What Does Your America Stand For? - Granite Grok

What Does Your America Stand For?

American flag cracks

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because the law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” –  Thomas Jefferson

Related: ACLU Lawyer Wants to Suppress Free Speech

Nanny state governors have been sleepwalking through unconstitutional shutdowns. They engage in these tyrannical actions and their consequences which necessarily follow. These tyrants care about acquiring power and control. The people and their wellbeing couldn’t be farther from their thoughts.

You might think they are ignorant of the economic destruction they inflict. They are neither ignorant personally nor are they unmindful of the economic results professionally. These governors just do not care. They are arrogant, imperious despots.

The governors inflict great harm on those they bar from going to work. They impose harm on those trying to operate their businesses. Somehow they brought themselves to the belief it is lawful to assault natural rights and constitutional guarantees. How is it conscionable to behave this way?

These same governors are now beginning another wave of interferences with personal liberty. While the eyes of the public have been on the vote counting… while we are distracted with all of the allegations and litigations. Governors have threatened and in some cases have begun imposition of more unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and illogical efforts to shut down society. They do this all in the name of COVID-19.

By doing so, they are reigniting the debate on individual liberty vs. public safety. In this case, the safety they claim to be enhancing is safety from disease. By their executive orders, they use executive branch mandate to interfere with freedoms. There is no due process. Due process is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. In doing so they set themselves up for criminal prosecutions when normalcy returns.

The origins of human freedom from a natural law perspective is quite interesting. Scholars, jurists, theologians, and radical revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison have truly believed in human freedom. They have passionately argued that human freedom is our individual power to make unobstructed choices. It comes from within us, and not from the government.

Most of the historical defenders of this truism also believe in God. The argument goes God made us free by giving us free will. This understanding of natural rights was wedded to the United States at its birth. It was Jefferson who wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. Again in 1791 Madison wrote the Ninth Amendment. In the Ninth he said that because human liberty is so expansive the government must protect even unstated, unenumerated rights.

It is difficult to reconcile what is happening in our covid world today with what America was founded to be. We have an election still being contested. Something we should understand clearly is that the contestants stand for very different Americas. Trump stands closer to the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Biden hates the U.S. Constitution. He is for big government and bigger regulation. Regardless of the outcome peace does not seem near. We have one country but not one set of values and principles.

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