Molon Labe! (48 page)

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I cannot describe the honor I feel for you having chosen me as your governor. Mindful of my own limited abilities, I also cannot describe my trepidations as I enter this office. It is one thing to captain the course of a business or of a family, but yet another to take the helm of a ship of state. As I took this oath of office, I felt the weight of power and responsibility fall on my shoulders.

"Power and responsibility. They are inseparable, for power without responsibility is madness, and responsibility without power is futility. They must be exercised jointly as they are a curse without each other. You, the people of Wyoming, are the sovereigns. I, and the entire Wyoming government, are your servants. I pray that I and your government will always exercise this stewardship with wisdom, grace, and courage.

"As I mentioned in my victory speech last November, we face difficult times as Americans. We have become foreigners within our own country. Jefferson once wrote that the Federal Government was not 'the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself.' Somewhere along the way, we forgot that. But never again. You needed the governor's office on your side, and now you have it!
(applause)

I am committed to recreating at least a small piece of America for us, here in Wyoming. So are you, or else you wouldn't have elected me. I cannot accomplish this goal alone. I am only in office to help
you
all accomplish this. I can't do this thing alone; I can't do anything, truly, but to stay out of your way. Isn't that
really
the only thing Americans ever wanted from Government — to stay out of our way?
(great applause)

"I'm firmly convinced that Wyoming is destined to be a beacon of freedom to our fellow western states. Because of our particular spirit and hardiness, we have prospered in the face of great adversities. We have even done so under burdensome government. While we can't do much about our fierce winters, we
don't
have to lug around oppressive government on our backs, like a sack of cement!
What has the Federal Government ever attempted for us that we couldn't have done
ourselves
?
Truly, government is a disease masquerading as its own cure!
(laughter)
Well, 'to cure the patient would kill the doctor.'
(laughter)
Beginning today, we 'check ourselves out of the hospital' and Wyoming will be the leader in America's rediscovering of Freedom.
(great applause and cheers)

I can't help it if the rest of the country isn't interested in living free and responsible lives, but here in Wyoming, beginning today, we aim to take our lives back!
(thunderous applause)
We invite our western neighbors to join us
in this Second American Renaissance. We challenge our western neighbors to create for liberty-loving people a happier home than even Wyoming .

"This 'Wyoming Experiment' will be carefully monitored by our faraway puppetmasters in Washington, D.C. In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the States 'are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government,. .and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.'
(great applause)
I think that the country is fed up with five Supreme Court Justices ruling 300 million Americans with ridiculous rulings based on the overextended interstate commerce clause.
(applause)
Americans are sick and tired of the President and a handful of traitorous Senators binding us all to poisonous treaties and UN resolutions which conspire to remove us from our farms and homes.
(continuing applause)
And we have
had
it with Executive Orders trying to disarm us.
(great applause)
I say this to the Potomac Parasites, 'Mind the nation's business and stay out of
ours
!'
(wild applause)
Even though the Tenth Amendment doesn't read ' expressly delegated — 'that' is how the people of the 1790s interpreted it, that's how Thomas Jefferson interpreted it,
and, by God, that's how I will interpret it!
(uproarious applause)

"Thank you. Here in Wyoming, we are still committed to the once-orthodox proposition that peaceful, productive, and respectable folks are entitled to live as they see fit. As your Governor, I solemnly pledge to you my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor that my office will always be used to protect your Liberty — no matter the threat. In the words of a French libertarian long ago, I pledge that the Wyoming government will 'Laissez vous faire' —
We will leave you alone!
(wild applause)

"Wyoming has a history of giving first and taking last. We were the first government on earth to politically emancipate women in 1869, but the last state to ask for federal aid during the Great Depression. We have prostrated ourselves for the nation, only to be used as a milk cow for our minerals, energy, land, and water. From here on out, we will be the nation's milk cow only for freedom and prosperity. If anybody wants our coal, helium, bentonite, oil, natural gas, or water, they'll have to pay us a fair market price and respect our Western ways during the deal!
(more applause)

"From today on, we will live the Golden Rule and demand the Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Tenth Amendments. We will live as decent Citizens. Citizens — not slaves. Our rights were not
given
to us by the Constitution; they were merely
codified
by the Constitution. The Federal Government may indeed ignore that
codification
, but it cannot erase our rights themselves. In Wyoming we are free people, and from this day on we will act like it! We will run honest and productive businesses, we will raise our families as we see fit, and we will bear arms as free people used to do.

"Thank you again for the honor of this office. Now, you've got freer lives to live and I've got a lot of government to remove from your way. Shall we get to work? Good day to you all. God bless!"

24,000 hands went up with the "W" sign.

People are "free" or not solely according to their perceptions. Freedom is relative to whom one questions. To the recent emigrant from North Korea, the U.S. is more free than he could ever have imagined. Similarly, most Americans
believe
themselves to be free, primarily because they have been taught to believe that. (The echoic freedom of our nation's early history has naturally been indispensable in this regard.)

Thus, in their own minds, they are free — and so are all
other
Americans. Egocentrism fuels such a general psychological projection. The masses cannot understand what the extremists are all upset about. "Buying assault weapons to someday wield against the
government
? Why, it's outrageous! Don't they know that America is the freest nation on earth?"

