A Strange, Stressful, Sorrowful, Yet Joyful Week

 

This week in Israel, the people went through a two-day test which runs the gauntlet of emotions. On successive days starting at sundown Tuesday through to sundown Thursday Israelis mostly experience sorrow-filled remembrances straight to joyous celebratory elation. This year the changeover at sundown Wednesday was particularly spectacular. What happened was Wednesday was Israel’s Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day). This was followed immediately at sundown through Thursday by Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) which this year was kind of special as Israel turned seventy years old, that is the re-founded Israel, as Israel historically is over three thousand years old. So, at sundown Wednesday Israelis put aside the memorials and remembrance of those who have fallen to keep Israel free, both civilians and military, with some sorrowful and all solemn thoughts straight to celebratory glee with picnics and barbecues with much singing and Wednesday night fireworks everywhere. In many ways having the two days linked are very Israel and quite an experience. They fit together well despite the obvious opposite emotions of each day. Yes, Israelis of all stripes have much to be thankful for and to celebrate on her birthday on the Hebrew calendar as Israel is amongst the few nations in this region which has largely peace and economic health and this year was listed as the eleventh happiest nation of the world, a full seven spots ahead of the United States. But before we celebrate the wonders which are Israel, we must give thanks to those who gave their all in defense of this nation and its ideals, values and rebirth. We owe them everything we have and more, so we respectfully, often emotionally and ever thankfully remember and say prayers for these souls. After this, we can be free to celebrate the gift those souls founded and protected with their very lives showing that we appreciate that which they gave as their promise and more to allow Israel to reach seventy years after rebirth.

 

The celebrations on Wednesday night are very public with everyone mixing together at any of the numerous celebrations. We will never reach the heights of celebration which happened with the actual founding day when Israel was announced reborn after around two-thousand-years of our living in the Diaspora as if we were dry bones scattered throughout a valley in the desert. This was the prophesy the Dry Bones by Ezekiel in Chapter 37 where the analogy of the dry bones to the Children of Israel is told (see verse below). Ezekiel speaks of coming upon a valley of bones all jumbled and mixed without order or any form. Then Hashem commands that the prophet declare His Name over the bones commanding them to rise and assemble. The bones then start to move with each bone connecting to the next reforming the skeletal structure of the fallen. This was the awakening of the Jewish People in their exile from whence they had been scattered for almost two thousand years in exile. As the bones connect, sinew appears upon them holding them together and then muscle tissue and skin covering them making them appear whole, but not quite whole as they lacked spirit. Then Hashem commands the prophet to declare His name once more and spirit is instilled and they become truly alive. Here are the actual worlds.

 

Valley of the Dry Bones Rising

 

