SAFEGUARDING OUR LIBERTIES

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #407

The Opinion Section of the March 19, 2023 edition of the Orange County Register was completely devoted to addressing the abrogation of the Liberties of We the People to both the federal and state governments due to the coronavirus epidemic. And these eleven op-ed columns were truly eye-opening! Instead of encouraging and facilitating individual people to protect themselves and those around them, governments grabbed additional “emergency” powers and issued edicts. How so? According to Steven Greenhut, they “Destroyed Private Property Rights” by interfering in the relationship between landlords and their tenants. And what did we learn from COVID? According to Editor Sal Rodriguez, governments decided what businesses were “essential,” and thus allowed to stay open, and “non-essential,” which were closed down. That also included the shutting down of all beaches in Orange County, but no other county was similarly affected. According to Susan Shelley, our “Civil Liberties Were Easy to Trample” because government undertook a mission “to safeguard the American people” by ensuring that “all levels of government across the Nation have the capability to work efficiently and effectively together, using a national approach to domestic incident management.” So it was the same approach used by the Department of Homeland Security. Of course, that meant that We the People lost the ability to correct mistakes, such as the closing of public schools for the most vulnerable students for too long. And it meant that the government was able to silence medical doctors who did not agree with governmental information and approaches. Other columns stated forcefully that the legislatures should curtail the governors’ emergency powers, telehealth services should be expanded, wasteful public spending was all too common, and much more. But you get the idea!

So what is the takeaway from these columns? Start at this: What is the most important function of government? According to each of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, who bickered, debated and fought about everything, the most important function of government was safeguarding our Liberties from the encroachment of government. (The second-most important function was keeping us safe.) So how far away have we fallen away from that concept? In my view, the Founders would probably take up arms to combat the way we have allowed our government to rule us today! So please, as people of good will, consider our roots. Consider who we are as a people and a government. Let’s rally together and stop this usurpation of power by our government in taking away the rights of “We the People!” We owe it to who we are as People of the United States of America—the Land of the Free!

Quote for the week: “There’s nothing so frightening as ignorance in action.” Goethe, as quoted in the same edition of the Orange County Register