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Name: Aaron Miller
Location: Spring, TX
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dreams tempered with wisdom

Posted by Aaron Miller on Monday, July 06, 2009 12:00:00 PM
Austin Hill reprinted the email he received from President Obama on the 4th of July this year. Within that letter is the following:

"And as America comes ever closer to achieving the perfect Union our founders dreamed"

Right there is a fundamental misunderstanding, or (more likely) a willful misinterpretation, of America's founding.

The Founders did not dream of Utopia. They did not believe they were setting the groundwork for a "perfect Union". They certainly did not believe the Constitution was merely a set of guidelines from which America would begin, as Obama's actions clearly demonstrate he believes.

No, our Founders were Christians who believed in the Fall of Man and realists who acknowledged that humanity will always be flawed. They believed that all governments, including the one they began, have a natural tendency to drift toward either dictatorship or anarchy. Read The 5,000 Year Leap and you'll see this in their own words.

The U.S. Constitution was written in response to tyranny... which is to say that it was written in response to the natural and inevitable corruption of the human heart and our limited wisdom. It was also written with hope and faith in the inherent beauty of human beings. Its authors were plainly aware, as evidenced through their own words, that neither corruption and foolishness nor beauty and wisdom can ever be completely struck from individuals or from the social systems those individuals comprise.

Furthermore, America's Founders believed that what progress which could be made would be made apart from government, not through it. They expressly asserted that government must be limited to only protection of the most basic individual rights and the facilitation of states' rights. They perceived government as a necessary burden with which one should never be comfortable.

In his actions, Barack Obama proves to be the antithesis of America's founding principles. The longer he, his fellow liberals, big-government Republicans and other cowardly politicians remain in power, the farther we will drift from the Founders' true dream... a dream in which America is defined by its individuals and its culture, rather than by its government.
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no real right to secession

Posted by Aaron Miller on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 2:00:00 PM
I was born in 1980. For the first time in my lifetime, I'm hearing calm, intelligent, educated people say they believe this nation might be headed toward revolution.  In fact, this view has become so common that I believe it will have consequences regardless of whether or not revolution actually comes.

Already, more than a dozen states have sovereignty bills in their legislatures. They are warning the federal government not to interfere with states' rights as protected by the 10th Amendment. Perhaps more meaningful is the decision of some governors (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina) to reject the federal funds offered in the recent "stimulus" bill in order to prevent federal expansion into their territories. Some are saying the bill gives the federal government power to circumvent these governors, in which case I don't know what to expect.

In any case, all of this brings us to the topic of secession. I'm not proposing that any state or territory secede. But it's being increasingly talked about as a possibility should revolution eventually come. Alright, so let's talk about it.

Secession is not a right of any state. I don't care what the Constitution says. The hard reality is that individual human choices always precede law. Any law is only as good as the lawgiver's willingness and ability to enforce it, as well as the law-taker's willingness and ability to accept or reject it.

In other words, when push comes to shove, no government with enough potential force to prevent loss of its property and financial base (i.e., citizens) will allow that loss. Would any national leader, would any federal legislature, let the country be cut in half without a fight? The Civil War is just one of many examples demonstrating that secession cannot occur unless the seceding territory can militarily defend its departure or the federal government is too weak to stop it (as was recently the case when Russia seized South Ossetia from Georgia).

My home state, Texas, is the only state in the union which can fly its state flag even with the federal flag. We were once a nation of our own, and we arguably have more legal right than anybody to secede from the union, should we ever want to. But I have no illusions. Should America ever deteriorate to the point that we decide to abandon that union, odds are that we won't be able to defend that decision without God, guns, and great leadership.

Incidentally, I plan to buy my first hunting rifle this year. Hopefully, hunting and target practice is all I'll ever do with it.

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