Tyranny is Rising Again

 by

       M. Richard Maxson


      As we enter into 2015, it seems that fewer and fewer Americans are willing to accept or defend the Constitution. Our youth is not being taught the intricacies of this document that changed the world by the Leftist acadamia.  The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. What all of this underscores is that America has abandoned its roots; we have forgotten history -- our own and also the historical struggle between liberty and tyranny, which furnished the spiritual, intellectual and moral backdrop for the formation of this country.

      In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual.  The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by "political correctness" and "the war on terror." Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.


       The Constitution is a promise about how government power is going to be used. It was drafted to protect citizens from government, not make government bigger and more invasive. It’s a promise written by people who had experienced life under tyrannical government. The lesson they

learned from that and from their knowledge of previous tyrannies was that the most important issue is to wall off government power from our private lives and to make sure that nobody -- not elected officials, not a king, not a dictator -- gets to dictate how we live our lives.” We benefit from the Constitution’s existence nearly every time it stymies politicians’ ambition to control us. This is based on the idea that the people not only have a right to choose their government and control government policy with their votes, but also that there are vast areas of the people's lives that are none of the government's business. Tyranny has re-emerged.

      The Constitution doesn’t authorize government to provide healthcare, education, or welfare. Beyond Constitutional illegitimacy, are these areas “better” because government’s invested billions in pursuing “progress?” Both parties support the Patriot Act and the secret FISA apparatus, which together invade privacy, infringe upon free speech, permit federal agents to write their own search warrants and allow domestic spying on all of us all the time. This demonstrates that our political leaders do not believe that our rights are inalienable, but can be interfered with and regulated by them. They have written laws that literally permit federal agents to do the very acts the Constitution was written to prohibit. Tyranny has re-emerged.
      

      The cornerstone of our culture is the Constitution because without the Constitution, the United States is a different country, and Americans a different people. This is why assaults on the Constitution are assaults on all of us.  Unless we have a radical change in the direction of government -- its size, cost, focus, intrusiveness and rejection of first principles -- and unless we elect people to the government who truly believe the Declaration and the Constitution mean what they say, we will continue our march toward the federal destruction of the presumption of liberty. We fear that if we don't soon turn things around, we will lose the America we love. To that end, we must look back and remember the foundations and timeless principles upon which this nation was built and recommit ourselves to them before it is too late.