“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

James Madison (1788)


The President, members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices and federal officials swear to “support, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”.  Regretfully, these sacred oaths have become casualties to partisan politics and quests for power!

While keeping America and its citizens safe from foreign terrorism since 9-11; Administration and Congressional Democrats and Republicans have played fast-and-loose with the Constitution; facilitating a far-reaching assault on personal liberties; and permitted state and local authorities to do likewise. 

In each instance, governmental tactics centered on instilling fear in the minds of the public and then willingly sacrificed liberty in the name of security.

Ignoring the lessons of Prohibition, our government has squandered several trillion dollars on its “war on drugs”, curbing basic freedoms in the process.  Tenants charged with no crime are evicted from homes where police believe drugs are being sold.  Public housing projects are sealed for house-to-house inspections.  The Supreme Court has permitted warrantless searches of automobiles, the use of anonymous tips and drug-courier profiles as the basis for police searches, and the seizure of lawyers’ fees in drug cases. Property on which marijuana plants are found can be forfeited even if the owner is charged with no crime.  Concurrently, nearly 1,000,000 people are incarcerated in the US for drug or drug-related crimes.

Our Government told us these actions were necessary for our own good and, “Trust us!”

In the wake of 9-11, the Patriot Act (enacted under the guise of reforming existing laws to enable intelligence agencies to more effectively protect against and fight terrorism) authorized unprecedented changes to many of our fundamental civil liberties; permitting police to enter one’s home without warrants or probably cause; warrantless taping of citizen’s phones and monitoring their Internet activities; secret accessing of the personal financial, health and other records of Americans; incarcerating citizens indefinitely without charging them with any crime, providing them access to legal counsel or granting them the right to an impartial and speedy trial. 

We’re told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts (which have authorized 99.6% of its requests) provide the necessary safeguards on such activities.  However, as it operates in secret, its rulings are not-reviewable and cannot be challenged, and individuals/companies who records are being sought are legally barred from disclosing such information, there are no reasonable checks and balances on which the public can rely. 

Again, our Nanny State politicians have preached the gospel of “security” and we’re told, “Trust us!”

Now, we discover our government is collecting and monitoring the phone records of nearly everyone in the United States, Americans’ Internet and email activities are being tracked, the IRS has become clearly politicized in its dealing with opposition groups, the Supreme Court has just upheld the right of police departments to take DNA samples from anyone arrested, irrespective of our “innocent until proven guilty” doctrine; the personal records of journalists are confiscated and these reporters are threatened with criminal prosecution for doing their jobs; and then there is the smoke screen obfuscating the government’s incompetence resulting in the Benghazi debacle where four Americans needlessly lost their lives and the orchestrated campaign of misinformation in its immediate aftermath.

Incredibly, neither the President, his senior staff, the heads of his executive departments or any other high-level individuals seem to have had any knowledge of these events until they became public; and some of them have lied during testimony to Congress on these crucial matters!

Yet, the President, his minions and many members of Congress continue to repeat the mantra of, “Trust us!”

We the People”, coerced through fear, intimidation and deceit, together with our own apathy, have enabled Republican and Democratic led Congresses and Administrations to vastly expand the authority of the federal government (which the Founding Fathers specifically sought to limit) while effectively dismantling many of our liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights (without which the Constitution would never have been ratified).

It is not surprising a distrust of our Government is on the increase among liberals and conservatives alike!

Paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin and others, those willing to sacrifice liberty for security will, in the end, achieve neither.  Rather, the proper way to balance security and liberty is not to balance them at all but to require policies that maximize both. 

Sacrificing the Bill of Rights must never be tolerated!