"Is there no end to government control
of our lives?
Now is the time to
worry"
By Vincent Gioia
Recently the state of California came up with a proposal to
mandate use of radio-controlled thermostats as a means of controlling the
temperature in homes. As outrageous as this sounds, it had the approval of many
in the legislature and in the state administration. Fortunately, a public outcry
of disapproval caused the proposal to be dropped. However the shear
control-freak lunacy of the proposal brings to mind many, many other government
controls of our daily lives that remain in effect with virtually no opposition
or thought about how we have allowed government, directly and indirectly through
the courts, to dictate to us what the government in itself or through the
courts; what is ‘best’ for us. The world described by George Orwell may have
taken longer than 1984 but it exists now because we have allowed ‘big brother’,
to decide what is ‘best’ for us as we have incrementally given up the freedoms
Americans started with when the United States was formed over two hundred years
ago.
What do you suppose our country’s founders would think about
the government telling us whether or not, and where, people could use tobacco
(many were tobacco farmers)? What about some of these other dictates of our
conduct: wearing seat belts in cars, helmets for motorcycle drivers, what kind
of light bulbs, toilets and washing machines we can use in our homes, whether or
not we should have auto and health insurance; and you can add many more.
Our government continues to find new ways to control our lives
regarding energy use. The government is in the toilet bowl control business. Now
toilets must meet strict Federal regulations, but these expensive toilets must
be flushed more than once to be effective. The government now polices our
washing machines. But new regulations that limit water usage are so ineffective
with these new machines that Consumer Reports states the government mandated
machines don't get dirty clothes clean unless they're washed multiple times.
The path to energy independence prescribed by the government is
anything but that; there is no effort to increase supplies, just to change the
way we live. And now the government is in the light bulb police business by
mandating replacement of the old fashioned 100 W incandescent light bulb with a
compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), requiring these expensive new bulbs to be used
that are only made, ironically, in China. Instead of finding new ways to punish
and police Americans for using energy, we should find new efficient sources of
more energy. I doubt if our forefathers fought for independence at Valley Forge
just to give us an all-controlling government that demands how citizens use
washing machines, light bulbs and toilet bowls.
The Second Amendment is under constant attack and even the Bush
administration has jumped on board the ‘ban guns’ train by asking the U.S.
Supreme Court to sanction restrictions on gun ownership; what a betrayal of
conservative who voted for George Bush.
It seems the government, and primarily Democrats and other
liberals, fear an armed citizenry that may one day decide to oppose usurpation
of our God-given, and Constitution-given rights, so the answer for them is to
abolish gun ownership or limit it so severely as to accomplish the same
objective. The people that wrote the Constitution worried about this eventuality
and prescribed these rights in the Second amendment that liberals in both
parties seek to overturn by fiat and judicial action. Here is what our founders
thought about that:
"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed
which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation… (where)
the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
--James
Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed;
as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America
cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people
are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that
can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the
command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be
just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will
instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which
appears to them unjust and oppressive."
--Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of
the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787)."What country can preserve its
liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people
preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas
Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356
"... to disarm the people - that was the best and most
effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates
at 380
And if you think this is nothing to worry about, remember what
the icon of enslavement said:
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to
allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who
have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall
by so doing."
-- Adolph Hitler, Hitler's Secret Conversations 403 (Norman
Cameron and R.H. Stevens trans., 1961)
Yes indeed, now is the time to worry; and to do everything
possible to prevent the government from continuing to pursue the current path of
usurpation of power over our lives. We can start by voting for people who want
to preserve our rights, not destroy them.
