The Tyranny of our Ever Expanding Government

“Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?” — James Madison, Federalist No. 62 — 1788

When writing about the tyranny of a mutable government and the legislature passing long and complicated laws of which no one could comprehend and obey James Madison raises the very forceful point. He stated that citizens will find it very difficult to obey the law if it is constantly changing (“mutable government”), either by growing enormously in size to be beyond the grasp ordinary people, or by being incoherent, or being repealed or revised before they are promulgated.

Today we have the situation where massive and complicated laws, like ObamaCare (over 3,000 pages) are passed without having been read or debated by the legislators themselves, let alone discussed in the press and by the people. When this sad state has been reached, the law itself, as Madison eloquently says, “poisons the blessings of liberty.” James Madison stated in Federalist No. 62:

“To trace the mischievous effects of a mutable government would fill a volume. I will hint a few only, each of which will be perceived to be a source of innumerable others.

In the first place, it forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once by all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly. His more friendly neighbors may pity him, but all will decline to connect their fortunes with his: and not a few will seize the opportunity of making their fortunes out of his. One nation is to another, what one individual is to another; with this melancholy distinction perhaps, that the former, with fewer of the benevolent emotions than the latter, are under fewer restraints also from taking undue advantage of the indiscretions of each other. Every nation, consequently, whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability, may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors. But the best instruction on this subject is unhappily conveyed to America by the example of her own situation. She finds that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs.

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.

In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.

But the most deplorable effect of all is that diminution of attachment and reverence which steals into the hearts of the people, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.”

In Federalist Paper 10, probably the most important of the Federalist Papers, James Madison, writing as Publius, addresses the Tyranny of the Majority trough Factions.

“Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.”

As I have stated in previous blogs in 2007, Congress enacted 138 public laws, while federal agencies finalized 2,926 rules, including 61 major regulations.” In this context, it is irrelevant who resides in the White House or holds the House speaker’s gavel. America is not a nation of laws, but of rules. Only a renewed cultural will to true reform, coupled with political leadership, can correct that.

Today we are experiences the worst of our Founder’s fears. An unfettered executive branch coupled with a legislative branch that is so encumbered with factions that it no longer serves the will of the people. This combination of ills has formed a fourth branch of government — the administrative state.

I have written numerous times about the history and tyrannical effects of the administrative state and how it is slowly destroying the republic our Founders envisioned. The latest egregious example is the Senate passed 1,200 page immigration bill that contains so much pork a pig farmer would have problems weighing it. It contains cars for immigrants to placate Senator Barry Sanders of New Hampshire and subsidies for the Alaskan fishing industry. It states that the counterfeiting of no more than three U.S. passports is not a crime. While allowing for the hiring of 20,000 additional border patrol agents and building a fence along the entire border it gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to cancel the fence construction at any time at their discretion.

Today a landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act has set up a stand-off between Republican-led states and the Obama administration over controversial voting laws that until now had been stalled.

The 5-4 ruling on Tuesday addressed a 1960s-era provision that largely singled out states and districts in the South — those with a history of discrimination — and required them to seek federal permission to change their voting laws.

The court ruled that the formula determining which states are affected was unconstitutional.

In doing so, the court potentially opened the door for certain states to proceed with voter ID laws and other efforts that to date had been held up because of the Voting Rights Act. Prominent among those are voter identification laws in Alabama and Mississippi.

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder has claimed that he does not agree with the ruling and will continue to do all he can to force states to abide by his edicts

Attorney General Eric Holder warned states against going too far. He said the Justice Department would not hesitate to take "swift" action against states looking to "take advantage" of the ruling.

He, like President Obama, said he was "deeply disappointed" in the decision, saying discriminatory practices live on and need to be addressed.

"These problems have not been consigned to history," Holder said.

Holder and Obama urged Congress to create a new formula.

"Today's decision invalidating one of its core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent," Obama said.

To read more on this decision click here.

In another example of the power of the administrative state today Obama declared his war on coal even though throughout the 2012 election campaigned he denied such a war on coal or guns.

So much for the denials. An administration that throughout its 2012 election campaign denied it was waging a War on Coal has now come out and publicly declared its intention to shut down coal-fired power plants – putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work and sending electricity prices skyrocketing.

This is not what the American people voted for.

Responding to a White House petition to end the War on Coal, the administration said: “The President has made clear that he understands that coal has played a critical role in our country’s energy portfolio for decades and will continue to be an important source of energy in the future.”

Sycophantic liberal media outlets (like The Nation and the Associated Press) went further, repeatedly claiming that the War on Coal was a myth. The Obama campaign even ran a TV ad in Ohio claiming that Mitt Romney would be bad for coal – and trotted out former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland to deny there was a war on coal and echo the attacks on Romney.

Yet today Obama political consultant David Plouffe took to Twitter to bang his chest: “Today's climate announcement underscores that elections matter greatly” – as if Obama had campaigned on shutting down coal plants instead of on denying his intention to do so.

Such denials are no longer necessary. Today a top Obama global warming adviser told The New York Times the denials were just election-year politics. Daniel Schrag said: “Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.

And Obama delivered. It’s right there on page 19 of his Climate Action Plan: “Going forward, we will promote fuel-switching from coal to gas for electricity production.”

Indeed, Obama made clear in his speech that he intends to impose regulations on existing coal plants that can only be met through carbon capture and storage (technology that doesn’t exist on a commercial scale), switching to natural gas, or shutting down completely.

Coal still produces 37 percent of U.S. electricity. A Heritage Foundation analysis found that implementing Obama’s proposed regulation on existing coal plants would destroy more than 500,000 jobs, slash the income of a typical family of four more than $1,400 a year, and increase electricity prices at least 20 percent. Price spikes could be much higher in states that depend heavily on coal-fired power plants, especially in the Midwest. President Obama once famously explained that he intended to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

Obama intends to fight his War on Coal by issuing a Presidential Memorandum to the EPA to issue regulations under the 1970 Clean Air Act. This is despite the fact that the law’s principal author, Democrat John Dingell of Michigan, famously said: “This is not what was intended by the Congress and by those of us who wrote the Clean Air Act. We are beginning to look at a wonderfully complex world, which has the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth.”

And there is zero global warming benefit to go with all the economic costs, because even if all United States greenhouse gas emissions were shut down to zero tomorrow, the rest of the world would keep on puffing. Paul Knappenberger recently calculated, based on standard assumptions, that getting to zero emissions in the U.S. immediately would only reduce global average temperatures an imperceptible 0.08 degrees Celsius by 2050. Moreover, the rest of the world would replace all U.S. emissions within seven years.

So it’s all pain and no gain — by legally dubious means — to accomplish the opposite of what Obama promised on the campaign trail. Congress should take exception to being circumvented and step in to stop Obama’s (now-declared) War on Coal.

Once again it is plain to see that complex laws passed by a willing legislature leave the door open for the executive branch to do just about anything it wants under the color of law. This is truly a feature of the administrative state where the masterminds call the shots and self-government is a thing of the past. So much for the Republic Mr. Franklin.

On the other hand 62 Tea Party representatives dealt a blow to the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives when they gather enough support to defeat an overblown Farm Bill on June 20^th.

