Only Individual Sovereignty, Not Elections, Will Preserve Liberty

The People of this country are no longer interested in liberty because freedom carries both uncertainty and responsibility. Permission to act by virtue of privileges granted via fees, licenses, permits, and decrees is not freedom at all; rather it is the reward of well behaved slaves. Safety, security, status (and the rights and benefits thereof), the perpetuation of Mother Earth, policing the world, and the offense of others (perceived or otherwise) are the primary concerns of the People and most could care a damn about the cost associated with achieving them. Whether stylized as conservatives or liberals, most want a safety net weaved with strands of regulations, special considerations, and intervention that invade the lives of others, unduly impose upon resources, and render that which is private public.

The two party system perpetuates this, ensuring the relative status quo, regardless of who is elected. While it periodically facilitates action reflective of contemporary passion, this is but a valve to release pressure that could otherwise destroy the boiler of a powerhouse established and controlled by elites who fuel it with the funds necessary to protect their interests. The prophetic statement of George Washington has long been realized: "However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Succinctly, for those who believe in the Constitution and the individual liberty provided therein, elections now provide little beyond momentary gratification associated with a false sense of self determination. This is because those who are ultimately elevated to public office, regardless of their party, will first serve those to whom they are indebted and secondly themselves by imposing law in the name of safety and security to ultimately profit a few while further shackling a society sedated by hedonism and governed with fear of the inevitable. In the unlikely event that new legislators endeavor to shirk their debts and self-serving nature, myriad agencies and organizations, empowered to establish and enforce policies and regulations as if they were law, exist at all levels to ensure that the yoke of general welfare remains to confound the true state of freedom that comes from the natural rights provided by Almighty God.

During the latter quarter of the Eighteenth Century, a handful of radical colonials understood that the subversion of natural rights compromised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Consequently, they successfully secured these rights by waging war against the greatest empire on the face of the earth and established a Republic that would perpetuate individual liberty, provided (to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin) that the People could keep it. This Republic, which was designed to protect natural rights from the caprice of both the government and popular opinion, via a Constitution and Bill of Rights, was instituted with the consent of the People with the understanding that sovereignty was vested in them, not representatives, offices, nor institutions.

When, as Washington predicted "---unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government..." only individual sovereignty, not elections, will preserve liberty. The American People, on their own recognizance, seized liberty for themselves by determining what taxes they would pay and what laws they would obey while discarding those which were repugnant to freedom. Liberty for the Colonies was not a concern for King George III and Parliament; liberty for Americans is not a concern for contemporary, self-serving, partisan politicians who spend many times what they can earn while campaigning for the offices that they hold. When the ballot offers no reflection of liberty and the principles of the Founding Fathers, the words of Thomas Jefferson ring clear: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."