1) The hand of the Lord came upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley, and that was full of bones
2) And He made me pass by them round about, and lo! they were exceedingly many on the surface of the valley, and lo! they were exceedingly dry.
3) Then He said to me; “Son of man, can these bones become alive?” And I answered, “O Lord God, You [alone] know.”
4) And He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’
5) So says the Lord God to these bones; Behold, I will cause spirit to enter into you, and you shall live!
6) And I will lay sinews upon you, and I will make flesh grow over you and cover you with skin and put breath into you, and you will live, and you will then know that I am the Lord.”
7) So I prophesied as I was commanded, and there arose a noise when I prophesied, and behold a commotion, and the bones came together, bone to its bone!
8) And I looked, and lo! sinews were upon them, and flesh came upon them, and skin covered them from above, but there was still no spirit in them.
9) Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the spirit, ‘So says the Lord God: From four sides come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain ones that they may live.’ ”
10) And I prophesied as He had commanded me, and the spirit came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a very great army, exceedingly so.
11) Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel. Behold they say, ‘Our bones have become dried up, our hope is lost, we are clean cut off to ourselves.’
12) Therefore, prophesy and say to them, So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel.
13) Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and lead you up out of your graves as My people.
14) And I will put My spirit into you, and you shall live, and I will set you on your land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and have performed it,” says the Lord.
15) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
16) “And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write upon it, ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel his companions’; and take one stick and write upon it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions.’
17) And bring them close, one to the other into one stick, and they shall be one in your hand.
18) And when the children of your people say to you, saying, ‘Will you not tell us what these are to you?’
19) Say to them, So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel his companions, and I will place them with him with the stick of Judah, and I will make them into one stick, and they shall become one in My hand.
20) And the sticks upon which you shall write shall be in your hand before their eyes.
21) And say to them, So says the Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side, and I will bring them to their land.
22) And I will make them into one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be to them all as a king; and they shall no longer be two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms anymore.
23) And they shall no longer defile themselves with their idols, with their detestable things, or with all their transgressions, and I will save them from all their habitations in which they have sinned, and I will purify them, and they shall be to Me as a people, and I will be to them as a God.
24) And My servant David shall be king over them, and one shepherd shall be for them all, and they shall walk in My ordinances and observe My statutes and perform them.
25) And they shall dwell on the land that I have given to My servant, to Jacob, wherein your forefathers lived; and they shall dwell upon it, they and their children and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.
26) And I will form a covenant of peace for them, an everlasting covenant shall be with them; and I will establish them and I will multiply them, and I will place My Sanctuary in their midst forever.
27) And My dwelling place shall be over them, and I will be to them for a God, and they shall be to Me as a people.
28) And the nations shall know that I am the Lord, Who sanctifies Israel, when My Sanctuary is in their midst forever.”

 

Some people have challenged the veracity of this prophesy claiming that the current state of Israel does not merit this prophesy. We have always felt that it is exactly telling of the reconstruction of Israel as the modern nation state. After seeing pictures of the Concentration Camps, the work camps and the death camps, one can almost feel the description of the dry bones scattered on a vast valley floor. Now there were Jews who had already made Aliyah before World War II as well as the Jews who had resided in Israel throughout from antiquity to the modern day. These were the initial sinew as they, possibly without foreknowledge, were making Israel ready for the arrival of the masses from that valley of bones. The dry bones were the European Jews who had survived what can only be described as hell on earth, also the Jews who resided in the Arab world who were cast from their homes and all wealth and valuable items such as jewelry and other items of value or desirable confiscated as their suitcases were searched as they were deported, or worse were chased by mobs in one of the numerous pogroms where the Jews fled without even a suitcase and just the clothes on their backs, and finally the Russian Jews who in the initial wave were also often stripped of all wealth before being permitted to leave for Israel with many having been sent to prison or Siberia work camps before finally being permitted to leave. This story can be applied to the Ethiopian Jews and various other Jews who have found their way home after over nineteen-hundred years. Upon arriving from Europe or the Arab world and reaching Israel, if they were present when the nation was born on the evening of May 14, 1948 (Iyyar 6, 5708 on the Jewish calendar) and attacked by six Arab armies the next morning at sunrise. Without any organized military, the Jews took separate revolutionary squads, worked out some form of chain of command, marshalled forces and weaponry, and somehow managed to survive the Arab assaults. Israel lost some portions of land with Gaza being held by Egypt and the Shomron by Jordan. These illegal occupations of Israeli lands continued until they were liberated during the Six Day War in June of 1967.

 

