Two days ago I posted this, attacking the political establishment and the quislings on the right: Romney, McConnell, Thune, Bondi etc., doing more damage to the country than America’s – and liberty’s – declared enemy: Democrats.
In it, I noted that these, our hirelings, refused to recognize that it’s a problem when they always help Democrats to harm America and Americans.
Refusing to recognize a problem means two things:
That problem cannot be fixed
Those refusing to recognize it do not see it as a problem.
And now we find that Massie (R) has been blocked by the Speaker of the House, Johnson (R), in repealing the Smith-Mundt Act.
Passed in 2012 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (FY2013 NDAA), the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act repealed a ban on the dissemination of state-sanctioned propaganda by the federal government domestically. Its passage has served as a symbol of the distrust the American people have in the federal government. As terms like "misinformation," "disinformation," "fake news," and the like have become part of the lexicon making up the modern American political discourse since its passage, the impact the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act has had on the distortion of reality that has served as the catalyst for the widening rift between Americans has come under increased focus in recent years. Like Massie, fellow critics of the law view its repeal as being necessary to realizing the increasingly dismal hope that trust between the United States government and its citizenry can be restored.
When our own government thinks they have, and so legislates to themselves, the authority to lie to us whenever and however, about whatever they want, we do not have a Constitutional Republic, and it makes no sense to keep pretending that we do.
When the “Republican” Speaker of the House prevents the repeal of this legalization of government dishonesty, we have no opposition party to speak of. We have no free country to speak of, for how can we be free when the government on which we rely to protect our freedoms… lies to us?
How can we expect or demand – how can the government expect or demand – that the “Fake News media” tell the truth when that same government has passed, and refuses to repeal, legislation giving the government statutory authorization to be “fake news” to us… whenever they want?
How would that “Fake News media?” know what is “fake?”
Charlie Kirk was just assassinated for his work for free speech and an educated citizenry. Yet Mike Johnson works at the highest levels of government to prevent both… while condescendingly and hypocritically, with mealy mouth, hosting a celebration at the Kennedy Center honoring the life of Charlie Kirk, a man far more important and of far greater value to human freedom and civil government than Johnson could ever even dream of being.
Johnson’s preventing the repeal of sanctioned government lies and dishonesty – against those for whom government works – shows that those to whom we entrust our fair, free governance do not see themselves lying to the American people as a problem.
Which means they see us as serfs to tax rather than as citizens they exist to represent… and to obey.
We have misplaced our trust.
If the Congress can, as part of its statutory function, lie to the American people, what’s to stop the Executive, the Courts, Law Enforcement, State and Municipal government from lying to us, as well?
Nothing. What do you think the entire Russia! Russia! and Laptop hoaxes were about other than the Executive, the Courts, Law Enforcement…. knowingly lying to us?
As a cadet entering USAFA in 1972, I took an oath: “We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.”
And now we are supposed not only to tolerate lies but obey a federal government that does? How’s that work?
Would YOU go to war for liars?
What is a government legislating its authority to lie to its citizens other than a government with a “design to reduce them under absolute Despotism?”
If we Americans ever have had a “When in the course of human events” moment, this is it.
The idea that these hirelings see themselves as not “created equal,” but as ones “more equal than others,” that their powers are derived from anyone other than “the consent of the governed,” those they demand to be able to lie to – has not become “Destructive of those ends…” is laughable. One cannot gain consent through lies.
It is extraordinarily difficult to see our current government as other than the despotism against which the Founders rebelled.
Heraclitus' quote, "Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses," serves as a powerful reminder of the inherent justness of the universe. It underscores the importance of truth and the consequences that await those who manipulate it.
What is a government-sanctioned propaganda machine other than a government of “fabricators of lies and false witnesses?”
There must be consequences for those who manipulate the truth. “Fake News” organizations are experiencing the consequences of going broke, tanking stocks, viewers and readers departing for honest pastures.
But what of government?
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Those “principles and organizing powers” must include honesty and cannot include dishonesty, for how can a government that lies and propagandizes its own citizens be expected to secure any rights, or even to acknowledge them? And who would believe them if they said they were?
Self-government relies on the virtue of both citizens and their government. Indeed, how could it be otherwise?
The Founding Fathers, especially John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, understood virtue's importance in the new American republic. For them, self-governance wasn't just a governance style but reflected the people's moral fiber. Without virtuous citizens, the entire democratic system they envisioned would crumble.
John Adams stated, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." This remark captures the belief that virtues like honesty, industriousness, and piety were essential. Without these, the safeguards of liberty could not stand.
Dishonesty is the opposite of virtue. “Without these, the safeguards of liberty could not stand.”
Our government no longer is legitimate. And when government becomes illegitimate,
…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Nothing is more critical in effecting a government in which citizens are and can be safe and happy, and free, than requiring that government to be honest with the citizens without whom it could not, and would not, exist… and with severe consequences for dishonesty.
I talked about this very problem in another of your articles today. How government is in the business of being the government, not our employees, but our masters. Well I for one do not have, nor will I deign to have, a master. I am a free man living in a supposedly free country, and the politicians who are trying to turn us into serfs should watch some old Frankenstein movies, you know, the ones where the "serfs" come up the hill with pitchforks and take care of business? Well, our pitchforks have funny names like AR15 and 1911, but the outcome's the same.
Seriously, Kurt Schlichter's new book, American Apocalypse: The Second American Civil War lays it out quite well. There's a whole government, both elected and bureaucrats who should read that and, to quote Elmer Fudd, "be vewy afwaid." As things spiral down the speed of increase will be exponential. The government really doesn't want to be here when it happens. Thank God for the second amendment.