OPINION:
“Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction.” — Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
In December 1776, just six months after the Declaration of Independence had been signed and a year and a half into the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine sensed desperation throughout the Colonies. This prompted him to write a candid and now iconic essay entitled “The American,” which began with the famous line “These are the times that try men’s souls.” He made an argument similar to one that presidential candidate Ronald Reagan would 204 years later.
The essence of that argument is that our personal liberty is fragile. Since government is essentially the negation of liberty, government is liberty’s greatest threat. So we must exercise our freedoms with prudence and courage. We must also be skeptical of what the government says and does.
Paine and Reagan, and those who risked all to sign the declaration and fight England, recognized that our freedoms are natural to us.
Freedom is the right to make personal choices — about religion, speech, association, self-defense, travel, privacy, money and property — without a government permission slip or anyone’s approval. A right is an indefeasible claim against the whole world that all humans possess. Our rights can be extinguished or denied only when we have been convicted by a jury of violating someone else’s rights.
That is, at least, the theory of the declaration, the theory upon which the Colonies seceded from England and the theory upon which the states created the American republic.
Today, our rights can be extinguished or denied, and our liberty and property can be taken by politicians and bureaucrats without a jury trial.
These are the times that try our souls because, at home, we have a government that spends $1.7 trillion a year more than it takes in, while abroad, it taunts Russian dictator Vladimir Putin by paying for a war in Ukraine that the Ukrainians cannot win.
At home, both political parties in Congress have spent $35 trillion more than the feds have collected in the past 100 years, written any law, regulated any behavior, taxed any event, spent any sum, killed any foe — real or imagined — and intruded upon any property or process that they believed would advance themselves politically.
Last month, U.S. private industry added 206,000 new jobs to its payrolls, decreasing the unemployment rate. When the traders who moved the equity markets learned this, the markets went down.
Down? That’s because the traders fear that their masters at the Federal Reserve will continue to respond to good economic news by maintaining artificially high interest rates. Why? Because the Fed has flooded the market with fake money — more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services — inflation is rampant.
So, to correct its mistakes, the Fed is making it more expensive to borrow money by raising its base interest rate, thus inducing the large banks that depend on it for artificial cash to raise their interest rates. Higher interest rates will induce less or deferred borrowing and thus — this modern monetary theory goes — a reduction in economic activity and a lessening of inflation.
But interest on borrowing is the rent we pay to use other people’s money. Why should government planners regulate that rent? It shouldn’t. It should only be regulated as all rents are (except real estate in New York City, where World War II-era rent controls still abide and continue to produce housing shortages) by the law of supply and demand. Is it constitutional for the Fed to regulate interest rates? The Supreme Court, in 100 years of fake money, has never ruled on this.
But the federal government is one of limited powers, all of which are derived exclusively from the Constitution — and there is no grant or even hint of a grant in the Constitution of power to the feds or their offspring to regulate interest rates.
The Constitution expressly prohibits the government from taking property without just compensation. When the government spends more than it collects in revenue, it borrows — often Fed-created money — to pay its bills. This causes more inflation and pushes the obligation to repay the borrowing with interest on to generations of Americans yet unborn.
Stated differently, the government takes your money without raising taxes.
So, today, we have a federal government existing on fake money and borrowed time.
What is the goal of spending $175 billion in Ukraine? Is it the expulsion of Russian troops and citizens from Crimea and eastern Ukraine, or is it the expulsion of Mr. Putin from office? Does either circumstance remotely affect or threaten American national security? No.
Has Mr. Putin threatened the United States? No. The United States has threatened him. Just ask Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who publicly asked the president to assassinate Mr. Putin. We have arms at the Russian border. The Russians have none at ours.
Do we know who in Ukraine received American military equipment and cash? No. Has Congress declared war on Russia? No. Can Congress fund a war without declaring it? No, but Congress does what it thinks is politically popular, the Constitution be damned.
Then why are we funding a war against Russia? We are doing so because the government here is out of control and the president is unpopular, and when that happens, the government chooses war. Presidents kill because they can.
So, our property is being devalued at home by a political system that is incapable of living within its means and abiding the Constitution, and by saber rattling abroad in the face of a country that poses no threat to America.
Freedom is one generation, maybe one nightmare event, from extinction because the people in whose hands we have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping hate it. And in the process, these constitutionally unfaithful stewards have given away our property and taken our liberty.
• To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
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