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Thread: The Tyrrany of the Majority.

  1. #1
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    Default The Tyrrany of the Majority.

    https://www.reckonin.com/hv-traywick...f-the-majority

    Virginia today is under a Constitutional crisis. The Party of Big Government has absolute power here and is wielding it arbitrarily under authority of the tyranny of the majority. It is arbitrary power because it is unconstitutional. Notwithstanding any pettifogging legalese, “shall not be infringed” is as plain as English can be spoken. Recognizing that tyranny may come from a majority as well as from a monarch, the Founders constituted as the best guarantee against despotism a federal form of government that diffused power. Further recognizing that power corrupts, and that ambitious men will always find a way to gain power over constitutional restraints, the Founders implemented a Bill of Rights, which are the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. These enumerated rights are not rights granted by the government. They are inalienable, God-given rights that no just government may infringe, violate, or destroy. They may only be voluntarily relinquished by the people themselves. Ambitious men seeking dominion over their fellow citizens, therefore, may not force this on them. They must use persuasion. Powers of enforcement may come later. History has shown us the effectiveness of persuasion by the ministries of propaganda in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Today, modern information technology gives power-seekers advantages undreamed of by Stalin and Hitler.

    The First Amendment protecting the right of free speech, and the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms have both been infringed with the acquiescence of the citizens by persuading them that these infringements will make them safer. One cannot yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, and one may not walk the streets with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Most have agreed that these are reasonable infringements, but the danger to our civil rights and liberties lies in the fact that “reasonable” and “common-sense” are arbitrary terms that can be manipulated by power-seekers in government.

    The more the inalienable rights of citizens are restricted, the more power accrues to government. Now we have arbitrary laws against “hate speech”, and arbitrary “common-sense” gun control laws. “Big Brother” is watching. Once implemented, there is no end to more. For one example, the Southern Poverty Law Center – a hate-based scam – may provide government with specious rationale for surveillance with its arbitrary “hate map,” potentially intimidating law-abiding citizens into silence; for another, gun registration schemes and “red flag” laws are the first steps towards unwarranted government search and seizure.

    Government cannot implement these laws without the consent of the governed, but “the consent of the governed” is not universal. It is only the consent of a simple majority who have been persuaded to have their inalienable rights diminished or destroyed. But this destroys the inalienable rights of the minority who have not been so persuaded. There, then, is the tyranny of the majority: a naïve majority who are selling our inalienable rights down the river to the Party of Big Government in exchange for a specious promise of “security” - or a calculating majority in league with the Party of Big Government!

    As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, political parties may be looked upon as lesser nations within a greater one, and in this country they are increasingly alien to each other. If one nation can act tyrannically towards another, can it be denied that a political party can act tyrannically towards another? If a man possessing arbitrary power may abuse it by wronging an adversary, may not a collective of men possessing arbitrary power do the same? Men do not change their character by uniting with one another. Asserting that the majority can do no injustice, and therefore its Rule of Law must be submitted to without question, is the language of a slave. In the reign of Henry VIII, Parliament decreed that one Richard Rose “be boiled alive without benefit of clergy” under the Rule of Law.

    These arbitrary, unconstitutional “common-sense” gun laws imposed upon Virginia infringe not only on our guaranteed rights under the Second Amendment, but, with the frighteningly dangerous “red flag” laws, they infringe on due process, assuming a citizen is guilty until he proves himself innocent. As a result, Second Amendment sanctuaries have arisen like a flood tide across Virginia. They do not deny the right of the majority to command justly. They deny the right of the majority to command arbitrarily.

    ''... I believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people...are a safeguard to the continuance of a free government...whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast Republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.''- Gen. Robert E. Lee

  2. #2
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    Hey Capt,

    Just got a book named "It Wasn't About Slavery, Exposing the Great Lie of the Civil War" by Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. (it just came out in Jan.) thought you might like it.

    The parallels between not only in the above article, and in our society, but the politics before the Civil War are amazing. This time it's not geographical, but social.

    A little back ground on the book: He goes back to the early 1600's, and timelines slavery and who profited from it. Then brings it up to the middle 1800's and shows who was still profiting by slavery, but also how the Northern States, had become the Majority and became tyrannical, in voiding/ignoring parts of the Constitution, and the Federal government then run by Northern States, (run by Whigs/Republican in the WH, House and Senate) passed laws like the tariff law of 1858 that put a 48% tariff on southern goods, for the benefit of Northern spending.

    Then because of the victory of Lincoln (with a 38% popular vote, but majority of electoral college) could not be trusted to abide by the Constitution, secession followed.

    He also explains the meaning of Free and Slave State. Free did mean slavery was not allowed, but neither were any negros, in other words free from blacks of any kind slave or freeman. He notes the Northern State Constitutions to back him up. Slave State did mean slavery was allowed, (they were working on compensated emancipation) but it also meant any and all blacks of any kind were also allowed, slave and freeman. White southerners had been living side by side with black slaves, and black freeman for years.

    What caught my attention, and made me think of suggesting the book was the name Alexis de Tocqueville, who is mentioned in the book.

    And I quote, pp53:

    Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: Race prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those states were slavery was never known.

    Being a hard back book and quite new it is a bit pricey at around 32.00 I think. Highly recommend it. If for no other reason than to see the political situation in the country, for the comparison to the present day. There may be different issues today, but the political tyranny ideology is the same.
    Wise Men Still Seek Him

  3. #3
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    Thank you for the heads up. I wen't and ordered it.
    ''... I believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people...are a safeguard to the continuance of a free government...whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast Republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.''- Gen. Robert E. Lee

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Huk View Post
    Thank you for the heads up. I wen't and ordered it.
    I hope you like it, especially since I recommended it LOL.
    Wise Men Still Seek Him

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