National Association of Rural Landowners
© Copyright November 16, 2007 - All Rights Reserved
The Fourth Amendment requiring "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated", is being violated every damn day by government in its pursuit to make you secure, at the expense of your liberty.
The Fifth Amendment stating that: No person shall.........."be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." is all but irrelevant. Government takes, reduces your right-of-use, or decreases the value of your property consistently, by act, law, regulation, restriction, ordinance and eminent domain abuse, without due process and without just compensation. U. S. Supreme Court decisions have aided and abetted the destruction of the Fifth Amendment by sanctioning government police powers, way beyond what the Framers envisioned.
The Eighth Amendment stating that: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" has been rendered meaningless, as the penalty for violating some draconian environmental regulation mounts into thousands upon thousands of dollars in fines and can even be criminalized, that results in lengthy incarceration. You have to steal a car seven times before they send you to jail, but woe be the man who violates an environmental regulation, for he shall be crucified on the alter of the enviro-viper.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments stating respectively that: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" and "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people", are no longer relevant. The Federal Government has so exceeded its fifteen (15) enumerated powers contained in the Constitution, as to render "states rights" and the "rights of the people" virtually non-existent. The Feds write federal mandates, forcing the states to comply and if they don't the Feds withhold the federal money that the state requires to comply with said mandate. So the states capitulate to the rising power of the Feds with their hands out stretched for federal dollars, like baby birds in a nest, waiting for the federal "mother" to deliver their next meal.
The sanctity and dignity of human life and the human spirit (or soul if you will) only has meaning when there is "free choice". That human spirit has a driving force to survive first and then express itself through its individual wants and desires. Creativity, industriousness, ingenuity and compassion are the expression of those individual wants and desires. Such expression is different in every human being. Some expressions are good while others are evil. Nevertheless, it is from these wants and desires, tempered with a degree of morality, from which most human achievement and advances of the human condition occur. These characteristics are most abundant when the individual has free choice.
In the book, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, her philosophy of the individual was embodied in one chapter in the book entitled, "This is John Galt Speaking". We'll end this essay with a few of the words from this chapter, as they are relevant to individual freedom and free choice.
"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think."
"But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call 'human nature, the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of our stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function to think or to evade that effort is an act of free choice. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival-so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be' is the question 'to think or not to think'"
"A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible."
"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe; existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that effort, it ceases to exist. It is only the concept of "Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil."
"A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction."
Man, on the other hand, can act for its own survival, or its own destruction. It can either choose life or death, or it can choose freedom or enslavement. If the power of government rises, man can choose either to resist that power, or capitulate to that power. In America, we have a foundation of law, our Constitution, that allows us to not only resist government's rising power, but to reduce the power of government without having to resort to revolution. But to do so, man must choose individual freedom, rather than capitulating to slavery. Either choice has consequences. It is a weighing of values as to which choice has the least consequences; Individual freedom, or collective enslavement.
Again, "There can be no Freedom, without Individual Freedom."
Ron Ewart, President
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
Website: www.narlo.org
Think about forming a NARLO affiliate in your state.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
A powerful non-profit organization, representing and defending the rights and interests of the American rural landowner
www.narlo.org
Dedicated to restoriing, maintaining and defending private property rights
and returning this great land called America, to a Constitutional Republic.
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
E-Mail: info@narlo.org
WE'RE REALLY COUNTING ON YOU TO HELP US CONTINUE THIS FIGHT.
To donate to NARLO, send us a check or money order by U. S. mail to:
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS (NARLO)
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
E-mail: info@narlo.org
You are welcome to use the printable form on our website at: www.narlo.org/membershipapp.html.
Or to make a credit card donation to NARLO, visit our website at:
http://www.narlo.org/donate.html
DONATE AN ITEM:
You are also welcome to donate any article or item of value that is just sitting around taking up space,
that you don't need or want any more. We accept computer or office equipment of any kind, old books,
coins and stamp collections, cameras and binoculars, saleable art, hand or electric tools, stereos, tv's,
radios, amateur radio equipment, IPODS, cell phones, microwave ovens, old 33, 45 or 75 RPM
records, CD-ROM discs, antiques, small appliances, etc.
Send the item, UPS or Fed EX, pre-paid, to: 4451 308th Ave. S. E., Fall City, WA 98024.
or send it by U. S. Mail, pre-paid, to: P. O. Box 813, Fall City, WA 98024.
Do you have a house, lot or land parcel that you aren't going to use or build on, anywhere in the
11 Western States. Or a car, truck, boat, trailer, airplane, or an ORV, snowmobile or jet ski,
that is just sitting around. We also willingly accept donated real estate or vehicles.
Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO 80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com
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