The GOP leadership suffered a stunning defeat as 62 Republicans voted against the 5-year farm bill (H.R. 1947), which locks in the record baseline of food stamp spending and creates multiple new agriculture subsidy programs. A handful of them voted against it because it cut too much spending, and others like Bill Shuster voted no because they are facing potential primary challenges (Shuster voted for the 2008 bill). But this is a strong showing, as it is a dynamic none of us would have ever predicted several years ago.

Some Republicans are complaining that because of the conservative revolt we will now continue on the status quo with direct farm subsidies. But they fail to understand that the new price support programs and shallow loss coverage that were created by this bill would have been more expensive and represent worse market distortions than direct subsidies. It’s better to reauthorize the status quo than to pass a long-term bill that creates even more problems and precludes real reforms for another 5 years.

Other Republicans complain that now we will face the so-called milk cliff. Pursuant to a silly 1949 act of Congress, every time we fail to renew expiring farm programs, the government must begin imposing Soviet-style price controls on milk by decreasing supplies through massive purchases of milk, butter, cheese, and other dairy products. Under permanent law, the USDA would begin purchasing dairy products at a rate of $38.54 per hundredweight; more than double the current price ($18 per hundredweight). This market manipulation could double the price of milk, dairy products, and everything else up the food chain.

But instead of avoiding the deleterious effects of the Agriculture Act of 1949 by growing government, why don’t we just repeal the damn law?

In a sane world, both houses of Congress would convene and repeal this inane and outdated law within a few minutes by unanimous consent. That way we could debate a long-term farm bill without having the sword of the 1949 law brandished over our necks and forcing Congress to rush through bad legislation.

However, Congress is not sane, and they have no plans to repeal the law. In fact, Paul Broun introduced an amendment to do just that, but all the Democrats and more than half of Republicans voted it down.

The latest ephemeral trend in Washington is to create a contrived crisis for the purpose of growing government, increasing spending, or raising taxes. The new “milk cliff” is just the latest in the bag of tricks held by the permanent statist class.

Moving forward, we must split up the farm bill into two components; food stamps and agriculture programs. Food stamps must be devolved to the states and most agricultural subsidies need to be means-tested and charted on a gradual course towards elimination. And most of all, the dairy supply control system must be repealed once and for all in a standalone piece of legislation.

That would represent responsible conservative reform that is becoming of a GOP-controlled House. Working harder to buy off Democrats with more spending increases is not the way forward. If Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor desire to grow government with Democrat support, maybe they should run for the Pelosi whip team.

The American people elected a Republican House to provide a bold contrast to the Obama-Pelosi agenda, not to work behind the scenes to help grow government with their support.

You can read more about the defeat of the trillion dollar food stamp and farm bill by clicking here.

One of the things all tyrannical regimes such as the administrative state does is to compile a list of enemies. These enemies are defined as those who do not agree with their policies and could pose a threat to their agenda.

The vast majority of the annual shooting homicides are committed by inner-city and minority youths below the age of 30. Handguns are involved in 80% of all murders. Rifles and shotguns account for less than 10% of homicides.

No matter; the National Rifle Association is now blamed for generic gun violence, especially the mass shootings at schools, even though usually no one knows of any proposed gun law — barring outright confiscation of previously purchased firearms, bullets, and clips — that would have prevented the shooters at Sandy Hook and Columbine. Gun merchants are blamed by the president while in Mexico for selling lethal semi-automatic weapons to drug cartels. But so far, the only identifiable purveyor of illegal weaponry is the president’s own attorney general, whose subordinates in the Fast and Furious operation sold hundreds of guns illegally to Mexican drug lords.

Suggestions to encourage greater incarceration of the mentally unstable, to jawbone Hollywood about its profitable (and gratuitous) gun violence, to regulate extremely violent — and extremely well-selling — video games usually fall on deaf liberal ears. In short, the stereotyped camouflaged, weekend gun enthusiast is not the problem that leads to Columbine, or the nearly 532 murders last year in Chicago. But because we can’t or won’t address the causes of the latter, we go after the former. He is not the unhinged sort that shoots a Gabby Giffords or innocents in an Aurora, Colorado, theater; but somehow is the supposed red-neck yokel that a journalist like ABC’s Brian Ross assumes does.

If the Department of Homeland Security, as is rumored, really did wish to stockpile hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, then why did it begin such repository buying right in the middle of a hysterical national debate about limiting access to various rifles and semi-automatic weapons? Was it not to create a climate of fear and panic buying that has emptied America’s shelves of the most popular types of ammunition? If the homicide rate in Philadelphia and Chicago is any indication, murderers still have plenty of access to bullets. Those who want to target practice or shoot a varmint on their property do not.

The CIA and FBI knew of the suspicious activity of the Boston bombers, of Major Hasan, and of Anwar al-Awlaki. And they did nothing to preempt their violence. The FBI is said to be carefully avoiding monitoring mosques, although all of the above terrorists were known by many fellow Muslim worshipers to be either disturbed or extremist or both. In contrast, the NSA monitors, we are told, nearly everyone’s communications rather than focusing on Middle Eastern male Muslims, even though Middle Eastern male Muslims have been involved in the vast majority of post-9/11 terrorist plots. The NSA is the electronic version of the TSA, which feels it is noble and liberal to stop an octogenarian in a wheel chair for special frisking as proper compensation for every focused look at a West Bank resident or Pakistani visitor on his way into the United States.

The words “Tea Party” and “patriot” in a non-profit’s name would more likely earn a negative appraisal from the IRS than would “Islam” or “Muslim.” One wonders how Lois Lerner’s IRS division would treat a hypothetical “Sarah Palin Foundation” versus “The Dr. Zawahiri Charity.”

The IRS is not worried at all about 47% of the nation who pay no federal income taxes. The vast majority of those whom it focuses on are instead the 10% who pay over 70% of all taxes. These are the would-be proverbial “fat cats” who did not build their own businesses. They are reluctant to spread their wealth. They certainly did not know either when to stop making money or when the age of profit altogether had passed. Sometime around 2009 success was deemed failure, and failure success — at least if we collate the president fat-cat rhetoric with the vast expansion in the disability, food-stamp, and unemployment-insurance rolls.

Note that the IRS is not interested in leaking to Democrat senators or former administration official rumors about George Soros’s income or the details of the tax returns of Warren Buffett, Steven Spielberg, or Bill Gates. Instead, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate bragged that he knew (falsely as it turned out) that Mitt Romney paid no income taxes. And former high administration official Austan Goolsbee claimed (also falsely as it turned out) that he too knew that the Koch brothers were shorting the IRS.

Note that only liberal groups like ProPublica leak information about the confidential donor lists of conservative activists, apparently given their familiar arrangement with the IRS. So far IRS chiefs are not looking at prominent Democrat politicians for tax violations, although for a time — cf. Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, Hilda Solis — that might have been a fruitful profile for inquiry. (One encouraging side note: if you are a suspect white, mature, well-off, conservative, heterosexual, Christian male, you can still obtain exemption from federal suspicion by loudly announcing that you also are enthralled by Barack Obama.)

