I’ll be the first to admit it I’m not that damn smart. I may spend more time reading than many people do, but that doesn’t make me smarter, just more well-read. I may also have a talent for stringing thoughts together in a manner to produce a convincing argument, but once again, that doesn’t make me smart. You want to see smart, read some of the books I do…those men were smart. I am however, very opinionated. Therefore, since these are my articles, and no one is forcing you to read them, I can pretty much say whatever I damn well please.

Today at work I was having a discussion with a co-worker about what is happening in Georgia regarding Barack Obama’s eligibility to be on the upcoming ballot. My friend told me that he had been discussing the subject with another co-worker and this person had refused to accept that it was happening because he had not seen anything about it on the evening news.

I tell you this, not to poke fun at the co-worker we were discussing, but to point out that most people simply do not wish to spend any amount of time seeking out the truth, or doing any critical thinking on their own.

Critical thinking is defined as “…is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”

What this is all leading up to is this, the presidential election in November. I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction. Even though Barack Obama’s performance as president has been dismal, at best, I still believe that we will get stuck with another four years of that S.O.B. Allow me to explain why.

Mitt Romney, will all likelihood, get the Republican nomination, and I don’t think Romney stands a snowballs chance in hell of beating Obama. And even if he did, I don’t honestly think we would be much better off with him in office anyway.

I know a lot of people are still hanging onto the hope that Ron Paul can win, but that isn’t going to happen. Not that I have anything against Congressman Paul, it is simply that the people that truly run this country, those behind the curtain so to speak, just won’t let him win.

I have heard a lot of discussion online about the delegate issue, and how Ron Paul is only hoping to collect enough delegates to have his views entered into the discussion during the GOP convention. I suppose if he has enough delegates they will have to give him time to air his opinions in return for support of those delegates.

I have also heard that it is mathematically impossible for Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to get the nomination because neither of them made it onto the ballots for enough states. People are asking why both of them are even bothering to continue their campaigns when they know they can’t win.

This is what I see happening. I think that the reason Gingrich and Santorum are sticking it out is so that, even though they know they can’t win, they may be able to gather enough delegates between the two of them so as to diminish the importance of the Ron Paul delegates. I think that eventually, whatever delegates collected by Gingrich and Santorum, will swing over in support of Romney, leaving Ron Paul out of the picture, and his message off the table during the convention. But that’s just what I see happening, I could be wrong.

Whatever happens, Romney is going to get the GOP nomination, leaving us with the option of either voting for him, Obama, or Ron Paul as a write in. Sure, a write in vote for Ron Paul will be a vote based upon principle, and a vote for what this country may need, but it isn’t going to change the outcome of the election. Either we are going to have Romney as our next president, or four more years of Obama. In plain English, we’re screwed either way.

So where does that leave us, what options do we have? A long time ago, George Washington said, “The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”

If any of you have seen the very first Matrix movie, you will recall the scene when Neo is first plugged into the construct, the training program where he learns the truth about the Matrix. When someone is jacked into the construct it is possible to then upload any data they want into that person’s brain. If I had the ability to jack every single person in this country into a similar training platform, and then upload every document I’ve ever read regarding the formation of our government, the origin of our rights, and the reality of what our elected representatives have done to our republic, that most people would still look to solve this nation’s problems at the voting booth.

I’m here to tell you people, we do not have to put up with our governments bullshit if we don’t want to. We put up with it because we do not know our rights, and the fact that we built this government, and we can damn sure dismantle it if it stops serving its intended purpose.

Grover Cleveland, our 22nd President reminded us that “Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.” In 1838, Abraham Lincoln stated, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.” [my emphasis]

Our system of government, as I discussed in a recent article, probably came as close to perfection as anything every created by man. So why do we sit back and let a bunch of limp dicks tinker with it and usurp all kinds of power and authority over our lives that it was never intended they have?

In 1785 James Madison wrote, “The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be universally maintained but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them and are slaves.” [my emphasis]

In The draft for the Kentucky Resolutions Thomas Jefferson offered us a simple way out; “Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

In his Notes on Virginia, 1782, Jefferson reaffirmed that by saying, ““[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.”

Note that he says that our acquiescence may be construed as an intention to surrender our rights. In other words, if we sit back and do nothing, our government assumes we don’t have the courage to stand up for our rights and put an end to their constant usurpation of power and authority over our lives.

Jefferson is also quoted as saying, “And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” How much longer are we going to seek answers by electing people to do what is rightfully within our power and authority to do ourselves?

Yet, I share the same sentiments as did former President Franklin Pierce when he said, “I wish I could indulge higher hope for the future of our country, but the aspect of any vision is fearfully dark and I cannot make it otherwise.”

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal