No right to complain

The things that are wrong with our country might not be your fault, but they are certainly your responsibility.

I have a special treat for you today! My husband, former SC State House Rep. Jonathon Hill, was sweet enough to contribute an article he wrote a couple years ago. This was, of course, so that I could really knuckle down and get my book finished last week—which I did. More on that next Monday.

In the meanwhile, enjoy this change of pace:

How many times have you heard someone say, “If you don’t vote, you lose your right to complain?”

I’ve learned that most political “wisdom” out there is garbage.

Plenty of people who vote have no right to complain.

Actually, if we are being honest, plenty of us who vote don’t actually do so in a meaningful way.

We don’t vote at all in the elections where our vote counts the most. Special elections, state legislative primaries, tax referendums, town elections, school boards—these are the elections where your vote counts the most. (You don’t actually elect the President, you actually elect the electors who elect the President, but I digress.)

Then when we do vote, we reward politicians for their bad behavior!

So, people who vote still have no right to complain.

When Benjamin Franklin walked out of the constitutional convention, and was met with the question, “what kind of government have you created?” Did he say, “a Republic, if you can just vote the right guy in office?” Of course not! He said “a Republic, if you can KEEP it.” Keeping the Republic involves a lot more than just voting.

But even if we vote when it counts the most, and even if we know who we are voting for, and even if we refuse to reward politicians’ bad behavior with our undying loyalty, we STILL have no right to complain.

Why is that?

Because our founding fathers fought, shed their blood, and died to give us a kind of government that makes even the most tyrannical politician naturally paranoid.

No one else in any time or place has ever before enjoyed this form of government, which offers four distinct benefits that involve more than merely voting to be enjoyed.

1. In America, holding office is fragile and precarious.

It’s easy to get elected, but hard to stay elected.

The first time you run, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. However, when faced with the prospect of running for re-election, you suddenly find you have everything to lose.

Political consultants only half-jokingly say that the moment a candidate wins, they instantly lose 40% of their IQ points.

Our founders created a form of government that magnifies the politicians’ worst innate fears.

Every word and every decision will be carefully evaluated in light of whether it will help them or hurt them come re-election time.

These fears are heightened by the fact that elections are decided by a tiny percentage of the population—and they know this.

Although they hide it well, American politicians are paranoid in the extreme. That paranoia is the secret backdoor into the American Republic.

And so, if you aren’t actively making your politicians paranoid by connecting the bad things they do to you in the legislative season to their next election, you have no right to complain.

2. In America, the President is only as relevant as Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court allow him to be.

It’s true, the President is very powerful. But he’s no king.

After their costly and bloody escape from King George, how were our founding fathers to preserve the rare and precious freedom which they had so recently earned?

They were students of history, and knew that time is no civilization’s friend. Many great civilizations which enjoyed some measure of freedom have inevitably collapsed into corruption and chaos.

So they divided and scattered the powers of law making, execution, and enforcement between the legislature, the executive, and the judicial branches of the federal government.

In doing so, they pitted human self-interest against human self-interest.

They gave us freedom, then they gave us a government that is designed to deadlock itself, and thereby accomplish nothing at all.

The President is completely hamstrung without the cooperation of Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court. (Just ask President Donald Trump!)

For citizens who wish to be free, gridlock in government is a GOOD THING.

When the gears of tyrannical government begin to turn, all it takes is for “we the people” to toss a bit of sand into the machine.

The sheer size of the federal behemoth is of course far beyond what the founders intended, but that only makes it more fragile, and therefore more vulnerable to sand in its gears.

If you aren’t tossing your bit of sand into the gears of the federal government, you have no right to complain when it does bad things to you.

3. In America, the Feds are only as relevant as the states allow them to be.

Outside of the strict confines of its enumerated powers laid out in the United States Constitution, the federal government has no real power over the states.

It knows this, which is why it relies on cooperative agreements, incentives, and inducements (often, money) to persuade state politicians to carry out its agenda.

This isn’t seditious talk, nor is it fringe political theory. The states can, have, and still do reject federal policies, and—shocker—get completely away with it.

There are many, many historical examples of this, but the most recent and well-known example is the fact that dozens of states have directly defied federal drug law, the Justice Department, the ATF, and the FDA, by legalizing marijuana (or cannabis, if you prefer) for medicinal use and even for recreation.