We know who was not an administration suspect in the killing of four Americans in Benghazi — hard-core, al Qaeda-related Islamic terrorists. Instead a supposedly right-wing unhinged video-maker was the object of vitriol from the secretary of state, the UN ambassador, and the president of the United States. He currently sits in jail. The known perpetrators of the murders walk free. In contrast, Lisa Jackson, the former EPA director, just got a fat inside job from Apple, despite creating not just a fictitious name (e.g., “Richard Windsor”) to avoid scrutiny when she communicated official business, but also an entirely made-up alter ego: “Richard Windsor” became an ideal employee lauded by the unethical EPA for his supposedly “ethical behavior.”

We also know who in the media is not a target. Not the CBS or ABC News presidents who have siblings working in the White House. Not ABC’s Good Morning America, given that one of its stalwarts is married to Press Secretary Jay Carney. Instead, there are two sorts of suspicious reporters that are considered hostile to the administration and worthy of having their communications monitored. One group are those journalists who leak information that the administration wished to preempt and leak first or who refuse to only leak favorable classified information — the bin Laden trove, the cyber war against Iran, the drone targeting protocol — that makes the president look as if he were a competent commander in chief.

The other target, of course, is Fox News, whose staff, in a variety of ways and on a number of occasions, the Obama administration has previously attacked as in some way illegitimate.

Again, who fits these profiles that our current, vastly expanding big government does not like? If you are an operator of a coal plant that creates needed energy at a profit, then beware that the EPA is after you. If you are a shady insider who wants tens of millions of government dollars to subsidize a money-losing wind and solar plant, you hit the jackpot. Ditto the suspect people who build guitars, loan money to Chrysler, or wish to locate a jet airliner plant in South Carolina. Profits create suspicion; failures earn subsidies.

Then there are the clingers, whom the president long ago blasted as religious zealots and gun-toting xenophobes. These are the sorts whom the attorney general calls “cowards” (not “my people”) — the “enemies” whom the president advises Latino activists to “punish” at the polls, the sorts that the president apologizes for abroad as guilty of sundry sorts of past class, race, and gender oppression.

In contrast, who is not so worried about government surveillance or audit? The New Black Panthers who turned up at a polling station in Philadelphia to intimidate voters; the “farmers” who, according to the New York Times, filed bogus claims to cash in on the government’s ill-advised and poorly administered Pigford settlement; the Secret Service agents who routinely visited prostitutes while on duty protecting high government officials abroad; and the assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who used her office to enhance her private consulting business.

Americans wonder whom would the immigration services more likely wish to deport: the German Romeike family that was “guilty” of homeschooling their children; Obama’s aunt Zeituni, who lied about her immigration status to illegally obtain state and federal subsidies; or Onyango Obama, who likewise is here illegally (for 21 years) and was recently charged with ramming a police car while driving intoxicated? Is the U.S. so short of DUI offenders and frauds that we must deport homeschoolers to make room for them?

There is currently a climate of fear growing throughout the United States. Millions of Americans are terrified of the IRS, the Department of Justice, the EPA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and even perhaps the FBI, CIA, and State Department.

Why?

These government agencies have never been bigger, more powerful, and more ideologically driven. Citizens fear them for understandable reasons: those who do nothing wrong, whether in filing tax forms or trying to buy a rifle, are considered suspect and deserving to be the target of either federal scrutiny or presidential slurs. But those who do a great deal of wrong, either by illegally entering the country, disrupting polling, trafficking in weapons in Mexico, eavesdropping on American citizens, pulling tax information for partisan purposes, subverting a government agency, or lying to the public about government activity, seem exempt from punishment — and, more chillingly, sense that they are so exempt.

Ask who now is sitting in prison — a shyster video-maker who had nothing to do with the deaths of four Americans, or their five known terrorist killers lounging about in North Africa? Apparently, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, like EPA director Lisa Jackson, was guilty of creating a fake persona. Like Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, he had a lien on her business. Like former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he had some unpaid taxes. Like Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he had been visited by government investigators. Like Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, he lied to federal authorities — although they were not quite as high as those in the U.S. Congress. And unlike all of the above, he was therefore jailed.

Of all the legacies of Barack Obama, the most pernicious will be the creation of a rogue government that has cut off and terrified half the population — and for no other reason than that they seem to represent things that Mr. Obama simply does not seem to understand.

The truth is that governments are always like pitchers trying to pitch out of a jam with all the bases loaded. We the people want a little free stuff. The ruling class wants to seize and hold political power. Promising free stuff is how you get elected. This what James Madison knew when he authored Federalist No. 10.

Usually, those vote-buying promises result in policies that damage the economy. President Obama has been worse than most. The result is that politicians and their officials are always involved in trying to Band-Aid over the distortions and the wounds they have inflicted on the economy and our freedoms in their crude bid for power.

Security or Liberty, Never the Twain Shall Meet

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." — Benjamin Franklin, Reply to the Governor of Pennsylvania, November 11, 1755

Yesterday, we were struggling to digest the revelation that every Verizon user's cell phone activity was being monitored by the federal government. Within twenty-four hours, we learned that it was happening at AT&T and Sprint, too. And it was happening to credit card receipts. And social media communications, online video conferences, email, documents stored in the Internet cloud.

Sources within the intelligence community have leaked documents that introduced America to a vast surveillance state, which has been growing for years, nourished by powers granted in the Patriot Act - whose author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who says all this was "never the intent" of his legislation. He described what he's seeing today as "excessive and un-American."

On the other hand, we have bipartisan assurances from Congress that all of this is necessary, and it has prevented terror attacks - although it makes the threats they didn't detect, like the Boston Marathon bombers, seem even more curious.

While most of these programs had their origins under the Bush Administration, their scope has expanded enormously under President Obama, who sold himself as deeply skeptical of the War on Terror strategies he ended up adopting and intensifying. He's also spent a good deal of time over the last year assuring Americans that he broke the back of global terrorism. But even as he was declaring victory, his Administration was harvesting data on just about every phone call and Internet communication. And he's given us good reason to doubt that he and his subordinates can be trusted with sensitive information about American citizens.

Now that the beans have been spilled, there will be a vigorous debate about whether all of this is necessary. The public is generally supportive of national security measures, but are they comfortable with a world in which everyone is monitored, instead of directing surveillance against threats that have been carefully identified and subjected to extensive review? Are we ready to abandon privacy by default?

As Benjamin Franklin stated in his letter:

“In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Such as were inclined to defend themselves, but unable to purchase Arms and Ammunition, have, as we are informed, been supplied with both, as far as Arms could be procured, out of Monies given by the last Assembly for the King’s Use; and the large Supply of Money offered by this Bill, might enable the Governor to do every Thing else that should be judged necessary for their farther Security, if he shall think fit to accept it. Whether he could, as he supposes, “if his Hands had been properly strengthened, have put the Province into such a Posture of Defence [sic], as might have prevented the present Mischiefs,” seems to us uncertain; since late Experience in our neighbouring [sic] Colony of Virginia (which had every Advantage for that Purpose that could be desired) shows clearly, that it is next to impossible to guard effectually an extended Frontier, settled by scattered single Families at two or three Miles Distance, so as to secure them from the insidious [sic] Attacks of small Parties of skulking Murderers: But this much is certain, that by refusing our Bills from Time to Time, by which great Sums were seasonably offered, he has rejected all the Strength that Money could afford him; and if his Hands are still weak or unable, he ought only to blame himself, or those who have tied them.”

*Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755. — The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).

*This quotation, slightly altered, is inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

While Franklin was referring to the willingness of some of citizens of Pennsylvania to accept the security offered by the King of England and his armies his quotation is as valid today as it was in 1755 —21 years prior to his contributions to Jefferson in authoring the Declaration of Independence.

Today it appears by the latest reports concerning the NSA and the FBI data mining our phone records and Internet browsing through its PRISIM program that we are trading or rights to privacy for some sense of security from unknown terrorist. The question is who are the alleged terrorists? Are the members of al Qaeda or some other radical Islamic group? Are they the Minutemen who monitor the border with video cameras? Are the groups in Montana or Idaho that do not want government interference of any sort in their lives? Are the Tea Party members who want a smaller and more fiscally responsible federal government? Or are they pro-life groups picketing Planned Parenthood clinics?

President Obama stated today in the Silicon Valley prior to his meetings with the Chinese that “we require a modest encroachment of our liberties to protect us against terrorists. I would remind the so-called law school scholar of the words of the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

A search and seizure by a law enforcement officer without a search warrant and without probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime is present. Such a search or seizure is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment (applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment), and evidence obtained from the unlawful search may not be introduced in court.

In order to invoke protection under the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures, an individual must first have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regards to the location that was subject to the search or to the item that was seized.

A search warrant is a type of warrant that authorizes law enforcement officers to search a specified place for evidence. Without a search warrant, police officers may not search a place without its owner’s consent.

Only judges may issue search warrants. To obtain a warrant, law enforcement officers must show that there is probable cause to believe a search is justified. Officers must support this showing with sworn statements (affidavits), and must describe in particularity the place they will search and the items they will seize. Judges must consider the totality of the circumstances when deciding whether or not to issue the warrant. When issuing a search warrant, the judge may restrict the when and how the police may conduct the search.

The Fourth Amendment does not require officers seeking a warrant to show that the people or places to be searched committed any crime. Rather, they merely need to show probable cause that the sought-after evidence is there. For example, in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978), the Supreme Court allowed police to search a student newspaper, where the newspaper was not implicated in any criminal activity but police suspected it had photographic evidence of the identities of demonstrators who assaulted police officers. However, some jurisdictions responded by passing laws restricting or forbidding these kinds of searches

Even the FISA Court must have a semblance of “probable cause” to issue a warrant. In this case a warrant for the phone records, e-mail records, Internet browsing and YouTube records of 313 million people does not sound like probable cause to me — but I’m no lawyer.

With news of the Obama administration seizing the phone records of every Verizon user in the country, it’s a good time to review the president’s previous comments and votes on the Patriot Act.

On December 15, 2005, for instance, Obama gave a speech on the Senate Floor regarding the Patriot Act:

“…And if someone wants to know why their own government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document – through library books they’ve read and phone calls they’ve made – this legislation gives people no rights to appeal the need for such a search in a court of law. No judge will hear their plea, no jury will hear their case. This is just plain wrong. Giving law enforcement the tools they need to investigate suspicious activity is one thing – and it’s the right thing – but doing it without any real oversight seriously jeopardizes the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for.”

You can read the full speech by clicking here

In March of 2006, Obama voted yes on the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 titled, “A bill to clarify that individuals who receive FISA orders can challenge nondisclosure requirements, that individuals who receive national security letters are not required to disclose the name of their attorney, that libraries are not wire or electronic communication service providers unless they provide specific services, and for other purposes.”

On August 3, 2007, Obama voted no on the Protect America Act of 2007, titled, “A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes.”

In February of 2008, the Senate voted on the H.R. 6304, FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Obama cast a no-vote.

On July 10, 2008, Bush signed H.R. 6304, FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Obama said:

“The most important lessons learned after 9-11 was that America’s Intelligence professionals lacked some of the tools they needed to monitor the communications of terrorists abroad. It’s essential that our Intelligence community knows who our enemies are talking to, what they’re saying, and what they’re planning. This law will insure that those companies whose assistance is necessary to protect the country will themselves be protected from lawsuits from past or future cooperation with the government.”

On March 31, 2008, while campaigning for his first term, Obama spoke about the Patriot Act in Lancaster, PA:

“Most of the problems that we have had in civil liberties were not done through the Patriot Act, they were done through executive order by George W. Bush. That’s what happened with Guantanamo, that’s what happened with the warrantless wire-taps, that’s what’s happened with the suspension of habeas corpus, that’s what’s happened in terms of the rounding up of Americans of Muslim extraction- those weren’t done through the Patriot Act. Those were all done separately.

There were some provisions in the Patriot Act that actually did address changes that needed to take place. Prior to the Patriot Act, you could not wiretap a phone that wasn’t land-based. Now think about it, nobody uses a land-based phone anymore. Certainly people who might be engaging in terrorism aren’t going to be using an old dial-up phone.”

But now Obama has changed his tune.

Today according to the New York Times President Obama offered a robust defense of the government surveillance programs revealed this week, and sought to reassure the public that his administration has not become a Big Brother with eyes and ears throughout the world of online communications.

Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” Mr. Obama said, delivering a 14-minute answer to two questions about the surveillance programs at an event that was initially supposed to be devoted to the health care law. “That’s not what this program is about.”

The president’s remarks, during a four-day trip to the West Coast, were his first since the revelations this week of programs to collect information about phone calls and Internet traffic. Obama said the programs help prevent terrorist attacks and they are kept in check by rigorous judicial and Congressional oversight.

He acknowledged that the public may be uncomfortable with the broad reach of the formerly secret programs, but he said he believed the government had struck the right balance between the need to fight terrorism and the need to protect privacy.

“You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” Obama said, repeatedly stressing that the lawmakers from both parties and federal judges were aware of the efforts. “You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”

Obama remained silent on Thursday as national security leaks revealed the secret programs for collecting the information, but today he appeared eager to explain them at length. He dismissed what he called “some of the hype” from news reports and emphasized the limits on the programs.

“If the intelligence community actually wants to listen to a telephone call, they have to go back to a federal judge,” Obama said. He said the collection of information from Internet companies like Google and Apple does not apply to American citizens or people living in the United States.

He repeatedly stressed that the surveillance programs were subject to Congressional oversight. In fact, he suggested that the programs — which he conceded were classified as top secret — were not truly secret because many members of Congress were aware of them.

“What you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress,” the president said. “Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout.”

Mr. Obama suggested that Congressional debate behind closed doors should offer the public some confidence that the surveillance is not being abused. He said that those members of Congress — and the judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court — were watching the process.

“If in fact there were abuses taking place, then presumably, those members of Congress could raise those issues.” They are empowered to do so.” Obama said.

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here,” he said.

The president also said he welcomed a more public debate over the future of such surveillance programs and what should be the appropriate balance between civil liberties and the need to maintain national security. But he said there “are some trade-offs involved” in that debate.