Once peace was established in 1949, the Jews with their Arab neighbors who had stayed during the war, some even assisting and fighting alongside the Jewish Israelis, this was especially true of the Druze citizens, began to build a nation. Initially, Israel was an agricultural economy with socialist communes known as Kibbutz forming the backbone of the nation. Israel was not a very wealthy nation during these years and it was not until the Russian Aliyah that a sizable industrial base was established with many industries built around ideas leading to a robust research and development system. This was what would transform over time into Israel being known for its start-up companies which emphasize innovation and the search for the next new item. This was the coming of muscle onto the bones and soon thereafter in the 1970’s and 1980’s that Israel received her skin and then one of the most remarkable items came about, and this was one which deserved celebration this week. The children of Israel were about to receive their spirits leaving only one more item which we would need to develop ourselves before all of the prophesy can be realized. This final item is our soul. Hashem provided our nation reunited with both Israel and Judah being made whole, one with the other. The ingathering, as our reestablishing of the nation of Israel is often referred, has brought together tribes thought lost since the Assyrian conquest of the Ten Tribes of Israel, the northern kingdom. It was at a later date when Judah fell to the Babylonians who had conquered the Assyrians. Babylon fell to Persia who fell to Alexander the Great and Grecian rule which fell to the Romans who dispersed the Jews throughout their empire as punishment for revolting against the Romans a second time. This dispersion was supposed to destroy the Jewish People, as this has been the result with others the Romans had treated similarly such as the Carthaginians. We realize we constantly use them as our example for one simple reason, they are the only other peoples who the Romans treated as such who are remembered simply because of their three wars with Rome known as the Punic Wars. As for other examples, the Roman dispersion was obviously quite good at removing a people from history.

 

The promise in this prophesy that we would be a single nation again proves true despite appearances sometimes with our politics. There is that one last matter, regaining righteous souls worthy of having Hashem reside amongst us. The regaining of our souls and reestablishing our religion making positive that we restore every last gram of our laws and especially of Torah is required if we are to be worthy of building the Third Temple and having Hashem in our midst. Anything less than a worthy nation steeped in Torah and the prophesies from the age of Judges and Prophetic revelations would result in a cataclysm of unknowable scope. The good news is that Israel has ushered in a wave of Jews returning to full practice or their best efforts possible considering how many were raised in homes with parents who were not very strict in their practice often practicing their political alignment of secular humanism. Secular Humanism and the core belief of relativity is where everything is relative and there are no absolute rules which makes nothing intrinsically good or evil. In this new age relativism, everything is as good or bad as each person decides them to be. There must not be standards chiseled in stone, and this phrasing is intentional to directly mean that even the Ten Commandments (see image below) are not in any way applicable to modern standards as the Ten Commandments are not flexible enough, there is no give and take to them. Such set standards are the worst items anyone can hold as true and try to impose them onto society. There is one rule, and that is that there are no rules, well, other than the one rule ruling out rules. After that, everything is up to each and every one of us to decide what is right and what is wrong for our own little world and then should anybody dare to disagree, then we are to throw a huge hissy fit and claim at least that we have been assaulted by a macroaggression. This will lead to counselling and possibly a week or so of intense bed rest until we feel ready to face the world and risk somebody believing differently than each of us has chosen. In this world, the only safe position is to have no positions on anything and to simply accept whatever comes our way and just realize that standards and morality are simple items used to control our lives and make us do what the authorities desire. Never mind that this new-age relativism is being used to allow those with power to do whatever they desire without consequences while it is destroying lives of the most vulnerable.

 

Ten Commandments
Arranged in Hebrew
Reading from Right to Left
with English Translations
Underneath the Hebrew

 

Fortunately, this epidemic in Israel is mostly infecting the Tel Aviv general area while much of the nation is returning to Torah and attempting to live a moral life under the rules and precepts found within. And yes, at the risk of causing numerous microaggressions, we follow the Ten Commandments to the best of our limited abilities. For many this is a work in progress. It actually is a surprising thing when one returns to Israel, Eretz Yisroel, the Holy Land as it actually is a holy land and returning to or finding for the initial time your Jewish faith and its backbone, the Torah, easily takes root and you progress. Perhaps it is the Hebrew language which is another work in progress. From what we have experienced here in Israel has been that the people are mostly friendly and helpful. They are very understanding and patient knowing that there are those amongst us who require a person who can relate with us in our native language, be that Russian, English, French or virtually any other language. There are Jews who have returned from virtually every nation on the planet, or so it appears. What is so very interesting is how Israel is bucking the direction being taken by the rest of the developed world instead of throwing out everything which is old, whether it has been tried and true having proven valid for centuries. Judeo-Christianity must be overturned, as it is archaic. The American Constitution is written on parchment, can you believe, parchment, what is parchment anyways, did they not have paper back then? Anyways, anything on parchment is too old and has to go. That includes Torah, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and we are pretty sure the original Bibles were on parchment, so have to go, too old anyways. The question is where will these founders of this brave new world going to get their standards, the rules for their society? We bet we can tell you.

