I've pondered this question a lot over the years, but discussed it with a greater diversity of people in recent days and weeks. For the observant, what is surprising is not that Liberty has been eroded and the Constitution ignored, but that this has accelerated so greatly in the last 4 years, and the People themselves have not pushed back. For the observant, the erosion of Constitution and Liberty has been a plan and an effort executed throughout decades, not simply a few electoral terms.
I've seen many arguments over the years for the means of restoration of the Constitution, arguments that ranged from outright revolution, terrorist style attacks, targeted assassinations, civil disobedience, protests, occupations of lands, Constitutional testing of political candidates, banning of certain political ideologies, banning of one political party or another, or both, or all, and election or installation of certain politicians or persons.
The one thing that any plan to change the powermongers and policies of Washington must include is: What happens in the election following the success?
If every politician working against the Constitution were removed tomorrow, what would happen in Novembers of 2014 and 2016? A new face with the same politics would replace those removed. Why? Because the same voters would vote for the same type of politician for the same reasons they voted for this crop. The names and faces would change, but the personalities would endure. It is inevitable, assuming that those running the plan of change are true supporters of the Constitution. And it is a predictable, natural event, that those that seek office will be the type to wish to expand the power they attain there.
Why is it inevitable? Because the main component that puts those politicians in office is the ballot box. One can blame the campaign war chests of politicians, incumbents, political parties, and PAC's, and the rich donors behind them, but the reality is that all the advertising in the world does not force a voter to pull the lever for one person or party or the other. The money is just the means to the advertising which is the means of convincing the Individual that one person is better or worse than the other.
If the mind of populace remains unchanged, then the politicians they put in office will remain the same. Throughout the years, various groups and parties have campaigned for or against certain policies and politics and politicians, and occassionally even gotten a few elected, but in the best years, the erosion has only been slowed, and never truly turned back, and in the worst years 2009-10, it has been accelarated into a mudslide.
Hence, the key to restoring Liberty and the Constitutional Republic rests on the electorate becoming convicted that it is the best means of governance for themselves and the Nation.
A political party is not, in and of itself, good or evil. A politician should not be voted for, or against, solely based on the letter behind his name. The party platform should serve as a general concept by which an initial judgment of the candidates' positions, but in the Constitutional Republic, the candidate should represent the interests of his constituents, not the party, so, Democrat from Berkeley should have far different positions than a Democrat from lower Alabama. Once upon a time, this reality was noted with the term "Blue Dog Democrats."
In today's reality, the Blue Dogs are extinct. They were beaten into line and strangled by the choke collar of Nancy Pelosi during the 2009-10 Congress. On the other side of the aisle are progressive Republicans, like Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, and Chris Christie. Where their votes represent their constituents, as in New Jersey, the fact that they often oppose their own party is not the problem. The problem is that their constituents are supporting policies that are against the Constitution. Where those votes are against the wishes of their constituents, as in Lamar Alexander, the party and tendency of party members to conform to the wishes of an established powermonger is the problem. Just because he has an R behind his name does not mean he supports small government and Individual Rights.
In the latter case, a good educational campaign of the voting record of the Senator should see him primaried out. Yes, he has an insurmountable campaign war chest. No opponent will have a chance to outspend him, but again, money does not determine effectiveness of a campaign. If his opponent will turn to youtube, rather than attempt to duke it out on TV ads, he can beat him, soundly. If he'll use facebook, twitter, and blogs, rather than newspaper ads, he'll get his message out and surprise the incumbent. But that campaign cannot conform to the old standards. It has to be creative enough to be spread by an entertained populace, and clear enough that voters know where he stands, without wandering out into some wierd conspiracy theory, or an unacceptable specific that is unsupported by the People.