“My assessment and my team’s assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks,” Mr. Obama said.

Asked about government leaks that revealed the existence of the programs, the president defended the system of classifications that keeps information secret. And he suggested that such leaks make it harder for the government to protect Americans.

“If, in fact, this information ends up just being dumped out willy-nilly without regard to risks to the program, risks to the people involved, in some cases on other leaks, risks to personnel in very dangerous situations, then it’s very hard for us to be as effective in protecting the American people,” Obama said.

But the disclosure of the programs, which involve some of the nation’s biggest technology and communications firms — including Google, Apple and Verizon — seemed likely to prompt a vigorous discussion among policy makers and Internet consumers about the expectations for privacy and security in an increasingly connected and online world.

Earlier today, lawmakers in Washington, many of whom have been privately briefed on the secret surveillance efforts for years, sought to balance their public expressions of concern about the impact on privacy with the need to combat national security threats. Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who often votes with Democrats, said this morning that there needed to be a discussion about that balance.

“People ought to have at least a general idea of what’s going on,” Mr. King said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “It’s unfortunate that it has to come out in the form of leaks. The question is where’s the appropriate balance?”

He added: “It makes me nervous that all those phone records are in the possession of the National Security Agency.”

Under the classified program revealed Thursday, the federal government has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas for nearly six years from the nation’s largest Internet companies in search of national security threats. The revelation came just hours after government officials acknowledged a separate seven-year effort to sweep up records of telephone calls inside the United States.

Dennis C. Blair, who served as Mr. Obama’s first director of national intelligence, said Friday that there was little debate at the beginning of the Obama administration about whether to continue the National Security Agency’s telephone and Internet surveillance programs that began under President Bush.

“In 2006 and 2007, everything was put under a legal basis. That looked pretty good to us, so we continued it,” Mr. Blair said in an interview with The New York Times. He said that the agency’s relationships with Internet companies have been especially valuable, given the volume of global communications that are now done strictly in cyberspace.

The disclosure of the extent of United States surveillance caused outrage on Friday among civil liberties and privacy groups in Europe, where data protection has become a hot-button issue. The possibility that the online communications of European citizens could have been caught up in the NSA’s data sweep, because of their use of American Internet services, caused particular anxiety.

Official reaction from European capitals was more subdued — perhaps partly, analysts said, because many governments would like similar powers to monitor Internet communications.

In Turkey, where antigovernment protests have been raging for more than a week, partly because of complaints about a lack of civil liberties and heavy-handed government, the revelations also touched a nerve.

“If the U.S. complains about foreign governments spying and then it turns out it is doing the same thing — well, what are you complaining about?” said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University.

An array of civil liberties advocates and libertarian conservatives said the disclosures provided the most detailed confirmation yet of what has been long suspected about what the critics call an alarming and ever-widening surveillance state.

The Internet surveillance program collects data from online providers including e-mail, chat services, videos, photos, stored data, file transfers, video conferencing and logins, according to classified documents obtained and posted by The Washington Post and then The Guardian on Thursday afternoon.

In confirming its existence, officials said that the program, called Prism, is authorized under a foreign intelligence law that was recently renewed by Congress, and maintained that it minimizes the collection and retention of information “incidentally acquired” about Americans and permanent residents. Several of the Internet companies said they did not allow the government open-ended access to their servers but complied with specific lawful requests for information.

“It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States,” Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement, describing the law underlying the program. “Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.”

The dual revelations, in rapid succession, also suggested that someone with access to high-level intelligence secrets had decided to unveil them in the midst of furor over leak investigations. Both were reported by The Guardian, while The Post, relying upon the same presentation, almost simultaneously reported the Internet company tapping. The Post said a disenchanted intelligence official provided it with the documents to expose government overreach.

The Guardian and The Post posted several slides from the 41-page presentation about the Internet program, listing the companies involved — which included Yahoo, Microsoft, Paltalk, AOL, Skype and YouTube — and the dates they joined the program, as well as listing the types of information collected under the program.

In my view all of this gobbledygook and double speak from the Obama Administration and Congress is purely Orwellian. This administration’s policies and actions regarding the IRS, Justice Department, and now the NSA’s data mining makes Orwell’s Big Brother look like little sister.

We are being told that the NSA is only collecting metadata and no phone records are being scrutinized in detail. Hogwash, metadata is data about the data. It is the key that use used to open the door to records you want to look at. As example the metadata will show the available records for John Doe are his e-mails, phone records, Internet browsing actives, books he has browed on Amazon, and if the ordered a magic pancake pan. All the investigator need do is click on one of those categories and bingo he or she is into the details. My Nikon D700 keeps metadata on all of my digital photos including a host of photographic information.

Obama is telling us they (NSA and FBI) are not listening to your phone calls. With Obama’s record of veracity this may or may not be true. In other words they are telling us they are collecting the data, just not querying it. How would you feel if the government said they would put a video camera in your house and film you every day and then store those recordings in a giant facility in Utah? They would tell you not to worry as no one would look at the video. If you believe that I have a bridge I can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn for a very low price with installment payments.

They tell us that to look at those recordings they need a warrant from a FISA Court (or some other judge). We know how that works. It took Eric Holder shopping three judges to get the warrant to look into Fox News’s James Rosen’s e-mails. Also remember that Rosen or Fox News knew nothing about it for over a year. All the Justice Department has to do is word the warrant in such a way (as Holder did) to include words like “criminal conspiracy”, “threat to national security”, or “prosecution for certain criminal acts.” Now in the Rosen case Holder states the DOJ had no intention of prosecuting Rosen. In essence they lied to the judge to get the warrant. So we are supposed to trust he government.

Suppose you forward those crazy unproven e-mails to you friends or you browse Google or Bing for information about radical Islam. What if you browse right-wing or libertarian web sites of look on Amazon for certain types of books like Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn, or Brad Thor thrillers? What if you browse prono sites or foreign newspapers online? How about blogging or posting on Facebook even moderate criticisms of Obama and his minions? What if you browse the Internet for information on firearms and ammunition? All of these things will be a part of the metadata.

Richard Reid was not apprehended due to good intelligence. He was caught trying to light his shoe on fire on an airliner.

The underwear bomber was caught trying to light his crotch on fire as the airliner he was one approached the Detroit airport. His father had warned U.S. officials of his son’s radical Islamic beliefs and his connection with known terrorist.

The Boston Marathon bomber was not caught because of good intelligence even though the FBI had records on him. One was caught due to a car hijacking and the other because a homeowner went out to smoke a cigarette and spotted blood on his boat.

Fort Hood did not happen due to the lack of intelligence. The Army knew Major Nidal Malik Hasan was a risk due to his expressed radical Islamic views and association with Anwar al-Awlaki, a known terrorist. He had been reading Inspire Magazine, the publication of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).Hasan had been under investigation by the Army CID. The problem was not the lack of definitive intelligence — it was the lack of political will by the Army.

Ever since 9/11 we have been losing our Constitutional liberties and rights drip by drip and the media has been negligent if not downright reluctant to expose these infringements. In some cases such as gun control and illegal immigration they have been willing accomplices in the process.