 

What one need understand is in order to get rid of an existing governance such as they have in the United States, the first thing is you have to remove any weapons from the field of battle. That includes everything which underpins the society you are warring against. In the case of the Western World, that means that Judeo-Christianity has to go and all of the morals it uses. That is why the new wave standard of there are no standards are being foisted upon the youth. Once the old system has been brought down, be that through a coup, massive civil unrest, or simply being elected and creating a situation by which you take complete control, then there will suddenly be a requirement for standards. Any guesses from where they will get these standards? If you guessed from Judeo-Christianity, though it will have some new bright and cuddly name, then you have figured some of this out. When the new people who desire to run the world take over, expect there will be almost uncountable laws and regulations and requirements all designed to allow them to remain in control and you subservient. The new leaders will figure that if you were duped sufficiently to permit their destruction of everything which used to run and keep government under control, then you will simply comply with whatever you are instructed to perform. Many of these so-called grassroots rallies are anything but as they are planned and organized by a group which demands complete control of the levers of power. Once they have that, then all bets are off and things will change so drastically and inalterably that many who had believed that the change these people offered was wonderful will be left wondering what just struck their little piece of heaven on earth. Israel, on the other side, is moving towards her religious roots and holding firmly to a scroll made of parchment knowing that some of the world’s greatest treasures are written on parchment. This case the parchment is in the form of a scroll, talk about old school. We are talking about Torah, of course. The Torah was the first place where set into the laws of the land there were limits placed on the King and Queens, the rulers were commanded not to become wealthy as they were to write their own Torah scroll, read it daily, and live by it at all times. Religion, Orthodox Religion is the norm in Israel and no one sees that as disruptive or backwards thinking, and these are the people who are in control, or at least sharing control allowing the people their say. The Jewish faith is at the core of many things in Israel and Israel may need to teach these old lessons once more to a world which is currently rapidly spinning out of control. Israel may actually be on the correct path.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

If Only Americans Would Remember

 

It is a sad fact that the public schools and too many private schools place little if any importance on teaching history, both American and World Histories. The students do not learn about the start of democracy in Athens, one of the numerous Grecian city states before their unification by Alexander the Great. Plato lived amongst the denizens of the Athenian democracy and he saw the tyranny of the majority which he equated with mob rule and thus placed democracy just above tyranny as the worst forms of governance. The deficiencies he saw in the Athenian democratic government led to probably his greatest work on governance, “The Republic” where he devised representative government which would safeguard the minorities protecting their interests from being trampled by the majority while still empowering the majority to hold their proper place of importance in governing. It was partly this work from Plato written before the birth of Jesus that was part and parcel of the governing bodies the United States was fashioned by. There were other political philosophers who were mostly English and some French and the minds of some of the best educated persons in the United States in their day and even then they initially got the balance slightly skewed towards the states in a excessively loose federation and the Constitution was their second attempt and the solution which was decided though imperfect, as anything fashioned by man will be, they felt it was as close as they could get and the amendment process would provide the needful, and only the needful, adjustments to their work.

