Page 27 - Fruits from a Poisonous Tree

Mel Stamper 11

giving one group of people the power of invention over others as to how they
must conduct their affairs.
The power accumulating in a central government is not put on display
at the Smithsonian Institute; it is exercised in day-to-day life. The larger it
becomes, the more oppressive it will become, regardless of the intentions of
those who advocate larger government.
The average American’s understanding of liberty and the threat to its
survival has declined sharply since the nation’s birth. The Massachusetts
colonists rebelled after the British agents received “writs of assistance” that
allowed them to search any colonist’s property.
Modern Americans submit passively to law enforcement sweep searches
of buses, schools, and housing projects without valid search warrants. Virginia
revolted in part because King George imposed a two-pence tax on the sale
of a pound of tea. Americans today are complacent while Congress imposes
billions of dollars in taxes, increasing the projected federal debt into double
digit trillions.
Federal agencies have the power to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury in
suits against private citizens. Maine revolted primarily because the British
Parliament issued a decree confiscating every white pine tree in the colony;
modern Americans are largely complacent when local regulatory agencies
impose almost unlimited restrictions on individuals’ rights to use their own
property.
The initial battles of the Revolution occurred after British troops tried to
seize the colonists’ private weapons; today, residents in Chicago, Washington,
D.C., and other cities submit to de facto prohibition on handgun ownership
imposed by the same government that grossly fails to protect the citizen from
private violence.
The 1775 Revolution was largely a revolt against growing arbitrary
power. Nowadays, seemingly the only principle is to have no political
principle: to judge each act of government in a vacuum – to assume that
each expansion of government power and nullification of individual
rights will have no future impact. The Founding Fathers looked with
horror at the liberties that they were losing, while modern Americans
focus myopically on the freedoms that they still retain.
America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. The Founding Fathers
realized that some amount of government was necessary in order to prevent a
“war of all against all.” By trying to seize far more power than is necessary or
granted by the Constitution over American citizens, the federal government is
destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or fascism, but