by Harry Browne
July 4, 2003
Unfortunately, July 4th has become a day of deceit.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declared its independence from Great Britain. Thirteen years later, after a difficult war to secure that independence, the new country was open for business. It was truly unique — the first nation in all of history in which the individual was considered more important than the government, and the government was tied down by a written Constitution.
It was the one nation where you could live your life secure in the knowledge that no one would ask for your papers, where you weren't identified by a number, and where the government wouldn't extort a percentage of your income as the price of holding a job.
And so each year July 4th has been a commemoration of the freest country in history.
False Celebration
But the America that's celebrated no longer exists.
The holiday oratory deceitfully describes America as though it were the unique land of liberty that once was. Politicians thank the Almighty for conferring the blessings of liberty on a country that no longer enjoys those blessings. The original freedom and security have disappeared — even though the oratory lingers on.
What made America unique is now gone, and we are much the same as Germany, France, England, or Spain, with:
confiscatory taxes,
a Constitution and Bill of Rights that are symbolic only — merely documents used to justify governmental actions that are in fact prohibited by those documents,
business regulated by the state in the most minute detail,
no limits on what Congress or the President might decide to do.
Yes, there are some freedoms left, but nothing like the America that was — and nothing that you can't find in a few dozen other countries.
The Empire
Gone, too, is the sense of peace and security that once reigned throughout the land. America — bound by two huge oceans and two friendly neighbors — was subject to none of the never-ending wars and destruction that plagued Europe and Asia.
Now, however, everyone's business is America's business. Our Presidents consider themselves the rulers of the world — deciding who may govern any country on earth and sending Americans to die enforcing those decisions.
Whereas America was once an inspiration to the entire world — its very existence was proof that peace and liberty really were possible — Americans now live in fear of the rest of the world and the rest of the world lives in fear of America.
The Future
Because the education of our children was turned over to government in the 19th century, generations of Americans have been taught that freedom means taxes, regulations, civic duty, and responsibility for the whole world. They have no conception of the better life that could exist in a society in which government doesn't manage health care, education, welfare, and business — and in which individuals are free to plot their own destinies.
Human beings are born with the desire to make their own decisions and control their own lives. But in most countries government and social pressures work to teach people to expect very little autonomy.
Fortunately, in America a remnant has kept alive the ideas of liberty, peace, and self-respect — passing the concepts on from generation to generation. And so today millions of Americans know that the present system isn't the right system — that human beings aren't born to serve the state and police the world.
Millions more would be receptive upon being shown that it's possible to have better lives than what they're living now.
Both groups need encouragement to quit supporting those who are taking freedom away from them.
You and I may not have the money and influence to change America by ourselves, but we can keep spreading the word — describing a better society in which individuals are truly free and government is in chains (instead of the opposite).
And someday we may reach the people who do have the money and influence to persuade tens of millions of Americans to change our country for the better.
I don't know that it's going to happen, but I do know it's possible. I know that the urge to live one's own life is as basic in human beings as the will to live and the desire to procreate. If we keep plugging away, we may eventually tap into that urge and rally the forces necessary to restore the real America.
And then the 4th of July will be worth celebrating again.
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Harry Browne was the Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, and is now the Director of Public Policy for the American Liberty Foundation. You can read more of his articles at HarryBrowne.org.
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"Uncelebrating the Fourth"
The "Coup" in Hondorus Was a Good Thing
Military disregards orders from a power hungry President looking to disregard the Constitution.
Honduras Defends Its Democracy
Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.
It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.
That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.
The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.
It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.
Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.
Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.
Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."
Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.
For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.
The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that "the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called 'democratic charter.' It seems to believe that only military 'coups' can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove." A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza's judgment is that he doesn't mind the Chávez-style coup.
