15 Principles in response to Trump, Obama, and the Fearful Retweet
by Jim Babka
Terrorism is a political tool. Politicians and other statists use it to their benefit. They cry, “That group, over there, is to blame for your troubles.”
Group demonization is discrimination. Partisans divide-and-conquer by suggesting that people can be judged in broad groups.
If you accept their division, their political power expands.
Willing accomplices in the regime media run “fear propaganda,” hour after hour. They bring on guests and ask…
- Politicians, “What are you going to do so solve our hyped-up problem?”
- Experts, “Can we really afford liberty?”
It’s been about three months since the Paris and San Bernardino massacres. In the days following those attacks, we had influential people suggesting with incredible, emotional intensity that EITHER…
- Gun owners are too volatile
- Muslims are too dangerous
These statist finger-pointers are making the same bigoted mistake…
- Barack Obama wants to make it hard for everyone to get a gun because a few people are dangerous
- Donald Trump wants to prohibit all Muslims from entering the country because a few Muslims have done bad things
But we’re all unique individuals — to be presumed innocent and judged individually.
In times of Fear, where the information we’re being given is designed to manipulate us politically, we must have a foundation upon which we can rely. We need time-proven principles that will protect us from temporary, emotional whims.
Here are some of our principles, listed at random. [The list is numbered for those who wish to respectfully reply.]
- All persons are created equal, endowed with rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- These rights come with our humanity. They are pre-Constitutional — they are not created or granted by governments.
- No one has the right to initiate violence against peaceful people. They certainly cannot delegate that power to their most elite neighbors, a.k.a., politicians.
- Each person should be judged by their character and not their skin color. All humans deserve the presumption of innocence, until individually proven guilty of a crime.
- Each of us desires that others respect our rights. In Golden Rule (empathetic) fashion, we realize that in order to be free we have to extend liberty to others.
- Because of this natural empathy, we recognize that everyone must be secure in their person and property, unless a warrant has been secured, based on probable cause that a crime has been committed.
- Everyone has a right to defend themselves. The weakest amongst us will need good tools to do so. Plus, an armed society is a polite society.
- Criminals, when convicted, must make amends. Locking them away from the rest of us may be required. But ONLY after due process, and never because of some personal characteristic such as religion, skin color, sexual preference, etc.
- Our republican form of government prohibits democratic mob rule, which is why it includes mechanisms to defend individual rights and liberties.
- The Constitution is built upon the “doctrine of enumerated powers,” meaning that the only powers granted to the government are those specified in that document.
- The power you give a politician you like, to do something you want done today, is a power that will be used tomorrow, by a politician you hate, to do things you loathe.
- As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who will give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Indeed, they will get neither!
- Politicians have done nothing, performance-wise, to demonstrate that they would do better with even greater powers.
- It’s a huge compliment to America — something of which we should be very proud — that the tired, poor and huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, seek out our country as their safe-haven.
- Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat mistakes. People who said first the Irish, then the Chinese, followed by the Italians (Catholics!) and Vietnamese (to pick just a few examples) were a threat to the American way of life and could not assimilate, turned out to be wrong. This record of error is so perfect that we must assume current concerns about Mexicans and Muslims will likewise prove foolish.
As we look upon human beings, be they Muslims or gun owners, which of the above principles is erroneous?
You see, a principle is more than a feeling. It’s a truth. Much of our liberty is grounded in a natural law tradition. Our national truth is and should be that…
- our individuality
- my personhood
- our neighbor’s humanity
…all are imperative. Human beings matter.
Politicians and their media accomplices are asking you to reject these principles, for their political benefit.
We must stand by our principles, even after events like Paris and San Bernardino. Indeed, our principles have their greatest value when challenged by such events. Otherwise, they’re not really principles. They’re just warm, fuzzy platitudes.
Already, the crisis-mode has largely passed. Intensity has waned. We’re on to other things. The politicians and regime media have moved on, as they always do. That’s their business: crisis creation and response. But our principles must remain in place, firm and unyielding.
And if you’re willing to abandon such principles when an event like this occurs, then these are not truly your principles. You’re a fair-weather friend of liberty.