Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana
My first blog entry, here, was entitled "I Love My Country, But I Fear My Government". That sentiment could be just as aptly applied, here. I fear my government because it has abdicated its sole responsibility to secure the Rights of its citizens. Recent decisions and policies of our government not only seek to reduce the unalienable Right of Liberty, but are openly hostile to it. Bear with me, this is gonna be a long 'un, but I'll try to keep it on point.
In the last week, two policies are being pursued which directly undermine the Right of Liberty. First in the annoncement of a new Nuclear Posture Review.
First let me be totally clear: no sane person wants nuclear weapons to be used. However, much to the chagrin of the naysayers over the last 70 years, nuclear weapons can be and indeed have been an effective deterrent to major agression. Like it or not, MAD (mutually assurred destruction) works. It insured that no nuclear or WMD-capable power launched a war of aggression. These weapons did so by their very presence, not by their use. Contrary to the sentiments of General Sline in the movie Spies Like Us, it is not the case that "A weapon unused is a useless weapon."
Now, however, the administration and legislature have decided, unilaterally, that the United States will enter into a treaty with other nuclear powers in which we will not only further reduce our arsenal of democracy but we will pledge never to use these weapons against any signatory of this accord.
On the surface, this is laudable. And I don't disagree with part. After all, how many times over does one need to be able to obliterate the face of the earth before you consider it "overkill"? However, examining it deeper, it becomes evident that this is either a very myopically optimistic view of the world or a deliberate attempt to reduce the United States from its position as the sole superpower and insurer of Pax Americana.
You see, there are a couple of provisions and oversights that have been overlooked by the mainstream media. The major non-US signatories to this treaty can, without notice, reason or justification, exempt themselves at any time from the treaty and its provisions. That is, Russia, China, Pakistan, India or any other member of the "nuclear club" can decide that they don't need to abide by the provisions of the treaty. And yet, as signatories, we will have pledged never to use nuclear weapons against them no matter what. Yes, that's right: NO MATTER WHAT.
Also, this means that if a rogue state -- say North Korea or Iran -- receive weapons or technology from a signatory, we have no nuclear recourse against the signatory. Basically, it's a Get Out of Jail Free card for other countries: "So what, I didn't attack you, they did; I just sold them the technology."
The apologists and spinmeisters say that this doesn't matter. They tell us that if a signatory violates the conditions of the treaty, they are no longer subject to it. But this ignores several facts. It ignores the fact that the deliberately murky nuclear response policy of the United States in the past has prevented nuclear-capable countries from overtly (and even covertly) exporting their technology to these rogue states. It also ignores the fact that this says nothing for non-nuclear WMD technologies.
If someone, let's say a terrorist organization, with the assistance of a rogue state who is not a signatory of the treaty (because they have no nuclear weapons) unleashes a chemical or biological attack on the United States our only response under this treaty is to wage conventional war. That means "boots on the ground". And the rogue states know that it takes quite a while for us to work up to that and that the citizens have less stomach for that than keeping our troops out of harm's way by using standoff weapons. Therefore, they are free to make first strikes at will.
Oh, but wait, we're told -- we're all adults here. In effect, we're being sold a "if we play nice, everyone else will" view of the world that is hopelessly out of touch with reality and history. Let's look back over at how effective treaties have been with countries bent on conquest.
Famously, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Germany's Foreign Minister made so many treaties that were broken by Hitler that Hitler once had an ornate box made for Ribbentrop. Upon presenting it, he told Ribbentrop that it was filled with the treaties that had been made and was a symbol of Ribbentrop's service to the Reich. When Ribbentrop opened it to find it empty, Hitler joked that he couldn't find a single treaty that Ribbentrop had made that he (Hitler) hadn't broken.
Germany was not the only one. Russia itself showed its duplicity by negotiating treaties with China, Japan and Germany which it violated at the first opportunity. North Korea, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq have, in modern times, along with Eqypt (against Israel), Argentina (the Falklands conflict) continued this dubious tradition. We, ourselves have broken so many treaties with the Native American population that it became a standing joke.
It's clear to anyone who can read that treaties are worth less than the paper on which they're printed, to those determined to circumvent them. So either the administration and legislature have the completely unfounded belief that everyone would get along together "if only" or they are purposely weakening the ability of this government to protect its citizens. In either case, they no longer insure our Right to Liberty.
The second policy announcement is that the administration and legislature have finally found a way around the Second Amendment.
For the last four decades, gun control advocates have been attempting to repeal or restrict the Rights granted in that portion of the Constitution. They have been repeatedly and soundly defeated by a citizenry that understands that this would cede its plan of last resort for maintaining Liberty to a central government.
This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found a way around the voice of We The People. Instead of going through a process by which they've been defeated repeatedly, the administration has announced that it will seek a foreign treaty that will make it illegal to sell arms to United States citizens.
Having failed to sway the public in the past to remove the "demand", they instead will in effect, remove the "supply".
Why? Because they can. They can do an "end run", as they did with Health Care, around the will of the people and legislate through the judiciary or the executive branch (in contravention of the Constiution).
I'm not naturally paranoid, but having already shown that the United States is becomming, over decades, a fascist state I'm struck by the fact that, historically one of the first actions of such a state is to remove weapons from the control of the citizens. Fascist and socialist governments (Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Venezuela, the list goes on) have all made this a primary move. It's done for one very simple reason - an unarmed populace is a compliant and controllable populace.
You see, the Founding Fathers realized this. They realized that a government who has abdicated their responsibility to insure Liberty is fundamentally broken. They said that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government and they provided the citizens a means of last resort to insure that no govenment of this people could slide into such a miserable place. They provided that A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The Founding Fathers knew what Lord Acton put into words: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They specifically said that when this occurs -- when a government abdicates its responsibility to secure its citizen's unalienable Rights, including Liberty, that those citizens should dissolve and reform the government.
We have the luxury of living in a time and under a system where this can be done without resort to arms. We can revolt, rebel and reform civilly against a legislature and administration that have for too many decades usurped the Rights of its citizens and has accelerated on that course.
We are on a slippery slope. I have learned from history - I fear my government. My government no longer secures my Right to Liberty. So I have a Right and Responsibility as given me by our Framers. For myself, I am committed to my Four Point Action Plan:
- I am going to purchase small American flags. Each week, from now until November second, I am going to pin one upside-down to a piece of paper and send one each to my Congressmen and Senator with the simple notation "11/2" as a prediction and warning.
- I am going to get involved, right now, with a candidate.
- Through the winnowing of the primary process, I am going to choose and throw my support not just to my canidate but whomever is the closest to my philosophies and opposes the incumbent, regardless of party. We have been betrayed by both parties and all incumbents must therefore be voted out.
- I am going to personally and directly ask two people to do these four steps and to ask those people to do them as well. In that way, there will be a groundswell, a snowball of We The People.
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