We are slowly allowing the Republic to be turned into an administrative state run by statists and masterminds from Washington, D.C. We are turning the Republic into Ameritopia. As James Madison wrote in his 1792 essay on property:

“He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”

It seems that President Obama just can’t catch a break. He has most certainly had a difficult start to his second term. The debt ceiling and sequestration battle with House Republicans, attempts to broker a peace deal in Syria and the destruction of his gun control legislation have indeed been major setbacks.

But while these issues have been blows to the administration, they were at least somewhat beyond his control. The latest rash of scandals is very much homegrown in the Obama White House and they could, therefore, have been prevented.

We have all watched as one scandal after another has come to light. The administration has been overreaching in all areas: with the IRS, with journalists at the AP and James Rosen at Fox News and now it appears that their most egregious overreaching has been with the American citizenry.

We heard from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that we should all just calm down about the NSA’s request for Verizon to hand over all records of telephone calls within its system – both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. Apparently the fact that this isn’t a new practice means that it shouldn’t bother us.

Reid’s feelings on the matter are certainly shared by other members of Congress like Senator Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham. But there are other influential members of Congress who see things the way the American public does. Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner expressed his concern about the data collection.

He wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, “as the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely disturbed by what appears to be an overboard interpretation of the Act.” In a press release he continued, “seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

Leaked documents reveal that the NSA did not stop with the Verizon phone records.

They have been directly tapping the servers of nine leading US Internet companies, extracting video and audio chats, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets.

These Bush-era practices, practices that have expanded during Obama’s tenure. They have been vehemently defended and their exposure criticized for the impact on our national security. For instance, Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, condemned the leaks of the classified documents.

Indeed, this disclosure does have the potential to reveal too much to our enemies about our practices, but it more importantly calls into question the practices of our own administration. And it has now become clear that those practices are not in step with promises the President made to Americans.

Just a few months ago, President Obama declared “this is the most transparent administration in history” during a Google Plus “Fireside” hangout. To be sure, transparency was one of the President’s biggest campaign promises and a featured element of his first four years in office.

But these recent scandals call into question the authenticity of Obama’s statement.

From Benghazi to the IRS to the latest news on the NSA it is quite clear that Obama’s administration is failing to keep their word on this issue.

The result has been that Obama’s agenda is essentially dead in the water. His days, and his administration’s days, are now spent playing defense — in press conferences, in hearings and elsewhere.

What’s more, the appointments of Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security advisor and Samantha Power to replace Susan Rice as U.N. Ambassador indicate that the administration is doubling down, not reaching out.

At a time when the president should be doing all he can to reach across the aisle and to quell American’s fears and come clean he is not the man he said he was, he is just plodding along business as usual.

We don’t have time for business as usual anymore. There is far too much going on at home and abroad for the president to continue to ignore the crises his administration is facing.

If Obama cannot come clean and begin to take action to correct this course Congress must or Franklin’s caution will come true. As Lord Acton stated: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The Heritage of Our Founders

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

The two persons were most influential in the advance of Progressivism in the United States. These two persons were Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey. Both were products of academia and had little or no business experience or connection with the common people. Wilson believed that our Founders were devoted to the mechanics of governance in a Newtonian world. In his 1913 “What is Progress” from his 1913 “The New Freedoms” Wilson wrote:

“Now, it came to me, as this interesting man talked, that the Constitution of the United States had been made under the dominion of the Newtonian Theory. You have only to read the papers of the The Federalist to see that fact written on every page. They speak of the "checks and balances" of the Constitution, and use to express their idea the simile of the organization of the universe, and particularly of the solar system,—how by the attraction of gravitation the various parts are held in their orbits; and then they proceed to represent Congress, the Judiciary, and the President as a sort of imitation of the solar system.

They were only following the English Whigs, who gave Great Britain its modern constitution. Not that those Englishmen analyzed the matter, or had any theory about it; Englishmen care little for theories. It was a Frenchman, Montesquieu, who pointed out to them how faithfully they had copied Newton’s description of the mechanism of the heavens.

The makers of our Federal Constitution read Montesquieu with true scientific enthusiasm. They were scientists in their way—the best way of their age—those fathers of the nation. Jefferson wrote of "the laws of Nature"—and then by way of afterthought—"and of Nature’s God." And they constructed a government as they would have constructed an orrery—to display the laws of nature. Politics in their thought was a variety of mechanics. The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of "checks and balances."

The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live. On the contrary, its life is dependent upon their quick cooperation, their ready response to the commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose. Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men, with highly differentiated functions, no doubt, in our modern day, of specialization, with a common task and purpose. Their cooperation is indispensable, their warfare fatal. There can be no successful government without the intimate, instinctive coordination of the organs of life and action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact, whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop.

All that progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when "development" "evolution," is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.”

In his 1907 essay “The Author and Signers of the Declaration" Wilson had this to say:

“What then do we think of our safety and of our happiness, — of the principles of action and the forms of power we are using to secure them? That we have come to a new age and a new attitude towards questions of government, no one can doubt, — to new definitions of constitutional power, new conceptions of legislative object, new schemes of individual and corporate regulation. Upon what principle of change do we act? Do we act upon definite calculations of purpose, or do we but stumble hesitatingly upon expedients? To what statements of principle would a declaration of our reasons and purposes commit us before the world: to those the signers of the Declaration of Independence would have avowed, or to others very different and not at all novel in the political history of the world? This is not a party question: there is apparently little difference between parties in regard to it. It is a national question, — a question touching the political principles of America. We ought not to hesitate to avow a change, if change there is to be; but we should be ashamed to act in radical fashion and not know that there was a change. Precedent is at least a guide by which to determine our direction.”

While Wilson addressed the positive political issues of Progressivism and the growing power of government Dewy brought change to our educational system. His ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology. He was a major representative of progressive education and liberalism.

According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Values, Dewey suggested, can be viewed as constructs to solve practical problems. Like an outmoded piece of technology, a past value which was once constructed to address a problem in one set of circumstances can outlive its usefulness, and become a hindrance to the capacity of those in the present to deal with their practical needs and worries. This, Dewey believes, is the case with values of classical liberalism. These have come to block the capacity to resolve social problems in a way compatible with what he takes to be liberalism's core commitment to individual liberty. It is in this way that ‘the slogans of liberalism in one period can become the bulwarks of reaction’ in the next (‘Logical Method and Law’, MW15, 76). He develops this thought in discussing the relation of individual and society, the character and value of freedom, and the scope of legitimate social and political action.

Dewey criticizes classical liberalism for conceiving of the individual as ‘something given, something already there’, prior to society and for viewing social institutions for coordinating the interests of pre-social individuals. Instead, he argues, social institutions are not ‘means for obtaining something for individuals. They are means for creating individuals’ (Reconstruction in Philosophy, MW12, 190-192). In this way, classical liberalism exemplifies ‘the most pervasive fallacy of philosophical thinking’ (‘Context and Thought’, LW5, 5). This is the tendency to divide up experienced phenomena, and to take the distinct analyzed elements to be separate existences, independent both of the analysis and of each other. That this abstraction is in particular circumstances essential for inquiry is an important theme in Dewey's philosophy. But this abstraction goes wrong ‘whenever the distinctions or elements that are discriminated are treated as if they were final and self-sufficient’ (‘Context and Thought’, LW5, 7), as when classical liberalism treats the individual as ‘something given.’ Instead, Dewey argues, ‘liberalism knows that an individual is nothing fixed, given ready-made. It is something achieved, and achieved not in isolation but with the aid and support of conditions, cultural and physical: — including in “cultural”, economic, legal and political institutions as well as science and art’ (‘The Future of Liberalism’, LW11: 291).

