I wrote this letter this afternoon. Please take time to not only read it, but to spread it. Share the link with friends. Paste the entirety of the text on internet blogs and message boards. And if you are willing, download the image file and either hand it out, or wheat paste it on street corners. Thank you.

Thomas Jefferson once warned that:

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”

We have fallen short in our duty as citizens to keep the republic created for us two hundred and twenty years to go. Of course, many years and many players went into the transition from Constitutional Republic to Socialist Democracy. It was not a swift blow that destroyed our assembly of free states, but millions of pin pricks that became sword thrusts, all predicated upon a misunderstanding of our Constitution; from both ignorance and mal intention.

Our country was NOT to be a FEDERAL HIERARCHY with endless laws enforced by brutal hands growing out of a central capital, but an association of FREE STATES, bound by the principles and protections of liberty, where self determination could flourish and free minds could decide where and how best to achieve their destiny.

Our country was NOT to be a NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, entangled in foreign alliances, perpetually at war, forcing the will of our most wealthy on the peoples of the world. Instead we were to encourage trade, commerce, and the cordial relations they require with all nations, thus providing prosperity and safety to our citizens.

Our country was NOT to be a WELFARE STATE, oppressed financially and morally by entitlement, shackled by the politics associated with redistributing the wealth of the public, where Corporations and Lobbyists find advantage in courting our representatives and subverting the will of free peoples and markets. Instead we should be an open land, where individuals and companies who work hard and promote ingenuity succeed, and those who rely on risk or deception suffer the consequences of their choices.

Our country was NOT to be a POLICE STATE, where citizens are all suspects monitored by cameras, where dissent is met with a baton, or where speech petitioning the redress of grievances is met by a cage and a fine. The United States should be a model to the world, of a nation where all ideas are welcome, and the best among them, supported by reason and sense, rise to the top, while those based on ignorance or hatred fall into the gutter of silence.

EMPIRE was NOT in the design of these United States, and nor were its costs:

A populace propagandized to live in fear of the outside world, taxed in every labor to afford the machines of death with which to further subjugate humanity.

A populace falsely led to fear one and other, taxed in every purchase and exchange to afford bureaucracies, ever expanding in their cost and confusion, whose promises - juvenile in their utopian design - could never be realized.

A populace so inundated with a fascist worship of THE STATE, that the overwhelming majority lose the desire to inspect its motives, to examine its methods, or to call it to question for its crimes.


The two largest POLITICAL PARTIES are in lockstep closing the window of debate to what they decide are acceptable norms, and in preventing any competition in the marketplace of political discourse. Thus voting has lost almost all of its strength, and the mind of the American Citizenry has be reduced in its power to what amounts to the mere selection of color when choosing representation.

We must begin to talk passionately about these issues. We must begin to strike the root of tyranny as it grows in our land. We must speak truth to power using the words John Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath, that the likes of Paine and Jefferson were not causes, but results.

We must demonstrate the RESULTS of our government’s lust for power and privelage. We must demonstrate the RESULTS of our government’s unethical collusions with industry. We must re-assert the intended American Order of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS over the will of the state.

For, if out of laziness or fear, we do not rise to answer the call of the age, to take our place in modern history, then we will have nothing to say when the shadow of fascism rests on every corner of our land, except that we invited it.

Nice piece of writing and I will pass it on to others.

However, I do believe it’s an exercise in futility. Most won’t understand it nor take the time to look at the historical fact of it. I’ve been fighting this political battle for many a year promoting near exactly what you prescribe, only to be met with apathy, indifference and ideological illusion. The majority just don’t get it, nor do they want to get it.

Redistribution of wealth has become the accepted norm.

Taxing the fruits of our labors has become precedent.

Entangling foreign alliances, the wars that go with them and the urge to imperialism has become patriotism.

Offloading debt to future generations has not only become acceptable, but totally expected.

Socialist democracy has replaced constitutional republicanism.

Fascist nationalism has conquered the hearts and minds of at least half of the nation.

Classic constitutional liberalism has been banished to the trash heap.

