Houston, we have a problem.
“government’s long train of abuses and usurpations”
You have a certain amount of folks here who know what these are. You have other folks here, who agree, but can’t list them all. I fall into the latter group. It’s exhausting work.
But I think there’s a lot of soaring and borderline bellicose rhetoric.
While soaring rhetoric inspired when it came from the founding fathers, now, the general population is much less invested in caring about what DC does.
We have been numbed into apathy and ignorance.
I read in the BBC today that the US military actually did a study about tobacco use in the forces and was thinking about banning tobacco consumption in war zones, but had decided against it.
This one sort of shook me to my roots. What kind of government thinks it has a right to prohibit the use of a legal substance in its military? That’s just some crazy and scarily intrusive stuff!
And so, I see clearly on the horizon that our rights to our bodies will be trumped. We will be mandated to live as the government decides proper. Apparently, we’ll be allowed to be high on marijuana, though. That ought to dull the sharp revocation of our freedoms.
So, while I’m as concerned as you are, I think that FIRST we need to list in clear terms those things that the government has done which are in clear opposition to the constitution.
And following that, perhaps a court challenge is in order.
Right now, it seems that some people are fired up (but believe me when I say the general public is ignorant of a lot of this and mostly apathetic) but others cannot sense a clear and present danger to our constitution being presented by the current government and before it can be opposed, it must be articulated succinctly with bullet points and supporting documentation.
We believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Constitutional restoration has long been our primary mission on Free Republic.
tell you now and this is from serving
if he tried to ban smoking in the military then that will be another issues which the military will get pissed off with.
We already have homos pushing to be openly homo and yet tell us it is their private business and now smoking.
Well, I can definitely agree with that. It's why I've asked for a committee and a special congress made up of delegates from all states to draft the document and work the kinks out. Would be best but not absolutely required if the state legislatures (or a significant portion thereof) are on on board.
I love the passion, but I think secession is more practical. There are tens of millions of “Americans” who simply don’t share our values and we’d be better to separate ourselves.
Problem with that is, we are out of time.
Good post, though.
The problem with bullet points is that they are too restrictive. What about the 243,687 other ways the government oversteps their bounds that are not listed. I think Jim has nailed the, one catch-all lament by citing the fact that the FedGov has as a matter of course, overstepped their constitutional constraints. THAT is what we are protesting. If more examples need to be cited that is fine, but I believe it would be better to focus the complaint on a single big ticket grievance.
BUMP!
We need a simple list with simple supporting documentation that can be disseminated far and wide.
It needs to be a strong attention getting device as most people (unfortunately) are very apathetic about this.