The abstraction of the individual from social context in classical liberalism shapes its ethics. If the individual is thought of as existing prior to social institutions, then it is easier to envisage securing freedom for the individual in terms solely of the removal of external impediments on individual action, such as legal restrictions on freedom of speech. By contrast, Dewey argues that mere absence of external constraint is not a sufficient condition for freedom in the sense in which the latter is a value for liberals.

For classical liberalism or ‘old individualism’, the individual is viewed as surrounded by a protective cordon of rights, which define his or her freedom. Freedom is taken to consist in the absence of some intentional constraint on the individual's ability to pursue his or her chosen goals. For Dewey, this negative view of freedom is at the root of the wider social, ethical and political defects of this form of individualism (‘Religion and Morality in a Free Society’, LW15, 181). What is valuable about freedom is not the negative absence of interference but the positive ‘power to be an individualized self’ (The Public and Its Problems, LW2, 329).”

In essence Dewey believed that there were no absolute values in morals, religion or governance such as Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. In this sense he was an anathema to the thinking of John Locke and our Founders.

So what drove our founders to develop the Declaration and our Constitution?

Prior to the Revolutionary War, the tradition of self-government in America was nurtured by the English common law tradition and the original charters of the American colonies, no less than by the constraints of geography. The debates in the colonies regarding representation and taxation grew out of the larger practical and theoretical debates in England on the nature and extent of the principle of sovereignty, the power and authority of the monarch in relation to Parliament, and the rights of citizens and natural rights, in the wake of the social and political changes resulting from the Glorious Revolution.

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascending of the English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England.

King James's policies of religious tolerance after 1685 met with increasing opposition by members of leading political circles, who were troubled by the king's Catholicism and his close ties with France. The crisis facing the king came to a head in 1688, with the birth of the King's son, James Francis Edward Stuart. This changed the existing line of succession by displacing the heir presumptive, his daughter Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange, with young James as heir apparent. The establishment of a Roman Catholic dynasty in the kingdoms now seemed likely. Some of the most influential leaders of the Tories united with members of the opposition Whigs and set out to resolve the crisis by inviting William of Orange to England,[1] which the stadtholder, who feared an Anglo-French alliance, had indicated as a condition for a military intervention.

The overthrow of James was hailed at the time and ever since, as the "Glorious Revolution". Edmund Burke set the tone for over two centuries of historiographical analysis when he proclaimed that:

“The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty”

James II was building a powerful militarized state on the assumption that the world's wealth was necessarily finite and empires were created by taking land from other states. The East India Company was thus an ideal tool to create a vast new English imperial dominion by warring with the Dutch and the Mogul Empire in India. After 1689 came an alternative understanding of economics, which saw Britain as a commercial rather than an agrarian society. The proponents of this view, most famously Adam Smith in 1776, argued that wealth was created by human endeavor and was thus potentially infinite.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 is considered by some as being one of the most important events in the long evolution of the respective powers of Parliament and the Crown in England. With the passage of the Bill of Rights, it stamped out once and for all any possibility of a Catholic monarchy, and ended moves towards absolute monarchy in the British kingdoms by circumscribing the monarch's powers. These powers were greatly restricted; he or she could no longer suspend laws, levy taxes, make royal appointments, or maintain a standing army during peacetime without Parliament's permission.

In 1689 John Locke, whose writings greatly influenced our Founders, wrote in Two Treatises on Government concerning government and taxes:

“Tis true, Governments cannot be supported without great Charge, and 'tis fit everyone who enjoys his share of the Protection, should payout of his Estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own Consent, i.e. the consent of the Majority, giving it either by themselves, or their Representatives chosen by them. For if anyone shall claim a power to lay and levy Taxes on the People, he thereby invades the Fundamental Law of Property, and subverts the end of Government. For what property have I in that which another may by right taken, when he pleases to himself?

…

There can be but one Supreme Power, which is the Legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate.”

While Locke was referring to the results of the Glorious Revolution his thinking is valid for all ages when it comes to governance. You can see the contrast between the Progressive Wilson and the educator Dewey and the Classical Liberal Locke. Wilson, the university president and elite academic had great disdain for our Declaration and Constitution. He did not believe that the “balance of power” built into the Constitution was good for governance in the 20^th century. While accepting democracy when it came to deciding on the political and administrative leader of the state he felt that representative democracy with a legislative body having more control over the affairs of state was antiquated and not conducive to allowing the executive branch to govern through the use of experts and masterminds. Wilson believed the thinking of our Founders was Newtonian while we needed the progressive model of governance based on the thinking of Darwin — a changing mode of governance to fit the times void of the absolutes in the Declaration and Constitution.

It was the progressive educator Dewey who believed that there were no universal and absolute values when he stated:

“Like an outmoded piece of technology, a past value which was once constructed to address a problem in one set of circumstances can outlive its usefulness, and become a hindrance to the capacity of those in the present to deal with their practical needs and worries.”

How can the values expressed in the Declaration of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (property) be considered a hindrance to those in the present to deal with our practical needs and worries? This thinking, something we suffer today, is the foundation of Progressivism and a far cry from the teachings of Locke, Burke, and our Founders.

In North America, the Glorious Revolution precipitated the 1689 Boston revolt in which a well-organized "mob" of provincial militia and citizens successfully deposed the hated governor Edmund Andros, which has been seen as a precedent for the American War of Independence a century later. In New York, Leisler's Rebellion caused the colonial administrator, Francis Nicholson, to flee to England. A third event, Maryland's Protestant Rebellion was directed against the proprietary government, seen as Catholic-dominated.

The charters that established the English colonies in America also recognized and affirmed the colonists' rights as Englishmen, chief of which was a measure of self-government ensured through local representative institutions. While the king or the proprietors of the respective colony would appoint a governor general, each colony also had an appointed council and a local elected assembly. The governor's actual power was minimal in contrast to his stated power, as he was dependent on the elected assembly of the colony for his salary, and as his acts could be appealed by the colony to government ministers and colonial agents in England.

The effects of Parliament becoming the supreme power in Britain in the wake of the Glorious Revolution were felt in the American colonies, as successive prime ministers enacted measures against the colonial representative bodies to allow the colonial governors autonomy from them while ensuring complete dependence upon Parliament. Parliament passed a series of punitive laws against the American colonies, such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, and the later "Intolerable Acts," which directly violated the colonists' constitutional rights, their natural rights, and their colonial charters, by denying the principle of the consent of the governed.

