Appeal to authority
Posted in Liberty Rant by R Lee Wrights on July 13th, 2010 by Michael Badnarik
I am often asked what people can do on an individual level to restore Liberty in this country. My recommendation doesn’t cost any money, however it is very difficult for some people to do. My advice is to start thinking for yourself. Stop asking the government for permission to do everything in your life.
We have been programmed all of our lives to be submissive to authority. As children we are “well behaved” when we do what our parents tell us to do. Often the only justification we are given is “because I’m the Mommy, that’s why!” When we’re old enough to attend school, we are instructed to sit quietly; ask for permission to visit the bathroom; and walk quietly down the hall in single file. When we’re old enough to drive we must follow the police officer’s instructions. We learn very quickly that questioning his or her authority always results in negative consequences. We graduate from college and begin our first real job. The department manager assumes vast control over our daytime lives, giving us tasks to accomplish, demanding reports on our progress, and evaluating our performance from time to time. Our financial status is directly related to how well we take orders from authority. We even have to grovel in order to take time off from work, especially if it is unexpected.
It is little wonder therefore, that our politicians and legislators automatically assume the authority to control our lives in countless ways. And it is little wonder that we automatically comply with their demands without question. We take it for granted that we have to get a drivers license, a marriage license, a concealed carry permit, or a building permit. To paraphrase a popular movie, “We don’t need no stinkin’ permits!”
“We have met the enemy and they are us.”
“I like money.”
Many of us wrote resolutions and campaigned very hard to bring the required floor fee issue to the attention of the states and their delegates and to get people to speak out against it. Many of us argued passionately against the convention floor fee online and in person. A few of us wrote resolutions and presented them to our state conventions and executive committees in an effort to let the states make their opinions known on the subject. Ultimately, that effort was rewarded. In Austin on Sunday morning, after considering the careful arguments on both sides of the floor fee issue, the LNC voted overwhelmingly NOT to require a floor fee of delegates to be on the convention floor and vote on party business.
“The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that — however bloody — can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.”
