo and detailed exactly how the DHS would now be prioritizing enforcement while relying upon prosecutorial discretion.

Johnson exploited our immigration laws working in concert with Obama’s directive and seemingly rewrote the deferred deportation eligibility requirements for over 4 million illegal immigrants currently living within our borders.

The government only grows more remoter as unelected representatives like Johnson are continuously appointed by a purely ideologically driven President that in this case pits citizens against illegal immigrants.

The divisiveness this creates is easy to understand when you look at the whole process from the outside with the common sense to realize that American citizen taxpayers will end up footing the bill for people who are here illegally.

Yet, what is more concerning than this, is the lack of concern or even protest on behalf of the American people that are now forced to help pay for the President’s agenda.

When videos surfaced of the now infamous architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, declaring that Obamacare would “not have passed if it had been presented honestly”, we heard crickets from the people.

Even more shocking than his “stupidity of the American people” comment are recent revelations uncovered from an October 2009 policy brief in which Gruber calmly laid out the fact that the “only way to control costs associated with Obamacare is to deny treatment”.

To note, this was after Gruber had already personally counseled Obama in the Oval Office and served on his transition team before Obama took to the nation to outright lie to us in stating “premiums would go down dramatically”.

There was no public outrage to this and the mainstream media buried this story without holding Gruber or the President accountable.

So Gruber gets a pass much in the same way our legislators do when no one held them accountable after passing, without reading, the 3,000 page health-care bill.

“What good is reading the bill if its a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”, proclaimed Rep. John Conyers after voting for Obamacare.

When our actual legislators, who in theory represent the best interests of the people, find it unreasonable to know what it is they are actually legislating into law, the end result becomes a bureaucracy embolden.

If we could do this without much opposition at all, ponders the bureaucrat, then what could we do next?

Explained in Milton Mayer terms “Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D”.

Re-writing our immigration laws is not so much worse than relying upon our Representatives to pass without reading a 3,000 page multi-trillion dollar bill that encompasses one sixth of the economy. And if you didn’t make a stand against the passing of Obamacare, why should you with Obama’s executive order on illegal immigration?

And so on to steps such as the abolishment of Voter ID laws by Obama’s Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch and the creation of a 21st Century Policing Task Force to review “better policing practices” and report to the President in March of how to implement this. And so on to Step E, F, and G.

My suggestion is simple, Principiis Obsta and Finem Respice – ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end’.

In our case as in the case of Mayer’s “one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings”. If we do not take a stand in one of the many scandals surrounding this adminstration then the end will inevitably be a bureaucracy grown to such an extent that each and every one of us will eventually fall under attack.

If we continue to do nothing and do not take a stand when the IRS targets Conservatives or the White House targets the Constitution or politicians target our police and borders, then we will meet a fate similar to that of Pastor Niemoller in They Thought They Were Free.

Mayer concludes of Niemoller, “when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; Then they attacked the Socialists, he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; Then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. Then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something –

A most excellent Freeper Editorial.

Five hundred years ago, Machiavelli wrote how governing institutions designed for Free Republics were not only unsuited for corrupted republics, they eventually served to enforce tyranny. His prescience is display in the US Congress.

Designed in 1787 as the consensual law making body of a free people and their states, Congress has joined in tyrannical partnership with Obama.

In support of Obama’s lawless revisions of law, dozens of republicans, and all rats vote for whatever Obama wants.

We The People delegated law making and spending authority to Congress alone. We did not create Congress to justify, endow and rubber-stamp tyranny.

A Congress designed for a FreeRepublic not only no longer serves its purpose, it has become a handmaiden to enslavement.

Congress must be reformed. We can reform it.

Article V. Now.

What America needs is for some Republican to run on the idea of a “reform administration”. “A new broom sweeps clean” is an old American campaign platform that has long been neglected.

It was a big idea when running against the big city political machines and other corrupt governments. And the only thing that has changed is the *scale* of government that desperately needs reform.

In practical terms, this candidate would run on the idea of *not* assuming that his administration should “begin with the status quo, and work from there.”

Instead, from day 1 in office, his goal should be to *cut* government by say 25 percent in size and power. With what he does in office focused on achieving that goal.

While this sounds almost impossible, it only involves a simple equation. How big is the government?, and how powerful is it?, and how big and powerful *should* it be, based on the US constitution, and the realities of the modern world?

Importantly, “realities” does *not* mean the status quo. It means “Ending large parts of government while hurting as few citizens as possible.” And “hurting” does not include firing government deadwood.

“My suggestion is simple, Principiis Obsta and Finem Respice”

Too much Latin. Let’s try English:

Let’s remember that President Reagan taught us that leftists fear three things:

!. Threats of violence.

2. Violence.

3. Death.

That recipe toppled the evil empire.

Article V. Now.

As much as I respect you Jaquerie, we disagree there. If this claque of clowns can't abide by the existing document, what makes anyone think that a "new and improved" version will accomplish anything but give the same kleptocracy an opportunity to institute constitutional socialism? After all, George Soros is a big fan of an Article V convention.

I much prefer the usual amendment procedure. The better thing to do is to propose some simple amendments that would raise little opposition and get them through. Might I suggest starting with Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 to read "two thirds of the full Senate" instead of "two thirds of the Senators present"? Start there.

Then fix the Supremacy Clause to make it unambiguous that unconstitutional treaties are void. Then kill the 17th.

Your concern is a common one. However, on closer examination, an Article V convention is our only hope. It is not a certainty.

Someone else at FR last year posted the same bircher link dealing w/Soros. I went to the listed left wing websites and didn't find any interest in Article V. Maybe that has changed. If so, please let me know.

I believe you will find Chapter XVIII from Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy to be of interest. (http://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy1.htm) Scroll down to XVIII. He looked around the mess that was northern Italy at the time, and thought the world might learn from the experience of the longest lived republic in history. He succinctly examined how the once freedom-enhancing institutions of consul, tribunes and senate evolved to actually diminish freedom.

The US suffers from a situation similar to that of the late Roman Republic. Our governing institutions from 1787 -1913 resulted in the freest and most prosperous people on earth. We foolishly modified the all important structure of our government with the 17A, and its evil twin, the 16A.

They blew the door wide open to corruption of both society and government.

Those who profit so well from the existing framework will never propose meaningful reform. Obama will soon have the treaty power, not because he will take it, but because congress will give it to him. The executive also determines spending and can rewrite statutes as it pleases. We live in a tyranny, not a free republic.

Our institutions clearly do not serve freedom. They must be reformed. Article V is the only possible way to repeal the 17A.

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