 

The impetus for the American Revolution is another point which would be very poignant and prescient for students entering the age for voting as the colonists demanded no taxation without representation and were revolting over a tax on tea of 3%, yes, 3% and only on tea. This would seem crazy with the total tax on the average American household reaching from a low end average of 12% to an upper end average of 35%, both many multiples of a 3% tax on one product, even if it was the one product every household purchased as they were still British. That tea tax was the straw that broke the camel’s back and brought on a revolutionary war and the shot heard round the world. It really was as soon after came the French Revolution and other British colonies protesting their taxes but they did so without leaving the realm, at least not at this period of time. Still, free people in elected governments everywhere owe a great deal of thanks to the British aristocracy as they started the entire idea that people had rights. Of course their claim was barons and land owners had rights which they would wrest from the crown with the drafting and signing by the king, after a hard fought war in which he realized he could not prevail as much of his army belonged to the nobles suing for rights, of the Magna Carta. From that document was derived that a King’s power was not absolute but dependent on the advisories and consents of the principled landowners which with the centuries became citizens in good standing and are resting on a precipice teetering towards the consent of all who can claim to be affected by said governance, as an example is the position of certain universalist leftists that everyone on planet earth (for starters we can only guess) be permitted a vote in elections held in the United States as all are affected by American hegemony from which they believe evil begins and a world influence would perfect the nation and its governance. The truth be told, the barons and landowners of 1215 England were prompted by the Bible, in particular the Old Testament limitations placed on kings should the nation of the Israelites ever decide to be as other nations and choose a monarch which they eventually did. These limitations were first set in Torah, the laws given at Mount Sinai in the book of Deuteronomy 17:14-17 which placed the very first laws limiting the powers and impositions of Kings where it read:

 

14When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”
15you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose. One of your own community you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not of your own community.
16Even so, he must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You must never return that way again.”
17And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.

 

The Prophets went further throughout the Old Testament adding other limitations and requirements for Kings with probably the most humbling and for providing lessons in humility, not that it always had that effect, each King was required to write his own Torah in his own hand and then read the applicable verses for each day at his morning prayers. Of course enforcing this was somewhat problematic as the Prophets power was in his wisdom and the desire of a King to receive wise council but should a King be all full of themselves then they would brook no advice or limitations and would inevitably stray from Torah and the people would suffer under their rule. Should you read the Magna Carta you will see much of it places moral as well as power limitations and demands of the King in exchange for the support of the barons and landowners who also provided the knights for defense of the realm.

 

What is most interesting in the limitations of the Magna Carta was that it was not very much different than the Brexit vote in Britain and the anti-establishment movements in both of the major parties, Republican and Democrat, in the United States. Donald Trump first is not a true right wing conservative which is often the presumed candidate despite their choices since Ronald Reagan have been centrists with the occasional right wing leanings, while the Democrat race was fixed from the start as the party establishment controls close to 40% of the electors so Hillary only needed to garner ten to twelve percent of the remaining electors to win which left Bernie Sanders out of contention almost from the start needing to garner 100% of the remaining electors going into the initial super primary day of March 1, 2016. Truth was nobody was going to disturb the coronation of Hillary Clinton as this was arranged after the 2008 loss to Barack Obama in order to pacify the Clintons and not have them pull their followers and big money donors from backing President Obama in both elections. Still, Bernie made a mess of the centrist game Hillary had hoped to run on and now she is stuck so far into the left wing bleachers that it is doubtful she can find center field by election day and even if she should she will find one Donald Trump already there and not out of breath from the long run from the bleachers.

 

Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton

 

With taxes at record levels since the Carter Administration it is little wonder that the people are seething against the party elites. They have watched their taxes rise to support programs they did not desire and with record numbers of illegal immigrants and the back alley importation of tens if not hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern “refugees” being hidden in small communities so as to attempt to secretly skirt the main cities and thus not upset the ignorant masses as they would never figure this out with the internet and all the other means for news to reach the people, even the most insulated voters. Their secreting the “refugees” into small communities and largely in states which vote traditionally Republican and that Hillary would not need in order to win in the Electoral College, they hope that nobody will know their little dirty secret until it is too late. Remember that Hillary is promising that the United States has not done enough and she plans on increasing the importation of “Syria refugees” by one-hundred-fold. That would mean she plans on bringing tens of millions of these so-called refugees and believe me she means to do exactly that. The Democrats want to make America failed through and through with no possibility of ever making a recovery. That is not to claim that The Donald would be any form of savior, but we are sure there are many who after researching the third party candidates who are seriously voting Donald Duck or Porky Pig, but may we suggest for amusement sake we all write in Daffy Duck as long as some of us are choosing a duck and avoiding a Donald?

