Revolution Now! Or at least in November...

Now that ObamaCare has been signed into law, Americans are wondering what they can do or where they can turn to find a roadmap out of this imperial quagmire Washington has foisted upon us. I would suggest picking up a copy of the Declaration of Independence. While the Declaration is not the document upon which our Republic is built, it provided the clarion call for our first revolution and it can do the same now for a second. Its second paragraph states:

Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these American citizens; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter our current government. If Americans have experienced anything over the last 60 years, it has been “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” All one must do is look at your daily life and it becomes clear that Americans have lost their freedom. Stop and really think about it… is there a single activity you participate in over the course of a day that does not have government involved in our lives? Do you ever eat? FDA. Do you ever talk on a cell phone or listen to the radio or watch TV? FCC. Do you have a job? OSHA, NLRB. Do you drive a car, use hair spray, breath? EPA. Do you have a kid in school or are you paying back a student loan? Department of Education. Do you have a credit card or even a bank account? FDIC and the Fed. The list goes on, not the least of which is with the IRS, who will now have 16,000 new officers to enforce ObamaCare.

I doubt if our founding fathers would recognize America today. Not because of the cell phones or televisions or computers, but rather because Americans are no longer free to enjoy those unalienable rights Jefferson wrote about.

While ObamaCare may be the most egregious usurpation of power by the imperial federal government, it is far from unique. For sixty years Americans have been making little Faustian bargains exchanging a bit more liberty for a bit more security. As Ben Franklin suggested, eventually we'll have nothing left of either. Yesterday it was retirement and income. Today it’s healthcare. Tomorrow it will be shelter. The next day it will be jobs. The following day food and drink. Once the government dictates the kind of healthcare you can get, where you live, the kind of job you can have and what you can eat, where can we expect to exercise our liberty? Second Life or FarmTown?

Don’t think it can happen? Don’t be so sure. I’ll bet if we could ask James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, if he thought his Constitution would give the government the right to take 45% of your income, decide what medical procedures your doctor can use to keep you alive, spend your money on exhibits featuring Christ floating in urine or Mary covered in elephant feces, my guess is he would say no. Liberty rarely disappears overnight.

If ObamaCare has a silver lining, it is this. It may spark a revolution. As Jefferson wrote, men will suffer abuses until they become unsustainable. American citizens and taxpayers have suffered at the hands of the imperial federal government for far too long. Smothering taxes, ubiquitous regulations and now, mandates on personal spending. Who knows what’s next? Americans may be deferential towards government, but they are not yet eunuchs. With the Constitution in tatters and our liberty gone, what will be left to defend? Fairness? “Spreading the wealth around?” Diversity? Social justice? I don’t think those ideas would have sparked a revolution in 1776, but they may do so in 2010.

Am I advocating revolution? Absolutely! Am I advocating violent revolution? Absolutely not! Unlike our forefathers, we have in our hands the instrument of our own salvation, the ballot box. We simply need to use it. We could throw out 100% of the House and 33% of the Senate in one day, with not a drop of blood shed.

A revolution at the ballot box is the only way to step back from this precipice. Vote for candidates who support repealing ObamaCare, cutting taxes, slashing government spending and getting the government out of the redistribution of wealth business. Only then, when government is put back in the Constitutional cage our founding fathers so carefully crafted for it, can Americans truly reengage our birthright of “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”