Coming on the heels of three other major tax increases (the Sugar Act, the Currency Act and the Quartering Act), the Stamp Act more than any other gave impetus to the growing independence movement in the Colonies. It created an easily articulated grievance against what the colonists saw as Great Britain’s efforts to undermine their economic strength and independence.

The Act — which required colonists to buy a stamp for every American newspaper, legal document, license, bond, pamphlet, almanac, college diploma, deck of cards or pair of dice they purchased — didn’t become law until Nov. 1, 1765. But opposition to it grew from the moment colonists learned of its passage.

During Parliamentary debate for the Act, Colonel Isaac Barré — who knew the colonies well, having served in the French and Indian War and returned to England with a disfiguring facial wound and high admiration for the Americans’ fighting spirit — argued the Colonies didn’t owe England a debt. Rather, he said, the behavior of Britain’s officials toward Americans “on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them.” When colonists read about Barré’s speech, they gladly co-opted the phrase “Sons of Liberty.”

During the months between the Act’s passage and its becoming law, the Sons of Liberty led protests that included burning in effigy the stamp collectors and that sometimes turned into riots. The aggressive nature of the protests caused most of the collectors to either refuse to enforce the Act or resign in fear. In addition to the protests, colonists began boycotting all English goods.

The Act was repealed on March 17, 1766, but the liberty genie couldn’t be put back into the bottle. A new spirit of independence had been created by the Act that could not be repealed by Parliament.

On the March 5, 1770— the same day as the Boston Massacre—Lord North, the new Prime Minister, presented a motion in the House of Commons that called for partial repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act. Although some in Parliament advocated a complete repeal of the act, North disagreed, arguing that the tea duty should be retained to assert "the right of taxing the Americans". After debate, the Repeal Act received the Royal Assent on April 12, 1770

Eventually the Stamp Act was repealed. On the 5 of March 1770— the same day as the Boston Massacre—Lord North, the new Prime Minister, presented a motion in the House of Commons that called for partial repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act. Although some in Parliament advocated a complete repeal of the act, North disagreed, arguing that the tea duty should be retained to assert "the right of taxing the Americans". After debate, the Repeal Act received the Royal Assent on 12 April 1770.

It would be inaccurate to claim that a major part of the Townshend Acts had been repealed. The revenue-producing tea levy, the American Board of Customs and, most important, the principle of making governors and magistrates independent all remained. In fact, the modification of the Townshend Duties Act was scarcely any change at all.

The Townshend duty on tea was retained when the 1773 Tea Act was passed, which allowed the East India Company to ship tea directly to the colonies. The Boston Tea Party soon followed, which set the stage for the American Revolution.

In 1774 Edmund Burke in his speech on American taxation had this to say

“Leave America to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only may they be discussed with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very source of government, by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be argued into slavery.”

James Otis rose to prominence in 1761, after he gave a courtroom speech opposing the Writs of Assistance—blanket warrants issued by the British for searching suspect property. He edited that speech into this essay three years later, after the passage of the Sugar Act. Its arguments contain the seed of the American Revolution—an appeal to natural rights applied against particular abuses of political power. Struck by lightning in 1783, Otis did not live beyond the Revolution. But John Adams remarked that he had never known a man "whose service for any ten years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770.

In 1764 Otis wrote in his essay The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved:

“The end of government being the good of mankind, points out its great duties: It is above all things to provide for the security, the quiet, and happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. There is no one act which a government can have a right to make, that does not tend to the advancement of the security, tranquility and prosperity of the people. If life, liberty and property could be enjoyed in as great perfection in solitude, as in society, there would be no need of government. But the experience of ages has proved that such is the nature of man, a weak, imperfect being; that the valuable ends of live cannot be obtained without the union and assistance of many. Hence ’tis clear that men cannot live apart or independent of each other: In solitude men would perish; and yet they cannot live together without contests. These contests require some arbitrator to determine them. The necessity of a common, indifferent and impartial judge makes all men seek one; tho’ few find him in the sovereign power, of their respective states or anywhere else in subordination to it.

Government is founded immediately on the necessities of human nature, and ultimately on the will of God, the author of nature; who has not left it to men in general to choose, whether they will be members of society or not, but at the hazard of their senses if not of their lives. Yet it is left to every man as he comes of age to choose what society he will continue to belong to. Nay if one has a mind to turn Hermit, and after he has been born, nursed, and brought up in the arms of society, and acquired the habits and passions of social life, is willing to run the risque of starving alone, which is generally most unavoidable in a state of hermitage, who shall hinder him? I know of no human law, founded on the law of nature, to restrain him from separating himself from the species, if he can find it in his heart to leave them; unless it should be said, it is against the great law of self-preservation: But of this every man will think himself his own judge.”

Thomas Jefferson began his public career in 1769 in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the colonial legislature. British implementation of the Coercive Acts of 1774 (also known as the Intolerable Acts)—passed in response to the Boston Tea Party—prompted the "Summary View," Jefferson's first publication. Written for Virginians who were choosing delegates to the First Continental Congress, it laid the groundwork for later appeals by a "free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature." In 1774 he wrote this in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America:

“…That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate: Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise, which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill be seem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people. Open your breast, sire, to liberal and expanded thought. Let not the name of George the third be a blot in the page of history. You are surrounded by British counselors, but remember that they are parties. You have no ministers for American affairs, because you have none taken from among us, nor amenable to the laws on which they are to give you advice. It behooves you, therefore, to think and to act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail. No longer persevere in sacrificing the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate desires of another; but deal out to all equal and impartial right. Let no act be passed by any one legislature, which may infringe on the rights and liberties of another. This is the important post in which fortune has placed you, holding the balance of a great, if a well-poised empire. This, sire, is the advice of your great American council, on the observance of which may perhaps depend your felicity and future fame, and the preservation of that harmony which alone can continue both to Great Britain and America the reciprocal advantages of their connection. It is neither our wish, nor our interest, to separate from her. We are willing, on our part, to sacrifice every thing, which reason can ask to the restoration of that tranquility for which all must wish. On their part, to sacrifice everything which reason can ask to the restoration of that tranquility for which all must wish. On their part, let them be ready to establish union and a generous plan. Let them name their terms, but let them be just. Accept of every commercial preference it is in our power to give for such things as we can raise for their use, or they make for ours. But let them not think to exclude us from going to other markets to dispose of those commodities, which they cannot use, or to supply those wants, which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them. This, sire, is our last, our determined resolution; and that you will be pleased to interpose with that efficacy which your earnest endeavors may ensure to procure redress of these our great grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British America, against any apprehensions of future encroachment, to establish fraternal love and harmony through the whole empire, and that these may continue to the latest ages of time, is the fervent prayer of all British America!”

It was "the long train of abuses and usurpations" of this period which fueled the appeal to the natural rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence, and which was upheld by the fighting of the American Revolution.

In 1826 a great celebration was planned to honor the 50^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were invited to attend and provide remarks. Both were too ill to travel. On June 24^th Jefferson penned a letter to Roger C. Weightman, one of the planners of the celebration in which he stated:

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”

Both Adams and Jefferson, the co-authors of the Declaration, died within hours or each other on July 4^th 1826 — the 50^th anniversary of the foundation of our organic laws.