COUNTRY, GOVERNMENT, AND MASS HOME INVASION
In 1961, in his inaugural speech, John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” This sounds nice, noble and patriotic, but it’s wrong and dangerous to think of “country” and “government” in this context as being synonymous. Our government, designed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people” exists to “do” for the people. Americans don’t exist to “do” for the government.
Our country consists of borders, its terrain, harbors, water and other natural resources; its the place we explore, exploit, develop and maintain law and order in for the sake of our enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a place identified with a common historical heritage. It’s the place that is our home, and as such, a place, that demands and depends upon our stewardship and safe guarding.
Government isn’t synonymous with country. Our founders rightfully understood government, because of the human element associated with it, to be the one greatest threat to the survival of our Constitutional Republic and our individual freedom, both of which were unprecedented in the history of nations, which is why the United States was then referred to as “The Great Experiment.” The “experiment” was whether or not people were capable of governing themselves rather than being ruled “by monarchies, dictators, or any other variation of autocrat..
Because of the human element necessarily involved with it, “Government,” said our first president, George Washington, “is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.” Second president, John Adams agreed saying, that ours is “A government of laws [the Constitution], not of men.” Because the role of men in government is what makes it dangerous and fearful, our third president, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” His successor, James Madison said, “All men having power ought to be mistrusted.”
Our country, our home, is suffering mass home invasion today and is being turned into a house of horrors because all of the above has been forgotten. It has been forgotten that the first duty of Americans to their country if to insure that government doesn’t do anything that the powers enumerated to it in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution do not authorize it to do. Americans need to understand what they once understood: that “Government loses its legitimacy as soon as it exercises powers not granted to it in the Supreme Law of the Land.” (Please consider subscribing to www.thatwemayknow.com)