 

Kidding aside, the coming elections for President of the United States and for the makeup of the Congress have never been as serious as they are this election. After eight years of “leading from behind,” the time is ripe for a resurgent America to return roaring onto the scene. Allowing Europe and the United Nations to lead the way on the world stage is tantamount to treason for endangerment of the nation and, with that, the world. Never has a nation left as large a vacuum at the top with the closest comparison being the fall of the Roman Empire which is what allowed the first Islamic Expansion and another is obviously imminent with Europe ripe for the taking if their collective trees can be shaken at their core. Eastern Europe is still emerging as they recover from their Communist Dark Ages while Western Europe teeters on the edge of liberal poised suicide as they stand frozen with fear as their nations prove as vulnerable as their flags pictured below. Their churches deserted and Mosques sprouting in every town, village and neighborhood and where the call to prayer five times each day have replaced the tolling of the church bells echoing in the countryside. Still, there is time for Europe to pull themselves together and defeat this rising hatred seething within their bellies and extinguish the fires currently spreading across Old Europe and soon to threaten New Europe.

 

 

If ever there was an election making the “None of the Above” vote we have previously suggested be adopted by Constitutional Amendment, this election is it. The way the system would work is to win the election or electors a candidate would be required to surpass 50% to gain those votes or gain office. People would have all the candidates listed plus a slot in each elected office for “None of the Above” which would count in the total to find the 50% figure. If “None of the Above” got 20% of the vote then a candidate would be required to garner at least 72% of the remaining votes to surpass the 50% threshold. Should “None of the Above” receive one-third of the vote then the needed would be a full 75% of the remaining votes. Obviously this would force the parties to come up with candidates the people truly would want to vote for as they would have an out should neither party and third party candidates really appeal and this would also make third party candidates more likely to get a second look if the main parties gave the public choices such as they have in the mind of many Americans with the Presidential race.

 

So, voter discontent ran overboard in both of the main parties. The party which valued the choice of their public ended up with a novice real estate developer and investment underwriter who often goes off the rails when unscripted and has an ego larger than Alaska and is an anathema to many of the elite in the party itself while the other party had absolutely no confidence in their public so they ensconced a near majority of their delegates under the tight-fisted control of the party elite requiring whomever the elite chose to get such a small number of delegates that Daffy Duck could have won with such support. Still, even with the elite support, their candidate came out bruised and damaged heading into their convention while the other party had few well known names support them and speak at the convention as they were likely still trying to figure out where they ran off the tracks. So we have two third party candidates either of which would be a comfortable fit with one or the other of the Democrat Party contestants for their spot on the ticket, one with Hillary and the other Bernie in our humble opinion, a Democrat who was promised her turn to try and be the first woman President, also her strongest running point, and the Republican a left of center ego whose id is probably just as attractive as that ego and perhaps if he promises to listen to his subconscious, he would appear a safer bet. That’s your choice America, have at it.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

 