However, to the home-schooling, pot-smoking, gun-toting, seatbelt-shunning, tax-evading, SSN-eschewing entrepreneurial "libertarian," the U.S. is a very stifling regulatory atmosphere. Such an extremist not only perceives himself to be under "tyranny" (his most favored term), he also imagines (through the neutral mechanism of egocentrism) the rest of the country to be under tyranny as well. He is thus at a loss to explain why the masses are not consciously hostile to this situation, as he is.

The masses do not
feel
oppressed because, by their own reckoning, they are
not
oppressed. They can largely do whatever they please, whenever they desire. This leaves the extremist complaining about his clipped wings to people whose wings have long since atrophied — an indignant eagle screeching to dodos.

Flight had been bred out of the dodo eons ago. His withered wings were the result, not the cause. Although we can take the eagle from the sky, we cannot take the sky from the eagle. We cannot directly breed flight from him. No matter. We will indirectly attentuate his urge to fly by eliminating his
means
to fly.

Wings clipped, he will have no choice but to hop around in the dirt with the dodos, which is the next best scenario. The dodos will take the sky from him...

— Julius N. Harquist,
The Gaian Convergence
, p.31

    River Lethe Press (2007)

Washington, D.C.

The White House

Snide comments float about the Oval Office.

"Could he have mentioned Thomas Jefferson just one more time?"

"'Foreigners within our own country' — jeez! "

"That Tenth Amendment comment was a shot across our bow." Attorney General Leah Vorn exclaims, "Did you hear that, Mr. President? He altered the oath's language!" Having gained the room's attention, the AG continues, "Instead of swearing to defend 'the Constitution
of
the
United States
,' as is required of all state governors, Preston said 'the Constitution
for
the United States
of America
'!"

Warming to the subject, the AG elaborates, "You see, in the Preamble, the Constitution refers to itself as
'the Constitution
for
the United States
of America
' whereas the presidential oath mandates allegiance to
'the Constitution
of
the United States'_a different matter altogether."

"Leah, you're 'lecturing to the faculty,' not to some freshman law class — we
know
all this already," the President admonishes.

"Yes, sir, but
this
is truly unprecedented in American history. Not only does Preston
know
about it, but he actually
recited
his
own
'corrected' oath to embrace the
'for the U.S.A.'
Constitution!"

"So what if he did?" asks Deputy Chief-of-Staff Phillip Miles. Heads swivel towards him at his befuddlement.

Patiently, though with a hint of exasperation, the AG explaines, "Phil, our 'First Federalist' Alexander Hamilton had the presidential oath altered while serving in Committee of Style during the final days of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. If not for him, we'd all be bound to the publicly known Constitution — the
'for the U.S.A.'
version."

Dark, intelligent eyes about the Oval Office glow at her reminder of this. For Miles, it is no reminder — it is apparent to all present that he never knew any of this in the first place.

Exultant in her student, Vorn presses forward. "The Constitution in Article 6, Section 3 requires all officers to support
'this Constitution'
—meaning the Constitution
'for the U.S.A.'
and any amendments, which includes the Bill of Rights. Clearly, this would not do. Given the Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7 presidential oath reference to the
'Constitution of the United States'
it seems that Article 6, Section 3 was a tragic oversight. Congress in 1789 circumvented that error with an act requiring allegiance to the
'of the United States'
Constitution. The state constitutions were thereafter all written, or rewritten, with the
'of the United States'
language.

"We all appreciate how important the Civil War was, especially with its Reconstruction era 14th Amendment. All of this finally began to be capitalized on in 1940 with the
Buck
Act, and later with the various UN conventions. The arduous work to achieve the nationalist dreams of the Hamiltonian Framers by eliminating the stubborn vestiges of state autonomy
was
within just several years of completion. Until now. Until
Preston.
By changing a few words in his oath of office, he has chopped many invisible control wires the Federal Government has enjoyed over the so-called 'sovereign' states. He has threatened the brilliant work of some 230 years."

Clearly confused, Miles interrupts with, "What 'control wires,'" Ms. Vorn? And what is this
'of the United States'
constitution?"

Seeing the AG's
Should I tell him?
raised eyebrows, President Connor answers, "I'm sorry that you weren't brought aboard on this earlier, Phil, but I saw no need to add to your busy workload."

With the President's approval, the AG explains with her typical air of pedantry. "The American people and their state politicians have lived under the propagated delusion that sovereignty originates with
'the People'
and that what was not
specifically
delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government remains with the people and their states. Had the Tenth Amendment read
'
expressly
delegated'
that notion would indeed be fact and not delusion. However, our onetime friend James Madison_thankfully still under Hamilton's wing in 1789_removed the word
'expressly'
which left
'delegated'
without any adverbial restriction, as it had suffered under in the Articles of Confederation. That one tiny bit of clever Madisonian syntax turned the seemingly Jeffersonian constitutional republic on its head. You see, instead of the Government being limited to only that which it was explicitly
authorized
to do in the Constitution, the Government can actually do anything not expressly
prohibited
."