Bribing the vote and the resources for elections has become traditional and worshiped.

Expanding the government’s size, scope, bureaucracy and tyranny has become celebrated and promoted.

I highly suspect, that the only return to the classic liberalism and constitutional decorum envisioned by our founding fathers can come after our bankruptcy, if ever.

very good writing , I will be happy to spread the word.

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Aint but three things in this world thats worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Tom T. Hall
http://www.politicalforum.com/group.php?groupid=43

Bravo! Excellent post, Dignity. The sad truth here is that many will argue that you are wrong. Many Americans are intellectually lazy and willfully ignorant. Most Americans are far to likely to allow, even encourage, their political party to think for them. The Republican and Democratic Parties are the problem and thus cannot be the solution. People rail on about the nanny state when in fact they want their government to do for them when from the beginning it was intended that the people are government. The people are the government no more.

Americans are not - are not - active in their government. Americans do not self govern. Self rule has become a fallacy. Self rule means sacrifice and most Americans do nothing at all in terms of governance. Most Americans don't vote, most American voters are not informed voters. Most American voters vote party line because it's easier that way.

We lie to ourselves and wave the flag and shout "We're number one" at every opportunity while in reality we are hardly number one in anything with the exception of military spending and personal debt. We are no longer the home of the brave nor the land of the free. A brave nation would direct itself out of oil dependency and debt. We wait around hoping for the magic bullet and the easy way out. Free? Oh, please.

So who runs the country if not the people? Corporations and a cabal of wealthy men and women who have less than national stewardship in mind. In some ways you can't blame them as the people of the United States in real terms can't be bothered.

I've said for a while now that we had the opportunity to be the agents of change. We passed that opportunity up some while back. Change is inevitable but very often you have the opportunity to influence the outcome. We are beyond that now. Change will come but America is in free fall.

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You, you, and you, panic. The rest of you follow me.

Last book read: "The Gate House" ~ NelsonDeMille
Now reading: "Nam-A-Rama" ~ Phillip Jennings

Boy,do I echo your sentiment about how hard it is to get people to pay attention,I am a volunteer for the OBAMA campaign,and some gop supporters have said things to me that made even my cheeks sting,and I am a pretty strong person. All the news media,tv,newspapers,radio,internet are all standing up to mccain and the gop's sleazy tactics,and lies,and yet people are turning a blind eye,it is very frustrating.How much more do the republicans have to take away before people wake up?

Great first post. Vote third party 2008. Send the Democrats and Republicans packing.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Totally agree.

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If it was that easy, everyone would do it.

You're far too enamoured with the political process. It doesn't work, the game is rigged.

On the other hand, I never really got these people who admire the constitution as such, especially when one considers that it replaced the far less statist Articles of the Confederation.

In any case, you're arguments against the state are all pointing in the right direction, they'd just be a lot more powerful if you're alternative was entirely consistent.

I think about this sort of stuff far more often than is healthy. I often wonder when we'll see the first person, or group of people, who's tired of our meddling federal government finally say "enough" and do something drastic. I wonder what they'll do and how it will be received by the rest of the citizenry. I do not wonder about what the government will say about it or how the media will handle it.

They will be castrated to the point that they are un-electable.

People have grown to dependent on government. Thomas Jefferson warned us against this along with Ben Franklin.

We keep proping up failures in the business sectors to our own detriment. There is a reason why these businesses are failing. We shouldnt allow our government to prop up failed dealings in the name of security, b/c the very reason it failed was b/c it wasnt secure in the 1st place.

We are going down a path that is unfundable. All these socialist programs over the next 30 years will be our undoing. And what is worse, is you got people like Obama calling for more of them.

We are doomed unless enough people stand up and say enough of this (*)(*)(*)(*). Both parties are blaming wall street for the current problem. That is fine, but we better look to the government for fostering it along more so. Those businesses should be allowed to fail and new ones to rise in their places.

We cannot sustain this socialist endeavor. Not only is it unconstiutional at all levels, it just prolongs the real problems inherit in all this.

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If I had the option of voting 2000 and 2004 over again, I would still vote Bush.