The other day someone said that just because they weren’t a radical, and did not hold the same beliefs as I do, that they are brainless. I suppose I have been a little bit harsh with my comments as of late. You can chock my comments up to frustration. I should know better, everyone has a brain, it just doesn’t seem that they are being put to good use.

The problem is that the human brain is like a sponge, it absorbs whatever it is exposed to. Expose it to useful information and you will have a wealth of knowledge at your disposal. On the other hand it similar to a muscle in that if you expose it to garbage it will become lazy, and no longer be of any practical use other than to keep your body functioning.

Many moons ago, Samuel Adams said something that I have found to be very true. He said that, “Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.” I have noticed that when I get into a disagreement over politics with people, that they cannot provide me with any real facts or statistics to support their viewpoints. Instead, all their opinions are based upon emotional responses to the subject being discussed. People do not think about things anymore, they feel. Big difference.

Even so, since I was told by this individual that she does have a brain, I am going to allow everyone who reads this to prove it. There are those who read, and respond to my articles, on a regular basis. This article is not addressed to them. It is addressed to everyone who disagrees with my point of view. I am going to lay out some facts, facts which cannot be disputed. Then I am going to ask you to explain how you can justify our government doing the things it does. I do not wish for emotional rants, I want cold hard statistics to prove that you are right, and I am wrong.

Before I begin, I would hope that everyone to whom I am addressing this still believe that our nation’s founding documents hold some validity today, that they form the foundation upon which our system of government was built. If we cannot agree on that simple fact, then all else that follows is a waste of both my time, and yours.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson stated something that goes to the very heart of the matter when referring to the powers granted any system of government.

Jefferson declared that “We [We being the people in general] hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

From the very beginning, our fore fathers believed that our rights were ours, a gift from God, not some benevolent gift bestowed upon us by governments made up of men. They were ours as our birthrights as human beings, not because we were subjects under any system of government.

In 1829, at the Virginia Convention for their state Constitution, James Madison stated, “It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot be separated.”

Notice in these two statements the similarity of terms used, self-evident, sufficiently obvious. When we first started out as an independent nation, these things were just that, commonly accepted beliefs held by the people. Unlike today when people who hold these beliefs are considered radicals by the general population.

Getting back to what Madison said in 1829, we read that, “…the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted…”

Madison said that it was for the protection of rights that governments were instituted. Governments were created to make sure no one trampled upon the rights of the people. What a difference two hundred years can make, when government at all levels is guilty of trampling upon our rights. But, I get ahead of myself.

In creating the system of government that they did, our nations founders entrusted the people to watch over it so that their rights, and their liberty would be secure for generations to come.

Moments after being sworn in as our first President, George Washington stated, “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

Our system of government was exactly that, an experiment unlike anything every attempted before; to see if people could be trusted to elect wise, and virtuous men to be their representatives, and run the country in such a way that their rights would remain secure.

It was a heavy burden to be placed upon the people, but as Thomas Paine once said, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

Yet our founders laid out a system in which, if adhered to, would do just that, preserve our rights, and our liberty, while holding our nation together. The instruction manual, for lack of a better word to use, for our system of government was the Constitution.

That document outlined the various branches of our government… and their specific duties. Prior to its ratification, the arguments waged to and fro, for and against, the proposed new system of government. In an argument supporting this new system, James Madison penned a number of articles entitled Federalist. From number 45 I quote the following, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

Prior to the drafting of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson had written that, “The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers.”

It was for the purpose of ensuring that our government did not grow into one which held unlimited power, that our Constitution specifically outlined the scope of its authority. Article 1, Section 8 clearly lists those few powers upon which our government may act. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our founders also understood that times may change, that the need for additional powers be granted to the government. They provided for that in the amendment process.

In regards to that process, George Washington was clear when he stated, “If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” [emphasis added]

As stated, Article 1, Section 8 clearly define the powers granted to our government. Yet the Supreme Court has routinely ruled that of the Constitution grants powers not clearly mentioned, but hinted at by our government by various clauses found within that document. The Commerce Clause, and the General Welfare Clause have been construed to grant our government almost unlimited power over every aspect of our lives.

Remember those Federalist Articles I mentioned? Well in number 81 Alexander Hamilton wrote, “In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State.”

It was never intended that our government be granted this blank check upon its powers. James Madison stated so himself when he declared, “With respect to the two words “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

Now that I have stated my case, and if you still believe that our nation’s founding documents are the only thing that grants our government any authority over us whatsoever, then how can you explain to me the fact that our government legislates upon issues it was never intended they do so? How can you justify their continued infringements upon our rights?

These are not idle questions, I would like to hear how you, as an individual, who supports legislation such as the Patriot Act, or the recently passed Health Care bill, how you justify your support for these things when it was clearly never intended that our government be allowed to enact laws regarding them?

As I’ve been told, people believe that they have a brain. Prove it, show me where I’m wrong. You people think that because you watch a 30 minute news broadcast that you are informed.

What a joke! Do you honestly think that a thirty minute news broadcast could even begin to cover some of the bills that our government passes on a daily basis? It took me three weeks of reading nearly four hours a night, just to make it through the recently passed Health Care bill. Even then I still do not know half of what it does due to the legal mumbo jumbo used to write it.

James Madison once warned us about this when he said, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what is will be tomorrow.”

So don’t tell me you are informed because you happen to watch the news every night. Even those who rely upon people such as Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck, and yes, even Alex Jones, are relying upon someone else to keep you informed.

There are so many out there warning of conspiracies about this, and conspiracies about that. To some extent they may be telling you the truth, there may in fact be a whole slew of conspiracies aimed at depriving us of our rights, and reducing us to slavery.

Even Thomas Jefferson said so, “Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.”

But yet, at the root of all this, is the fact that our government has overstepped its authority. All the treaties, unconstitutional laws, and violations of our rights boil down to the fact that we have let our government get away with it. If they had been held accountable for their abuses of power, our country would not be in the state it is today.

In the draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, written in 1798, Thomas Jefferson stated, “Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” We grant our consent to these laws by our compliance with them, and therefore we are as much to blame as is our government.

Remember what the Declaration of Independence said, “…that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness…”

To conclude, this is not something that I wrote, just to be read and tossed into the trash along with last nights leftovers. This is a challenge to each of you. I am asking you to show me that you have a brain by thinking about what I have just said.

If you are honest with yourself, and with me, you will have no choice but to conclude that I am right, and you have been wrong. If this had been a court of law, I would now be stating, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case. But it is not that simple. I am asking you to put aside your emotions and use your brain, as it was intended, to process information and come to a conclusion. I know it will be asking a lot out of some of you. But hey, you are the ones who told me you have brains. Prove it, use them!

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal