Recently the state of California came up with a proposal to mandate use of radio-controlled thermostats as a means of controlling the temperature in homes. As outrageous as this sounds, it had the approval of many in the legislature and in the state administration. Fortunately, a public outcry of disapproval caused the proposal to be dropped. However the shear control-freak lunacy of the proposal brings to mind many, many other government controls of our daily lives that remain in effect with virtually no opposition or thought about how we have allowed government, directly and indirectly through the courts, to dictate "what is best for us". The world described by George Orwell may have taken longer than 1984 but it exists now because we have allowed ‘big brother’, to decide what is ‘best’ for us as we have incrementally given up the freedoms Americans started with when the United States was formed over two hundred years ago.
What do you suppose our country’s founders would think about the government telling us whether or not, and where, people could use tobacco (many were tobacco farmers)? What about some of these other dictates of our conduct: wearing seat belts in cars, helmets for motorcycle drivers, what kind of light bulbs, toilets and washing machines we can use in our homes, whether or not we should have auto and health insurance; and you can add many more.
Our government continues to find new ways to control our lives regarding energy use. The government is in the toilet bowl control business. Now toilets must meet strict Federal regulations, but these expensive toilets must be flushed more than once to be effective. The government now polices our washing machines. But new regulations that limit water usage are so ineffective with these new machines that Consumer Reports states the government mandated machines don't always get dirty clothes clean unless they're washed multiple times.
The path to energy independence prescribed by the government is anything but that; there is no effort to increase supplies, just to change the way we live. And now the government is in the light bulb police business by mandating replacement of the old fashioned 100 W incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), requiring these expensive new bulbs to be used that are only made, ironically, in China. Instead of finding new ways to punish and police Americans for using energy, we should find new efficient sources of more energy. I doubt if our forefathers fought for independence at Valley Forge just to give us an all-controlling government that demands how citizens use washing machines, light bulbs and toilet bowls.
The Second Amendment is under constant attack and even the Bush administration has jumped on board the ‘ban guns’ train by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to sanction restrictions on gun ownership; what a betrayal of conservative who voted for George Bush.
It seems the government, and primarily Democrats and other liberals, fear an armed citizenry that may one day decide to oppose usurpation of our God-given, and Constitution-given rights, so the answer for them is to abolish gun ownership or limit it so severely as to accomplish the same objective. The people that wrote the Constitution worried about this eventuality and prescribed these rights in the Second amendment that liberals in both parties seek to overturn by fiat and judicial action. Here is what our founders thought about that:
"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation… (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."
--Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356
“... to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."-- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380
And if you think this is nothing to worry about, remember what the icon of enslavement said:
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing."--
Adolph Hitler, Hitler's Secret Conversations 403 (Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens trans., 1961)
Yes indeed, now is the time to worry; and to do everything possible to prevent the government from continuing to pursue the current path of usurpation of power over our lives. We can start by voting for people who want to preserve our rights, not destroy them.
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