Liberty's Death By A Thousand Cuts, Part 2: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Yesterday, we talked about the farewell speech that Congressman Ron Paul gave in front of Congress last year. Congressman Paul has been one of the few Washington politicians who appreciated, respected, and tried to preserve the tenets of freedom and liberty that have made this country great. Unfortunately, he was in a small minority that tried to protect the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Our discussion yesterday focused on the many small ways that freedom has been eroding in this country over the years, almost totally at the hands of the political class, death of freedom by a thousand cuts:

• Debt is growing exponentially.
• The accompanying household tax burden grows every year.
• Government politicians and bureaucrats control more and more of our lives including our retirement income via Social Security, our retirement medical care via Medicare, and our pre-retirement medical care via Obama Care.
• This Presidential administration sees no problems with killing American citizens without due process of law, both overseas and domestically.
• This Presidential administration sees no problems with holding anyone in captivity without due process for indefinite amounts of time.
• This Presidential administration sees no problems with spying and tracking citizens without any justifiable reasons.
• This Presidential administration continues to execute and lose the war on drugs, destroying Fourth Amendment rights and freedom of choice in the process.

These and other affronts to liberty were discussed yesterday using Congressman’s Paul speech as the basis. Today, we will examine some other concepts of freedom and hope he provided as an outline on how to retrieve the freedom we have allowed the political class to take away:

“No one claims it’s permissible to go into one’s neighbor’s house and tell them how to behave, what they can eat, smoke and drink, how to spend their money. Yet rarely is it asked why it is morally acceptable that a stranger with a badge and a gun can do the same thing in the name of law and order. Any resistance is met with brute force, fines, taxes, arrests and even imprisonment. This is done more frequently every day without a proper search warrant.”

“Government in a free society should have no authority to meddle in social activities or the economic transactions of individuals.”

“Nor should government meddle in the affairs of other nations. All things peaceful, even controversial, should be permitted.”

“Achieving legislative power and political influence should not be our goal. Most of the change, if it is to come, will not come from the politician, but rather from individuals, family, friends, intellectual leaders, and our religious institutions. The solution can only come from rejecting the use of coercion, compulsion, government commands, and aggressive force to mold social and economic behavior.”

“The idealism of nonaggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried. What I am talking about is a system of government guided by the moral principles of peace and tolerance.”

“A society that boos or ridicules the Golden Rule is not a moral society. All great religions endorse the Golden Rule. The same moral standards that individuals are required to follow should apply to all government officials. They cannot be exempt.”

“To achieve liberty and peace, two powerful human emotions have to be overcome. Number one is envy, which leads to hate and class warfare. Number two is intolerance, which leads to bigoted and judgmental policies. These emotions must be replaced with a much better understanding of love, compassion, tolerance, and free market economics.”

“The best chance of achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people worldwide, is to pursue the cause of liberty. If you find this to be a worthwhile message, spread it throughout the land.”

Fabulous words for anyone to follow if they desire to live in a free society. Unfortunately, these words cannot be applied to most of the American political class:

• When a California Congresswoman openly wished that American citizens that did not agree with her political views should go to hell, she was not living up to the Golden Rule or showing any kind of compassion or tolerance.
• When politicians blame the rich, the successful, and the high producers in our society, they are not reducing envy, they are fueling it.
• When government entities buy billions of rounds of ammunition and over 2,700 armor tank vehicles they are reinforcing their ability to use brute force, coercion, aggression, and compulsion to mold social and economic behavior.
• When government continues to execute a lost war on drugs or tries to dictate the size of your soda container these are nothing more than other ways to aggressively behavior, not recognizing the right of a free people to do what they want as long as they do it peacefully and non-aggressively.
• When the Patriot Act, NDAA, spying on citizens, and indefinite detention is viewed as major achievements of the political class, the opposing concepts of peace, nonaggression, privacy, and freedom have been relegated to the history bin.
• When politicians “energize their base” by demeaning, slandering, and belittling those in our society that have a legitimate contrary view to those politicians, they are spreading the cancer of intolerance, not enhancing the art of debate and the ideal respect.

You get the idea. We have allowed the political class to divide and conquer us, going a long way in destroying our democracy in the process. As Congressman Paul points out, to reverse this trend we cannot rely on the same politicians to restore the ideals of liberty and freedom. That victory has to come from ourselves, our families, our friends, and others outside the realm of politics, or as Einstein once said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Or the same politicians.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w