Man-Government-Liberty-Tyranny

Man Organizes Governments To Be His Tools

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men . . ." - (Declaration of Independence)

The Principle

1. The traditional American philosophy teaches that government is merely the creature and a tool, or instrument, of the sovereign people.

Government's Primary Function

2. The people create their governments primarily to serve one supreme purpose: to "secure" the safety and enjoyment of their God-given, unalienable rights. To make and keep them secure is government's primary function and chief reason for existence, according to the philosophy proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.

Government a Tool

3. This makes clear the correct role of government in relation to the people, as viewed by the American philosophy. It is merely their tool, like any other tool such as saw, or a plow, or a steam engine, created by them to serve its assigned and limited purpose. As the people's tool, or instrument, any government could never soundly be said to possess sovereign power--that is, unlimited, or total, power over all things and all persons. Under the American philosophy, no legal, meaning governmental, sovereignty exists anywhere; while any political sovereignty is possessed by the people alone and even they are limited by the obligation to keep inviolate the God-given, unalienable rights of every Individual. Government may possess and its officials may exercise, as the people's servants and trustees, only such limited part of the people's power as they see fit from time to time to delegate to it through their fundamental law: the Constitution, as amended by them; and this applies to all governments and Constitutions, Federal and State.

Government Lacks "Just Power" to Violate Rights

4. Therein lies the significance of the limitation by the people of government's role and power, under the American philosophy. The fact that government cannot have any "just" power or authority--as meant by the term "just powers" in the Declaration of Independence--to violate any unalienable right of The Individual follows from the fact that no Individual can have any right, power or authority to violate any other Individual's unalienable rights. Because it is created by the people (a group of Individuals) primarily for the purpose of making secure all rights of all Individuals, this tool of the people, government, could not conceivably derive from them any power or authority, morally or constitutionally, to do the opposite by infringing any such right. Since no Individual possesses, or could grant, any such power or authority, the many Individuals composing the people of a country are similarly lacking; many times zero equals zero. No vote of the people, by however great a majority--even all of the people but one Individual, opposed to that lone Individual--could give to any government any such authority or power. (This is subject, of course, to the point previously discussed in Paragraph 9 of Principle 3, regarding just punishment of offenders against just laws, or against the rights of other Individuals.)

Government Cannot Delegate Any Power to Violate Man's Rights

5. By the same token, it is impossible for the people's tool, government, to possess any authority from the people--any "just power" (to use the term of the Declaration of Independence)--to delegate to others any power which it does not and could not possess under the traditional American philosophy. As such a tool, government could not possibly possess, could not be given, any power to authorize any person, group or organization to do that which it is itself powerless to do. This precludes, for example, government's authorizing or empowering any person, group, or organization to violate any Individual's unalienable rights--including the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"--or any of the supporting rights, such as the right to property and to freedom of association.

No Coercion of Man as to His Labor

6. Under the American philosophy, these supporting rights include, for example, The Individual's right to use all of his faculties, talents, abilities and energies--basically his own labor--as, when and where he sees fit without any restraint by government or by others. This is subject, of course, to his duly respecting the equal rights of other Individuals (in part as discussed regarding Equality in Pars. 8-9 of Principle 7) and just laws expressive of the above-mentioned "just powers" of government designed to help safeguard the equal rights of all Individuals. This means, for example, the enjoyment of this right without any such restraint upon his right to freedom of association, to freedom of choice with regard to joining, or not joining, any organization--for instance, an organization of his fellow employers or an organization of his fellow workers. Violation of this right involves necessarily violation of his unalienable rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" as well as of the supporting rights--notably the right to property (money or any other type), including acquiring, possessing and using it. Such violation results in any case of coercion of The Individual to join, or not to join, such an organization. This is true whether perpetuated by government directly, or by it indirectly through others acting with its sanction--for instance, by any group or organization of other Individuals who exert pressures of any kind or degree to induce, or impel, him so to join, or to refrain from joining. As Man's tool, government not only can have no just power so to perpetuate any such violation but is affirmatively obligated, under just laws, not only not to tolerate but actively to prevent such violation by others--always strictly in keeping with its limited powers and related responsibilities as prescribed in the applicable Constitution (as amended), Federal or State, as the case may be. To repeat, any Individual's right to freedom of association (freedom of choice of associates) is always subject to the equal rights of others - including their right to similar freedom of choice of associates. This right's enjoyment always involves the essential factor of mutual consent, free from any element of coercion.

Sovereign Citizen over Public Servant

7. All public officials are subordinate as public servants to all citizens. Under the American philosophy of Man-over-Government, the American heritage assumes that the most modestly circumstanced Individuals among the sovereign people rank higher than any public officials, even those serving as the highest ranking of public servants. It is a case of The Sovereign over servant--each Individual in this regard representing in a sense the sovereign people as the creator of their tool, or instrument: government.