Senator Dianne Feinstein, President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the rest of the legions of gun-grabbers all have a love affair with the phrase, “If we save only one child’s life our efforts will be worth the time and trouble we spend fighting those Neanderthal gun-nuts.” There is the false claim that nobody needs these so-called “assault weapons” to hunt deer. There are two problems with this argument. First, no soldier in their right mind would take one of these so-called “assault weapons” into a combat situation when real assault weapons capable of sustained fire or burst mode are available thus the weapons in question are nothing like real assault weapons. Second, the Second Amendment is not about hunting or target shooting or any other recreational pursuit requiring firearms and these spiteful politicians know this full well but persist in lying hoping that we the people are ignorant enough to take their words for everything. Fortunately, many people have begun to wake to the real meaning behind the designs of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Most are also relearning the justifications and revolutionary concepts behind the Declaration of Independence. Some have even traced the ideas and ideals back through the political philosophers whose ideas were the inspirations behind much of the forming of the United States and have even traced the concept that man is a noble creature capable of self-rule all the way back to the Magna Carta. There are those who have also traced the concepts of individual liberty and that government is formed to serve the people and that those who rule, even kings and other nobility, are forbid to take treasure of any sort, not gold, silver, gems, horses, cattle or other excesses greater than any normal subject possesses which is contained in the Bible in Deuteronomy and other books. These people also have become aware that the Second Amendment was written to allow the people to restrict government whenever it became unwieldy and broke the original promises made to the people and instead began to be an oppressive burden. To this end the Second Amendment was written to allow the common people to own the same weaponry as was utilized by any who were in the service of the government including the military or any form of law enforcement. This little truth puts the lie to the myth of legal gun control in the United States.

 

Unfortunately, far too many citizens in the great lands of the United States have settled into a comfort where they prefer to allow the government to usurp many of the responsibilities which the Founding Fathers took great care in assuring that such power would remain with the people to the extent that the United States Constitution forbade the government these powers. But as the people came to live in great concentrations in large cities, even megalopolises, they no longer provided for themselves in the same manner as the founding generation. No longer do most Americans ever meet the farmers and herders who raise their food. They often do not even know the people who live on their block, let alone most of those who reside in their community and definitely not the entire city. They have become cogs in a large machine. With this change the people no longer know the people who represent them in the government, not even the city government who are supposed to be the closest government to the people and the one that most affects their lives. Reading the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights and one realizes exactly what President Obama meant when he described the Constitution as a document of negative rights. He did not mean it denied the people of rights but that it forbid the government from growing or performing beyond strict limitations. The most striking evidence of this concept is contained in the Bill of Rights with the Tenth Amendment being the most glaring evidence of limiting the Federal Government. It reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” You probably could not find a better or more forceful way to state that the Federal Government is prohibited from exercising powers or jurisdictions beyond some strict limitations. The exceptions to the limitations are spelled out within the constitution and anything not listed there as a power permitted to the Federal Government or strictly forbidden for the States to perform, then the Federal Government may not exercise such powers. When reading the Bill of Rights you see that there are distinct rights listed which are granted to the people and the Federal Government is forbidden to curtail or limit these freedoms. Adding to the Tenth Amendment is the Ninth Amendment which reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This plainly grants that the rights of the people are limitless and beyond the power of the Federal Government to constrain, limit, or otherwise deny the innumerable rights which are granted to the people by the right of personhood. Such a powerful statement is one that was intended to warn politicians and public servants that they only held power at the permission of the peoples and the peoples did not have to turn to government for their freedom as it was theirs independent of the government and guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

Some claim that the most powerful of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment which contains five freedoms placed beyond the reach of government. The First Amendment reads “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These rights allow the individual great amounts of personal power over their life and to express their beliefs and opinions free of government influences or limitations; express grievance with the government and expect the government to respond and correct or repair damages or other infringements; report news and political opinions without restrictions or censorship by the government; and lastly to assemble in pursuit of goals or activities free of government limitations. The rest of the Bill of Rights has more restrictions limiting the government from injecting itself or its limitations and restrictions over the individual or group of individuals. The problem which people had always faced in restraining government came about as the government always had held all the power over the people and the people were unarmed. The government having all of the arms could even act beyond limitations which were supposedly established on them by founding documents or other legal writings. This was the entire concept behind the Second Amendment, to arm the people as well and as powerfully as was the government thus making the people the equal and not the subjects. The phrase that has found favor with many supporters of the Second Amendment is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson which reads, “ When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” Now tell Senator Dianne Feinstein and President Barack Obama to leave our guns alone and simply inquire as to what part of “shall not be infringed” they do not understand.

 

Beyond the Cusp