What punishment has the federal government inflicted on these states? Nothing at all.

They are hamstrung by the sheer number of states, by the federal budget, by what the law and the Constitution allow, and by the fact that American have guns.

The federal government isn’t just fragile. It’s also ridiculously outnumbered.

And let’s not forget that the bigger the organization, the more internal dysfunction it will have, and dysfunction can be exploited.

But what if the state doesn’t do its job?

Like their federal counterparts, state politicians are paranoid, and their hold on power is just as slippery.

States operate with governments structured similarly to the federal government, and are likewise prone to grind to a halt in the face of the least political opposition.

So, if you aren’t tossing your bit of sand into the gears of state government when it collaborates with federal tyrants, you have no right to complain when bad things happen to you.

4. In America, the government is only as relevant as the people make it.

At some level, we the people still feel like we own the place. In fact, we do, whether we act like it or not.

Let me prove it to you.

The preamble to the Constitution plainly states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Constitution is the highest law of the land.

We the people established it, and per Article V, only we the people may approve changes to it.

Thus, we the people are the highest political authority in America.

This idea appears throughout the Constitution, but nowhere more plainly than in the 9th amendment, which states:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And so, the government cannot legally touch its citizens when they are acting lawfully—even when we the people reject, nullify, and disobey its tyrannical laws.

The first amendment acknowledges your right to speak against politicians.

The second amendment deters them from trying to stop you.

The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments protect you from political intimidation.

If it’s true the feds can’t make fifty states do something they don’t want to do, neither can they make 330 million individual citizens of the United States of America do something they don’t want to do—either legally or practically.

If you aren’t nullifying and disobeying unjust laws and orders, you have no right to complain. After all, you are the highest political authority in America.

When elected officials listen, pander, and grovel, it is because they know they would have no power unless you gave it to them.

If you go to a restaurant and get bad service, you don’t blame the staff. You blame the owner. In like fashion, if you aren’t taking ownership of your country, you have no right to complain.

Conclusion

We have political tools no one else in the world or history has ever had.

Our founding fathers knew the high price of revolution. They signed the Declaration of Independence from King George’s tyranny with their blood. They knew what they were doing when they did it, but they did it anyway.

You haven’t suffered for your political beliefs and activities until you’ve crossed the Delaware in the freezing winter on Christmas with no shoes. George Washington and his patriots did this, because they had to.

You don’t have to. They made sure their sacrifice wouldn’t be for naught. They gave us tools they didn’t have.

No one else in the world has the level of public participation in government that we have. We don’t have to pay the price our founders paid.

What does it prove when you…

• Fail to vote where it counts the most?

• Reward bad political behavior by voting for the politician anyway?

• Saying nothing but good things about bad politicians, and fail to make them paranoid?

• Don’t toss your bit of sand into the gears of government?

• Submit to their acts of usurpation?

Does it prove that politics is broken? That “the system doesn’t work?” That elections don’t matter?

No!

Here’s what it proves: it proves is that YOU don’t work. It proves YOU don’t matter (to the politicians). And it proves YOU have no right to complain.

If you aren’t feeling guilty by now, you can’t be guilt-tripped. My goodness, I’m feeling guilty just writing this. But there is one more thing you must know, the most weighty of all:

If we the people are the highest authority, then it means we as individually are morally culpable for every evil thing that our government does and sanctions.

From the incessant slaughter of the unborn, to the wrongful conviction and execution of the innocent, to the preying and calloused exploitation of the poorest among us for political or financial gain, to the bombing of people around the world that did us no harm—it’s on us. Every bit of it is on us.

Samuel Adams, were he alive today, would once again denounce us with this searing rebuke:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

I might add, that if an iron curtain one day falls across America, I won’t be sharing any of my gulag rations with you, if you collaborated with the enemy.

Never, ever say that elections don’t matter.

Never, ever say that politics doesn’t work.

Never, ever resort to violence that our founders bled to render unnecessary.

Never, ever submit to unjust laws, orders, and “emergencies.”

Never, ever give those politicians who overstep the reward of a word of praise, a promise of a vote, or a free pass on the ballot.

You are the highest political authority in America.

Even if the bad things that our politicians do are not your fault, they are still your responsibility.

You have no right to complain about it!

That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…