Betrayal of the American Heritage

8. It was the firm conviction of those who founded America--notably the leaders of the period 1776-1787 and their fellow Americans in general--that to forget, neglect , or defy this great American principle is to betray the American heritage of Individual Liberty--Man's Freedom from Government-over-Man--and to contribute in practice to its erosion, or subversion. Sins of omission in this connection are as heinous as sons of commission. Any public servants who ignore this truth are guilty of desecration of the spirit of traditional America and the higher the offender's rank, the worse the offense morally. Any Individual who condones such an offense against this heritage is similarly blameworthy.

The Conclusion

9. Each Individual, among the sovereign and self-governing people, embodies a part of the supreme sovereignty of the people in relation to their creature and tool, or instrument, government, and to its officials as public servants--wholly subservient to the people as their superiors, their masters.

Quotes from The American Ideal of 1776 supporting this Principle.

The methodology of tyranny

The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else.

Control of public information and opinion: It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call it "public information" or "marketing".
Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers: It doesn't matter which of the two major party candidates are elected if no real reformer can get nominated, and when news services start knowing the outcomes of elections before it is possible for them to know, then the votes are not being honestly counted.
Undue official influence on trials and juries: Nonrandom selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.
Usurpation of undelegated powers: This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.
Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force: The first signs are efforts to register or restrict the possession and use of firearms, initially under the guise of "protecting" the public, which, when it actually results in increased crime, provides a basis for further disarmament efforts affecting more people and more weapons.
Militarization of law enforcement: Declaring a "war on crime" that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.
Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform: Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.
Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers: When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into active tyranny.
Use of the law for competition suppression: It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters' competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.
Subversion of internal checks and balances: This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.
Creation of a class of officials who are above the law: This is indicated by dismissal of charges for wrongdoing against persons who are "following orders".
Increasing dependency of the people on government: The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back again.
Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them: When the people avoid doing things like voting and serving in militias and juries, tyranny is not far behind.
Use of staged events to produce popular support: Acts of terrorism, blamed on political opponents, followed immediately with well-prepared proposals for increased powers and budgets for suppressive agencies. Sometimes called a Reichstag plot.
Conversion of rights into privileges: Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.
Political correctness: Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

Avoiding tyranny

The key is always to detect tendencies toward tyranny and suppress them before they go too far or become too firmly established. The people must never acquiesce in any violation of the Constitution. Failure to take corrective action early will only mean that more severe measures will have to be taken later, perhaps with the loss of life and the disruption of the society in ways from which recovery may take centuries.

Liberty - Against Government-over-Man
". . . unalienable rights, that among these are . . . Liberty . . ." (Declaration of Independence)

The Principle

1. The traditional American philosophy teaches that the God-given, unalienable right of Man to "Liberty" means primarily Freedom from Government-over-Man--or, otherwise stated, Liberty against Government-over-Man.

The Broader Definition

2. This is the primary meaning of the word "Liberty" as used in the Declaration of Independence and in the Preamble of the United States Constitution. In this fundamental law of the people, The Framers sought to translate into enduring governmental reality, to the maximum practicable extent, the ideals and principles of that 1776 Declaration. They stated in the Preamble the goals to be served by the central (Federal) government in its use of the powers granted to it by the people, as enumerated in the body of that basic law. The word "Liberty" also means, of course, freedom of The Individual from interference or coercion by other Individuals in the enjoyment of his unalienable rights and of the supporting rights. Individual Liberty is an indivisible whole.

Liberty-Responsibility

3. According to this philosophy, Liberty must always be taken to mean Individual Liberty-Responsibility, with emphasis upon the duty of respecting the equal rights of others and just laws expressive of "just powers" (to quote the term of the Declaration of Independence) designed to safeguard the equal rights of all Individuals. Individual Liberty-Responsibility involves the self-governing Individual's being burdened with the duties underlying his share of the responsibility for their safety of the Liberty of all Individuals, and of their other unalienable rights. Lacking such a sense of responsibility, Liberty can readily degenerate into license. Individual Liberty-Responsibility denotes that challenging freedom which tests the courage and wisdom of Free Man because of the truth that:

Only the brave dares to be--only the wise can remain--Free Man

By accepting the challenge, performing the duties, of

Individual Liberty-Responsibility under constitutionally limited government.

Freedom of Choice

4. The Liberty of Free Man is basically the Liberty of freedom of choice, with due respect for the equal rights of others. Without this freedom, Man cannot really be free, nor can there be any moral value or merit in his actions because they are not voluntary, not a true self-expression, not based on unfettered election between right and wrong, between good and evil, in the light of conscience and his personal moral code. An example of freedom of choice is freedom of association--for instance, freedom to join, or not to join, any particular organization (such as an organization of employers or of employees) without compulsion by government or by any others. This means any organization for a lawful purpose--not a conspiracy to commit murder, for example, and not a conspiratorial, subversive organization such as the Kremlin-controlled Communist ("Party") conspiracy which aims to subvert the United States government and all other American governments as well as to destroy all traditional American values; as to which the overt act of joining the conspiracy is the main factor creating guilt by association of persons, not of ideas. (Discussed also in Par. 6 of Principle 4 and Par. 9 of Principle 7.)

The "Self" Factors of Free Men

5. Liberty means Man's freedom which characterizes a wisely and soundly self-governing people, determined to live up fully to high ideals in the enjoyment of The Individual's rights and in the performance of the accompanying duties defined by these essential elements of the philosophy of truly Free Man:

(1) the spiritual: self-respect; (2) the economic: self-reliance; (3) the political-social: self-discipline.

