The First Step: Acceptance

Garet Garrett's "The Revolution Was"
[ http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/docs/The_Revolution_Was.html ]
cemented my darkest suspicion about
America: everything I was raised to
believe about being born into freedom
in the Land of the Free was fictional.
(Sub-suspicion arises: was I the
only dupe?) The Constitution has
no more power than the power of the
guns held by the men in charge, and
it means nothing more than whatever
they claim it means on any given
day.

I was not born into freedom.
I was born into a dual bondage: a
rule by men, as opposed to rule of law;
and the bondange of my own ignorance,
embellished with fanciful dramas
about the Founding Fathers' fight
against tyranny, which I probably
heard a thousand times in school
and on TV (nearly as many times as
I parroted the Pledge of Allegiance
to the rulers at school.)

Enlightenment has come in the form
of Death By A Thousand Cuts rather
than an instantaneous awakening.
Little by little the Truth has hammered
at me but I acknowledged it without
fully Accepting.

It must be now Accepted: the Bill of
Rights and the rest of Constitution
are no longer in effect. For year
after year, and decade after decade
they have papered over with new
"laws", or simply ignored. Does
the PATRIOT ACT contradict the
4th Amendment's prohibition against
warrantless searches? Does an
"Executive Order" overrule the
5th, 6th and 8th Amendments regarding
the rights of the accused -- and
do not "Executive Orders" on their
face violate the 10th Amendment
preserving ALL powers to the states
and the people that are not
expressly delegated to the United
States by the Constitution?

As an example of the vacuum where
the Constitution used to be, take
the so-called "War on Terror" --
which appears to be just another
excuse to consolidate power in the
hands of Men who are forsworn in
their oaths to protect the
Constitution.

The gimmick used by the Bush Regime
-- and Congress -- is to pretend that
terrorism is not a crime, per se.
According to our Benevolent Rulers,
terrorism is so far beyond criminality
that the rule of law does not apply,
leaving them free to assassinate,
torture, start wars, imprison without
trial, and any other thing they desire.

And they appear to desire the power of
the tyrant, the King, above all
law. But to maintain appearances
they have created mountains of new
laws and regulations that void the
Constitution, never seeming to
take into account the fact that if
the Constitution is null and void
then so are their "laws". The "law"
of Bush and Congress is the law
of the jungle, the law of the
crime syndicate: obey or die.

Repeat: the Constitution is the basis
upon which we granted the government
limited powers to perform limited
deeds, constrained by the specific
rules embodied in the Constitution.
It is our contract with the public
officials. If the contract is void,
then all further laws are empty and
devoid of all meaning except the power
of their guns. (They have most of the
guns and you don't, therefore you will
obey their decrees. Or die in their
prison or by their bullets. QED.)

This is a bitter pill to swallow:

I was never free. Worse, I was
deluded into thinking I was. And
even worse than that, I was a chump,
an ignoramus who stupidly saluted
their flag and pledged allegiance
to the criminal enterprises of these
men without conscience or honor.

In theory a king could deserve loyalty
by his just rule and righteous deeds.
That king is not George W. Bush. And
I am confident it is not John F. Kerry,
but perhaps a change in despots would
be refreshing...