Reaching for freedom

We look around for freedom, but so very rarely does anyone reach for it. Part of this is because so very few understand what it is... Freedom is not the absence of laws, for the absence of laws creates tyranny by its very nature. Freedom is being free to exercise your full rights in ways that do not remove the rights of others. This is the nature of our constitutional republic's vision of a Republican form of government. (To be distinctly separated from the 'Republican Party').


Our nation is based upon the definition of a republican form of government, a form designed and instiuted not to preserve absolute liberty, but to gain freedom by reducing the potential of removing liberty itself. We, as a nation, are a fallen group, having fallen away long since from the visions of our forefathers, and the truths that were enshrined so long ago.

We, the people of our nation, are not the servants of the government, for that government was designed and implemented to serve us, not the other way around. We, the people are the owners of the government, and as such, any actions taken by that government against our liberty are null and void.

We look at the society around us and say 'someone ought to make a law'. Well, to tell the truth, someone already did. The problem is not the lack of a law, but the presence of laws outside of the constitutional authority. That constitution conferred no rights, established nothing but a government with limited powers, and gave that government specific prohibitions against the use fo those powers.

The powers of government are such that each and every action taken by that government had to be within the limited, expressed powers of that government, and further within the very limited scope allowed by article 1, section 9. The limitations were placed against attainder, a very poorly understood term at this time. Attainder was not merely the old writ of attainder, however, by which property was seized and the life was forfeit by the writ. The doctrines of the United States, included 'bills of pains and penalties' by which any property, or right was also protected against seizure. These protections from attainder were placed to prevent aspiring politicians from stirring up the people, one part against another, and against the politicians for creating advantages for themselves or disadvantages for their competitors.

Any targeted legislation that removes any right of the people (including the rights of life, liberty, property, or the ability to defend them) is in effect transferring, or 'alienating' the right from the property of the person, to becoming the property of the government. This is why those rights were written as to be 'inalienable', the property process of transfer and alienation could not occur by any means.

How then do we have so much fewer exercises of those rights today? Perhaps because we've gone along passively, allowing the rights to be alienated for others. For a felon, we remove the rights to vote, to keep and bear arms, to serve on juries and hold offices. We make laws making more and more felons, when the only means by which those rights could be removed at the beginning... was for capital crimes like murder.

We go along, saying 'there oughta be a law' and ignore the fact that there is already 'a law', and myriad laws... but neither the state, nor the federal government can limit the operation of a right that pre-existed the union.

To do so would be attainder... even if targeted against the entire class of the citizenry.

After all, if it is a natural right to keep and bear arms, reserved to the people themselves, and not the states, to maintain, keep, and bear arms against tyranny of all sources.. then how can the most likely source of tyranny be allowed to establish statuses for which the right to protect oneself from tyranny is alienated to the government?

If the government removes that right, does it not follow that they take upon themselves the duty to protect those who can no longer protect themselves?

But they do not.

"Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect
individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty
is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection
of the general public." (Lynch v. NC Dept. Justice)

". . . a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen."--Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)

If there is no right to self-protect, and no right to be protected, we have created a class of victims.

To illustrate the attitude of the constitution prior to 1913, the Idaho State Constitution, ratified by the State, and part and parcel of its introduction to the Union.

Section 1.Inalienable rights of man. All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; pursuing happiness and securing safety.

I don't know about you, but it would seem clear that 'enjoying and defending life and liberty' being an inalienable right would seem to indicate that even the government itself cannot limit it.

That's a good thing to ponder when you say 'there ought to be a law'.

The Texas constitution:

Sec. 1. FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY OF STATE. Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.

Sec. 2. INHERENT POLITICAL POWER; REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.

Sec. 23. RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.
(amended by Texas's congress in the 1950s from Sec. 23. RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State.)

Sec. 29. PROVISIONS OF BILL OF RIGHTS EXCEPTED FROM POWERS OF GOVERNMENT; TO FOREVER REMAIN INVIOLATE. To guard against transgressions of the high powers herein delegated, we declare that everything in this "Bill of Rights" is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate, and all laws contrary thereto, or to the following provisions, shall be void.

I'd say that section invalidates the amendment, does it not?