These are the "self" factors characteristic of the self-governing and genuine Free Man.

Self-respect

6. Fundamentally, self-respect stems from Man's realization of the truth that the Spiritual is supreme and that he is of Divine creation, therefore possessed of a spiritual nature; and that The Individual is therefore of supreme dignity and value. Self-respect is fostered and evidenced by The Individual's striving to maintain the integrity of his unalienable rights. This is manifested partly by insisting that government as well as others respect them--in keeping with the requirements of constitutionally limited government. It is further manifested by his dedication to his own unceasing growth in the fuller realization of his own highest potential--spiritually, morally and intellectually, in every aspect of life.

Self-reliance

7. Self-reliance in the economic field--of the essence of Individual Liberty-Responsibility--is an essential characteristic of Free Man. This is true because dependence upon government for economic support inescapably saps the independence of Man's spirit, robs him of the inspiration and inclination to be individually venturesome and self-reliant, and undermines his willingness and capacity to oppose developments of a Government-over-Man nature including violation by government of the unalienable rights of himself and others. Such violation can be brought about by use of force, or by inducement through subsidy by government which is inescapably accompanied by control. As The Federalist (number 79, by Alexander Hamilton) soundly states: "In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will." (Emphasis Hamilton's.) This truth, in keeping with the adage that "he who pays the piper calls the tune" as well as with the dictates of common sense born of experience, was acknowledged by the United States Supreme Court when it stated (1936 Butler case) that: "The power to confer or withhold unlimited benefits is the power to coerce or destroy." Firm belief in the supreme value of Liberty--to the complete subordination always of economic security to Liberty's well-being--and consistent action in support of this belief, are always chief characteristics of every American who is worthy of his heritage of Free Man.

Self-discipline

8. Self-discipline involves, in main part, The Individual's faithful performance of the duties underlying Individual Liberty-Responsibility, in keeping with the truth that there can be no Right apart from Duty, no Liberty or Freedom apart from Responsibility. The self-discipline of the self-governor is the alternative to being disciplined and controlled by government. Self discipline by The Individual, by respecting the boundary line separating his rights from the equal rights of others, provides the requisite moral basis for prohibiting violation by them of his own rights. Self-discipline, in the political-social realm, is a principle characteristic of Free Man among Free Men in an enduring and ethical environment of freedom. This is the only environment in which Individual Liberty can be secure and flourish.

As to each Individual among a self-governing people under constitutionally limited government, self-discipline involves self-control with regard to making demands upon government. The inherent duties require that nothing be done to help induce government to violate the limits of its powers or corresponding responsibilities as defined in the people's fundamental law: the Constitution, regardless of any seeming benefits temporarily. Such sound conduct is required, in part, in order to help to influence others soundly by proper example in keeping with the moral precept that, in this limited but important sense as to things governmental, each Individual is his "brother's keeper."

Liberty's Two-fold Meaning

9. Liberty is expressive of that within Free Man which reflects the essence of his mind and spirit--of his very soul, in the religious sense implicit in the uniquely American concept of Man's being endowed by his creator with unalienable rights. This is what was meant when American leaders of 1776-1787 used the word "Liberty"--for instance, Patrick Henry in his famed cry "Give me liberty or give me death." This is what was meant by Benjamin Franklin in his profoundly true statement in 1759 that: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Such convictions typify Americans. These spokesmen for Free Man in America meant primarily Man's Liberty against Government-over-Man. Included also, of course, is Man's right to freedom from violation of his rights by others than government--by any person, group or organization. The "safety" to which Franklin referred can soundly be said to include also the economic aspect: economic security provided by government--always involving sacrifice of Liberty, in varying degree, however subtle or disguised.

The Lofty Challenge

10. The signers of the Declaration of Independence elevated Patrick Henry's glowing expression of this loftiest of sentiments regarding Liberty to the highest reaches of the human mind and spirit when they closed this 1776 Declaration's uniquely American message, to American Posterity and to all mankind, with these immortal words:

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor."

On a similarly high plane, President Washington's First Inaugural Address defined the great opportunity and responsibility of the American people - as custodians of Individual Liberty-Responsibility in history's first example of a soundly conceived and adequately founded Republic (defined, for example, in Par. 6 of Principle 5) embracing an entire country and its people. His inspiring words were:

". . . the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty. and the destiny of the Republic model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally stated, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." (Emphasis Washington's)

(True Republics had been formed in Mass., 1780, and N.H., 1784.) This profound message to all generations of Americans emphasizes their true role and opportunity in relations with other peoples: to seek to influence them chiefly by sound example, as successful self-governors ever faithful to the Constitution's spirit and letter, as never faltering Friends of Individual Liberty--of Man's Freedom from Government-over-Man.

The Conclusion

11. The American philosophy teaches that Individual Liberty is indivisible and for one and all, or for none, in the long run--that the American choice is: Individual Liberty in full, for one and all, always.

Quotes from The American Ideal of 1776 supporting this Principle.