The truth is that most voters tune out of the campaign weeks before the election. In October, the inundation of attack ads will make watching TV near unbearable. Yet, even now, the MSM is already attempting to determine the candidates of 2016. They're giving positive press to the ones they favor and exposing "scandals" of those they disdain. In the Presidential election, they've chosen Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton. This isn't a surprise, the MSM is based out of the Northeast, and those candidates represent the possibles that are closest to those politics. To believe the MSM, one must believe that Ronald Reagan would be unelectable today, and accept that John McCain and Mitt Romney have reasonable chances. Afterall, those were the MSM's choices in the last two elections.
But, what do voters vote on, particularly, if they are tuning out before the end of the campaign? Generally a few soundbytes. Numerous bad politicians have gotten elected because their campaigns (or the MSM that supported them) were able to find one damning phrase uttered by the opponent. Added to that is a very effective propaganda campaign by the progressives. Factually incorrect propaganda extends all the way down to the very first exposure of children to the "education" system and is witnessed in social media as blatant repetition of big lies, repeated often.
This propaganda campaign instills "morals" that run counter to the beliefs of the parents, and preaches a "social justice," which sounds compassionate, but maintains the erosion of Individual Liberty. It sells the invasion of privacy of the Sovereign Citizen, as a government responsibility necessary to protect the populace from terror and criminal. Who would not want a hungry child to eat, a sick child to be treated, and an abused child to be saved from his abuser? Would you not consent to the government reading everything on your computer, if it meant the removal of all child abusers from the populace? It's such a compelling argument, as long as you aren't a child abuser, and it is an argument that is coming in the future.
As an example of the propaganda machine, The progressives stubbornly repeat that ObamaCare, aka the ACA, is a success because 1.1 Million people have signed up, under the threat of government fines. They insist that it is a "good thing," that men now have maternity insurance, despite the biological reality that men are incapable of becoming pregnant. And they gloss over the fact that 5+ Million Americans have lost health insurance as a result of the ObamaCare regulations, and the organizations, such as Unions, that donated to Obama's campaign have been exempted from those same regulations, while the Catholic Church has been ordered to pay for insurance that is against their core religious beliefs.
The fact that health insurance costs considerably more today than it did in 2008 is barely mentioned, and ObamaCare is structured to hide much of that increase while making it visible only to the minority of "rich" people, whom few have compassion for. ObamaCare's financing is hinged in forcing at least 2.7 Million healthy youth into paying the costs of health care they won't use. It hides the rising costs in subsidies, paid for by taxes of others, and funded from the generic income taxes of the recipient. When those taxes are increased, it won't be marketed as funding your individual health care, but rather as paying down the ever increasing deficit. ObamaCare increases the upfront costs to the consumer, of not only the premium, but also the deductible. What you pay directly for health care would actually cover the costs of paying the Doctor directly, and the insurance portion is far higher than the costs of those catastrophic events which insurance is designed to cover begins.
In 2008, voters were sold on the concept that "the government" could provide "free health care" to the impoverished, by reducing costs through increasing the number of people buying it and decreasing the number using it without paying for it. Those with a hint of understanding of how finances, business, insurance, and economics work clearly pointed out that the reality would be far different than the advertising.
The "social justice" of a compelling idea that people should not be denied health care solely based on their financial assets worked. What was ignored was the un-Constitutional mandate that Individual Citizens had no Right to say, "No, I don't want to buy that product." Those that didn't want to buy insurance were portrayed as uncaring, and the problem. It was not portrayed that these problem people were hardworking families that were scrapping by to put food on the table, but rather that such people were abusing the system by not paying their own medical bills at the emergency rooms.
Another example of the effectiveness of the propaganda machine, as well as the difficulty of those that love Liberty in countering it, is "the Tea Party." Both the RNC and DNC have felt its wrath, which means the establishment politics of Washington will fight it. The RNC will abandon it on a cold winter night in the middle of the wilderness, while the DNC will continue to malign it with false accusations.
