redstate.com Yesterday, I wrote over at the RedState front page about Jim Jordan’s frying of Dr. Fauci during a hearing. Essentially, Congressman Jordan wanted a time at which, we could expect to “get our rights back.” Fauci, worthless as ever, could not give the Congressman a number (or didn’t want to). Either way, he was uncooperative with a direct question during a hearing and the very checks and balances which have been the hallmark of our government.
Among two things that occurred during that interview that scared me to no end were statements made by both Fauci and Jordan. First, Fauci said, “It isn’t about Liberty” in referring to the government’s draconian measures on COVID-19 restrictions. The other, made by Jordan, questioned, “When do we get our constitutional rights back?”
The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land. No law or edict passed by Congress or instituted by the Executive can supersede it or overcome it. The very respect of our rights was instituted to be individually granted, not granted to the collective, and not, and I repeat NOT, granted by government. In fact, the Bill of Rights is not a list of government-granted rights, but a list of government limitations that protect the rights of the individual.
During the formation of the Constitution, the United States was not the only country going through its revolutionary birth. At the same time that America was shedding its oppressive tyrants, the French were booting their king as well. It was interesting to note that our E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) was matched by the French’s Liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), comparing our individuality in America with the French’s collective equality.
Under the French system, adopted in 1791, the preamble of which was in part drafted by Thomas Jefferson, an aristocracy was unintentionally born and later replaced through various new constitutions, most recently after World War II.
The unique part of the United States Constitution is in the source of our rights, in the phrase included in the Declaration of Independence, “Endowed by their creator.”
While many have read this to believe that God is the source of the people’s rights, Jefferson was more specific in his belief that those rights were natural, basic laws of the universe, and naturally existed outside of any dictate of any man or any government.
Those rights cannot be given or bestowed by a government as those rights are already, naturally, and irrevocably given to people at birth. Any effort by a government to take those rights is against the natural laws of the universe.
For the last 245 years, our government has largely respected those rights contained in the United States Constitution. When people of color and women were extended the right to vote, many times people suggest that government granted those rights. Instead, the government ceased preventing them from exercising their constitutional rights. They were not given something to which they were not previously in possession. They were denied those rights by a government that was not following constitutional principles and the natural law of the universe.
Fast forward to 2020 and the beginning of the pandemic which has shaped our world for the last 13 months. When COVID initially hit, many people immediately turned to government for the answer and begged them for protection. Friends and Neighbors were weaponized by government and the media, to cast judgment on those who felt that many of the COVID-19 mandates were, in fact, a violation of their constitutional rights.
Those Brownshirted Kyles and Karens would mask shame or even rat neighbors out to police when they may have been violating these unconstitutional mandates. Remember, the vast majority of these mandates have never been passed by a legislature or been heard in a courtroom because of course, they were both closed as well. Executive orders from Governors, Supervisors, and Mayors replaced our constitutional process, and most alarmingly, people were ambivalent to or unaware of it.
Businesses across the country closed by the hundreds of thousands, likely to rise as many restrictions remain in place in various states. Children suffered as schools were closed and “distance learning” became the norm. People became less healthy as they sat at home binge-watching their way through Netflix, not because they chose to, but because it was about the only thing they were allowed to do. Supply chains began to run into issues as manufacturing and production ground to a halt, and distribution of products slowed. People of faith were denied their constitutional rights to both the free exercise of religion, but as well as the freedom to assemble. It was a terrible Orwellian nightmare.
To top it off, of all the US Currency currently in circulation, 30% of it has been printed in the last year, leading to absolutely insane levels of inflation and therefore increases in prices. Remember, all this is a result of Government action when, more likely, it would have been infinitely less of a problem if they had done next to nothing.
Certainly, efforts like Operation Warp Speed were necessary, but only because, you guessed it, Government would have delayed the approval and production anyway. People who argue that the Government has been responsible for the speedy distribution of the vaccine fail to understand that that same Government, has largely been using private contractors to distribute and administer the vaccine.
Could the government have done all the right things, while still respecting our rights? Absolutely. To put in perspective the total amount of the “relief action” that actually went to Operation Warp Speed and the distribution of said vaccine amounted to less than 3 tenths of a percent (0.3%) of our total 2020 spending.
Additionally, 2020 accounted for an absolutely mindblowing (and stupid) 48% increase in spending over 2019. Sure, the US Government would argue that a good deal of that money went to dealing with COVID-19 issues, but I could argue right back, that the vast majority of that spending could have been avoided had the government just not infringed upon our rights in the first place.
That’s the point, though. To ask the government, which has shown itself to be bloated, unnecessary, and largely incompetent (See Cuomo, Newsom, Whitmer), “when we can get back our rights,” acknowledges a terrible lie in the process. Government does not have the ability to take those rights. Those rights are irrevocably yours. The only thing the government can do is infringe upon those rights. Government isn’t some benevolent force protecting us. It is inherently the enemy of liberty because, in the end, who or what could ever take away our natural human rights other than tyrannical government?
In summary, it is absolutely about liberty because that liberty is irrevocably ours. No act of man can change that and no act of government can take it. They are not conditional upon anything especially when we are all free to make our own determinations on protection. The question isn’t when government will “give us our rights back.” The question is “when will government cease infringing upon our rights.”
Prepare With John B Wells