A Breach of Contract: "Once the courts – or the car dealer’s brother-in-law – define the range of the parties’ respective authorities, the mutually-exclusive logic of the 10th Amendment applies: if the government or the dealer is recognized as having expansive definitions of authority, there is very little that remains inviolate for the individual. The language of the 9th Amendment is more suitable to the argument on behalf of a broader definition of liberty. This provision reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This catch-all language suggests that the Ninth Amendment protections are far broader than the combined “rights” of all the other amendments. A reading of judicial history reveals only a very small handful of cases ever having been decided under this section. Of course, the words in this amendment are also subject to interpretation by state officials. This fact is what conservatives fail to understand when they bleat about wanting “to get back to the Constitution.” The government has never strayed from the Constitution; these words have been in that document from the beginning. They have, however, been interpreted according to the ever-changing preferences of those in power.There. And you thought I was an old crank? Even I couldn't top this one...
As the state continues to not simply eat away at – but to gluttonously devour – the liberty its defenders still pretend it is its purpose to protect, it is timely to consider the remedies available to individuals. As one who prefers the peaceful processes of a civilized society – rather than the violent and destructive means that define the state – my thoughts return to contract theory. I must admit, at the outset, that the make-believe “social contract” foundations of the state, reveal the wholesale breach of the obligations of both parties. The failure of the state to restrain its voracious and ruinous appetites is already a matter of record, even to its defenders whose intellectual dishonesty and/or cowardice will not permit them to express the fact. But there is a concurrent obligation on the part of those subject to state rule that finds expression in words carved onto the entrance to the Nebraska state capitol building: “The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen.” It was the failure of most people to live up to this standard that led me to write, a few years ago, about the need to impeach the American people! The “watchfulness” of most Americans is confined to such television programs as “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars.”"
Turn. Off. The. T. V.
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