The DNC conducted a research study to find out who made up the RNC supporters, and one of the large voter blocks was the Tea Party. The study, conducted by James Carville's company, found that the Tea Party was ambivalent about abortion, had absolutely zero racist speech, and to its core supported the Rights of the Individual. Yet, progressive propagandists will continue to allege the Tea Party is racist, and any black member of it, an "Uncle Tom," and that the Tea Party wants to ban abortion of rape victims, and ban women from wearing shoes, so they can be restrained to cooking buns in the ovens of their kitchens.
As purveyors of Individual Liberty, the Tea Party was found to be more likely to support gay marriage than oppose it, but the DNC propaganda machine, will continue to attack it as anti-gay and wanting to criminalize what you do in your bedroom.
Why is the Tea Party unable to effectively counter these accusations? Because it is made up of Individuals who refuse to be forced to conform to the dictates of a party. As Individuals, they believe in Liberty, but have varied beliefs on individual policies to support Liberty. As Individuals that examine each issue on its own merits, and refuse to be herded, they reject self-proclaimed leaders with an agenda of personal power. The leaderless aspect of the Tea Party is one of the most frustrating issues for both the DNC and the RNC. As soon as the DNC finds a leader to attack, the Tea Party withdraws support from the individual, while as soon as the RNC finds a leader to subvert into an unholy compromise, the Tea Party turns on him.
If the Tea Party is to be led, it cannot be led by one that strives to be "the Leader." A leader willing to abandon principle as an expedient to politics and power will be trampled by the same mass of Individuals that had lifted him up. That is not to say that a Leader of Liberty must be sinless or without flaw, but that he must be principled and full of integrity. In fact, the Tea Party will likely hold the "perfect leader" in suspicion, necessary of proving himself in forthright speech, as human. A leader of the Tea Party will necessarily be a true leader, who has been granted his position by the will of the led, rather than a power monger who has gained it by politicking, by coercion, and campaign. A true leader will be accepted and drafted to that position, rather than working to achieve it.
When The People are returned to belief in Liberty, they will be inoculated from the propaganda of the intolerant party of "tolerance," and instead defend true tolerance. True tolerance is not the suppression of free speech for those believe that certain things are immoral, but the belief that your neighbor has a right to do things you don't approve of, often times, immoral, on his own property.
What will it take to Restore Liberty? It will take a Congress that systematically examines every prior enactment of Congress, against the Supreme Law of the Land, the US Constitution, and re-writes the entire body of laws to conform to it. That is a monumental task, and throwing out one established career politician like Lamar Alexander, won't achieve it,or even set it in motion. It will take a body of Congress that writes in plain English, rather than legalese, and that ends the practice of mixing the subjects of the legislation it passes. And that means that not only the voters of Tennessee and Texas, but also the voters of Michigan and Minnesota send true Representatives of the People to Congress.
It will take wiping the slate clean of decades of "common law" rulings that have become the means of justifying the erosion of Individual Rights, as judges legislate from the bench with inpunity. And that means that the partisan judges which favor authorianism over Liberty and the Constitution must be removed, by an objective and non-partisan means. That is not easily achieved, and is even more difficult to maintain. The very concept of a panel set up to remove judges from the bench smacks of subjective partisan politics. It must be done though, and hence, an objective means of achieving it, with a panel composed of men of the greatest integrity to preside over it, must be found. That means the means of doing so must be discussed and debated, and not simply implemented by a body of politicians. It must be found to be objective and non-partisan by the People themselves.
But, before such a body of Representatives, rather than lawyer politicians, can be assembled, the People themselves much search from among themselves, and put candidates on the ballot. Those candidates will necessarily be imperfect humans, and will have different viewpoints on some policies, but those candidates must have a common belief in Individual Liberty. Those candidates should run in the primaries of all principal parties, Democrat, Republican, and Independent 3rd parties, but before the political powermongers can be thrown out, the People must return to a belief in the principles of Liberty, and a Constitutional Republic.
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