The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A12
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Bierfeldt v. Napolitano
On March 29, 2009, Steven Bierfeldt was detained in a small room at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and interrogated by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials for nearly half an hour after he passed a metal box containing cash through a security checkpoint X-ray machine. Today an official lawsuit was brought against Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security.On June 18, 2009, the ACLU filed a complaint on behalf of Bierfeldt, charging that TSA is subjecting innocent Americans to unreasonable searches and detentions that violate the Constitution. See the official legal document and listedn to the recording by clicking here. (Read more inside ..)
The Unconstitutional Census
via Peter Orvetti
Good news from the U.S. Census Bureau! "The 2010 Census will be a short-form only census," its website declares. It will still be longer than the Constitution calls for -- asking for "name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, relationship and housing tenure" -- but that's a start, right?
Wrong. The site goes on to say that the "more detailed socioeconomic information is now collected through the American Community Survey" -- an annual supplement to the census that is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. The ACS wants to know if you "have difficulty dressing or bathing" or have difficulty "concentrating, remembering or making decisions." It wants to know how well your toilets are working. It wants to know how much your monthly bills amount to, how healthy you and your children are, how you get to work and how long it takes you to get there. But since the Constitution does not require participation in the ACS, you can just toss the 28-page survey in the trash, right? Wrong again. Those who resist can be fined up to $5,000, and fudging the answer to even the most personal and invasive question can led to a fine of up to $500.
Rep. Ron Paul calls the ACS queries "ludicrous and insulting." He says the Founders "never authorized the federal government to continuously survey the American people. More importantly, they never envisioned a nation where the people would roll over and submit to every government demand. The American Community Survey is patently offensive to all Americans who still embody that fundamental American virtue, namely a healthy mistrust of government."
Resistance to the ACS has been muted so far. The American Civil Liberties Union says it is not unconstitutional -- though all the Constitution allows is an "Enumeration. . . within every subsequent Term of ten Years." Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon says of the ACS, "Decision-makers need ACS data to make choices that affect our daily lives, such as where to build a school, place a new road, improve public health care and provide services for the elderly."
Funny how American "decision-makers" got along just fine for two centuries without it. In 2000, Steve Dasbach of the Libertarian Party appeared on CNN's "Crossfire" to debate Rep. Carolyn Maloney about the use of census data. Maloney said, "There are areas in Texas that don't have plumbing, and we need to know where these areas are so the government can address these concerns and make efforts to people. The census is about helping people." An incredulous Dasbach replied, "Are you saying that the politicians in East Texas don't know which communities in their area don't have complete plumbing, that only this once every 10-year census is the only way they know to find out where these problems are? I can't believe that politicians aren't better in touch with their constituents in knowing what those problems are to have to wait for the census." Maloney did not reply. The show's hosts laughed at Dasbach's naivete, and cut to commercial.
Of course, this is all just the pregame show before the 2010 Census, the results of which will be used, according to the Bureau, "to distribute Congressional seats to states, to make decisions about what community services to provide, and to distribute $300 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year." Right now, more than 140,000 census workers are wandering the land updating address lists for next year's big event. They are carrying hand-held computers for uploading the Global Positioning System coordinates for each address to the government's master address file and digital maps -- visiting houses this year in order to collect GPS data so they can find the same houses again next year. This is a dubious argument for another huge federal data-grab.
Who are these people in your neighborhood, asking you all these questions? The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, was added as an official Census partner organization in February. That is the same ACORN that is under investigation in several states for voter registration fraud during last year's presidential campaign -- the group that may have forged "thousands of voter registration forms" according to CNN. ACORN plans to help find census-takers for the government. While one might expect the Census Bureau to be wary of people-counters who made up people for political ends just last year, the government agency instead requested that ACORN "help us highlight [ACORN's] innovation and hard work and share best practices so other organizations can learn from your experiences." (It is worth noting that 10 years ago, the Census Bureau did not conduct background checks on its 3.7 million people hires, unless a preliminary name check raised a red flag.)
To paraphrase an apocryphal quote from Joseph Stalin, it's not the people who get counted who count; it's the people who count the people who count.
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