Serfdom vs. liberty in 2010

By Colin McNickle, TRIBUNE-REVIEW (Pennsylvania)
Sunday, December 27, 2009

It was in 1774 that John Adams reminded how the "most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiple oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties."

And that's not merely to "oppress the individual or a few," he added, "but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited."

Mr. Adams, of course, would have been labeled a "right-wing extremist" or a "militia maniac" by today's "progressives" in Congress who have been working so assiduously to soil the fabric of America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would dismiss Adams' sentiment as "un-American" and tap dance around its implications of unconstitutional freelancing.

But on the cusp of a new year and the second decade of the 21st century, this is where America finds itself: Constitutional perverts and rule of law scofflaws are in charge, the once-creeping crud of socialism has broken into a trot and an increasing number of good and decent people really are mad as hell and not willing to take another centimeter of the shaft.

And perhaps, just perhaps, revolution is nigh.

"Revolution" is a dicey word in any era. Indeed, it can be accomplished by the ballot and not the bullet. But the Founders and the Framers had no qualms about the latter. How soon today's "leaders" -- supposed custodians of the Constitution but merely unionized garbagemen -- seem to forget that America was born in armed revolt and that the luminaries of the era acknowledged its necessity in the defense of natural rights.

Certainly, and as Thomas Jefferson reminded in the Declaration of Independence, "governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." But the heaviness and permanence of the corrupt nature of our government surely will force the hand of the people to press the button or pull the trigger in the new year.

So shameless are corruption's practitioners and their enablers that their behavior is rationalized through euphemisms. Bribery of the sort that would land those in the private sector in the pokey for 10 years is called "legislating" in Washington. It is rewarded with tenure by voters either too enamored with the supposed windfall to understand that the depth of the pickpocketing reaches to their ankles or with memories far too short to effect change in the next election.

Pennsylvania, the State of Independence, now is the State of Corruption. Grand jury allegations more than suggest the state Legislature operates as a corrupt, criminal enterprise. And the words of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights from 1776 never have tolled more clearly: "The community hath an indubitable, inalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish government, in such a manner as shall be by that community, judged most conducive to the public weal."

"Suckling at the public teat," you'll notice, is missing.

Americans and Pennsylvanians faces a crucial test in 2010. They can either continue traveling down the road to serfdom or return to liberty's boulevard. The republic's future hangs in the balance.