Crossroads

We are in the midst of crisis. But there is something greater at play than the economic troubles we face. The current economic malaise has led us into confronting more fundamental issues. The nation sits on the edge of two different understandings of the law, government, justice, and ultimately human nature. As a nation, we’ve stared down adversity before: facing a tyrannical king across the ocean, the haunting misery of chattel slavery, a genocidal regime brutalizing Europe, a group of radical Islamists killing 3,000 innocent civilians. Each time we've had to ask ourselves, "what kind of nation are we?" Is this economic crisis enough to push us towards a reckoning? Perhaps not. However, the government’s tyrannical seizure of power, abuse of our fundamental rights, and reckless actions may very well be enough.

What would the Founder’s say about these abuses and usurpations, recently ripped from the headlines?

-This nation maintains a policy of taxation that punishes the ambitious and subsidizes the unproductive. We've created an electorate in which 40% of the people share all the common benefits and often get extra compensation and aid yet pay nothing in taxes, the bear no burden of the cost of government. The State offers representation without any taxation. How can we expect to have a just and fair government when 40% of the electorate bear no burden of the cost?

-The government has taken ownership, paid for private losses from the public coffers, and dictated leadership, compensation, and future development in private enterprise. How far have we gone when the Swedish lecture us about excessive government ownership?

-The government has debased and devalued our currency by allowing political pressure to dictate monetary policy rather than economic common sense. We are in dire straits when the Chinese lecture us on sound monetary policy.

-Our government is making efforts to abolish the secret ballot--an integral part in the democratic process--in voting for employee unionization in private enterprise. It is a measure which the Mexican Supreme Court voted down unanimously. There is something deeply flawed our concept of justice when we are bested by our neighbors, their government corruption well reputed.

-The government has dishonored binding treaties through ignoring the provisions and intent of NAFTA when they pass tariffs and encumber trade across boarders.

-The government has cast aside a fundamental provision in the Bill of Rights when it retroactively levied penalties against individual citizens. This is an obviously an exp post facto law, a grave violation of our constitutional rights.

-And the president and his left-wing congress tout the merits of the falsely titled "fairness doctrine", a gross violation of free speech. How far will they go to silence opposition and crush opinion in the name of "fairness"?

-The government has abused and degraded the most basic elements of our English common law heritage. In our common law tradition, there are two main areas of legal context: the law of torts (laws against harming others) and the law of contracts (laws enforcing binding agreements). When the power is given to bankruptcy judges to unilaterally modify mortgages or to regulators alter the contracts of private enterprise employees, it violates one of the most fundamental and ancient principles in law.

It seems to me that 233 years ago a group of brave men pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to stop the tyranny of transgressions far less then what we see today. Don't misunderstand me, overthrowing the government through violence is not the only recourse and I do not desire that outcome. I believe that we must simply return to our roots rather than establish new ones. We can do this through restoring the police powers to the states and reverting back to a federalist system, limiting government, embracing free markets, and writing good laws.

Surely, difficult times lay ahead. But the State’s litany of abuses will do far more than push our country into anguish and frustration. Amidst the harshest of moments yet to come, as a nation we will be forced to confront this question: "towards what end should government aim, for what purpose does it exist?" By my judgement, there will be essentially two opposing answers to this eternal question.

There will be some who say the government is a provider. It exists to give us things: our needs, our wants, our rights. They will tacitly acknowledge that freedom is the reason that we have problems and inequality in society. So, they will seek to limit that freedom: they will ask you to forfeit our liberty to the state in the blind hope that perhaps acting collectively, rather than making our own individual choices, we can avoid any misfortune. They will contend that no higher authority over men exists; not laws, not God, nor nature shall dictate the ends we ought to pursue. They will tell us to look to an enlightened few to mold and sculpt society in accord with their ideas. Liberty will be forgotten. These people will hope for a tyrant, a ruler who will promise equality and safety. And at the alter of securing equality of condition they will ask we lay down our liberty.

There will be others who say government is a protector. It exists fundamentally to protect the inherent and unalienable rights of man; those rights which we have from the beginning of our existence. Government ought to be a limited entity, with enumerated powers, governed by impartial laws rather than powerful men. Because men are born free we are meant to live with liberty and such liberty must be tempered with the pursuit of justice. They will seek to make impartial laws that establish order and under which we can live freely. They will acknowledge that humans are imperfect and look to a transcendent order to determine such laws. In the end they will know that the only path towards both liberty and order is for men to govern their own individual selves rightly.

My hope and prayer remains that there will be those who are brave and virtuous standing tall to articulate the latter of the two choices to the people. I have unending hope that we can resuscitate the American experiment in constitutional, limited self-government. In times such as these the eerie and desperate words of "Delta Blues" icon Robert Johnson echo through my head.

I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Asked the lord above for mercy, "save me if you please."

Perhaps there is wisdom there; surrendering all fate to the Almighty may not be the only thing left to do. However, Providence brought forth this great nation and if the American way of life is to be saved, it will be there in the revival.