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An Endangered America “My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” said Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and our third President. As usual, he was right.
Thirteen colonies of the greatest power on Earth at that time, Great Britain, determined to establish a free and independent nation. With some notable exceptions, we are mostly ignorant of the signers of that document and I would be willing to guess that few Americans realize how long the war for our independence lasted. It began with a local militia engagement with the British in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1775. It would end eight years later in 1783 at Yorktown, Virginia. Estimates are that 25,000 Americans gave their lives over the course of the war; some 8,000 in battle and the rest by disease or as prisoners of war. Eight years is a long time and it is generally conceded that the tenaciousness and will of one man led to victory. His name was George Washington. “Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty,” said Louis D. Brandeis, a Supreme Court Justice. What followed the Revolution were the Articles of Confederation that proved a dismal failure. On May 25, 1787, in great secrecy, a group of delegates from seven States, gathered to revise them. Eventually twelve of the thirteen States were represented. The Constitution they devised was intended to ensure the process of passing legislation was a slow, laborious one, and that the federal government would have only a few, clearly enumerated powers, with all others reserved to the States and the People. The men who wrote the Constitution feared both the mob and the concentration of too much power in the federal government. The States were and are independent, sovereign republics. The U.S. Constitution officially became the law of the land when New Hampshire ratified it on June 21, 1788, being the ninth State to do so. The vote was 57 Yeas, 47 Nays. The poet, Archibald MacLeish, said it best. “There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.” The American dream is now the dream of billions around the world. It inspires hope everywhere. It draws to our shores those who want to live and thrive in freedom. We are a nation in grave danger of being deprived of everything so many Americans worked, fought, and sometimes died to maintain. We are being betrayed by a political and economic socialist theory that is the antithesis of the American system of governance. It killed millions in the last century. We are being governed by fear as one “crisis” or another is announced and we are being governed by too many men and women in Congress who have heedlessly plunged the nation into unimaginable debt and propose to burden present and future generations with destructive taxation. The limits on energy that the Congress is enacting in the name of a non-existent global warming are limits on America’s ability to compete in a world where other nations are using energy, not banning it. America in 2009 must be reclaimed in the name of all those who came before us and in the name of generations to come. So long as we have the right to make our voices heard, we must demand an end to the plundering of the public treasury, an end to public ownership of private enterprises, and an end to the effort to control our lives through the takeover of the nation’s healthcare system. July 4th is a good day to demand that President Barack Hussein Obama resign before he does further harm to all Americans, to the American dream, and to the hope of freedom in the hearts of men and women everywhere in the world. How can you help protect your freedom? One way is to support The National Anxiety Center with a donation . Such funding is critical to our continued battle against the loss of our freedoms via our communications program. If you can help, please do.
My Grandfather lived into his 90s and smoked cigarettes. My Father lived into his 90s and smoked a pipe. Smoking is not a death sentence, but for some it is a cause of lung and other cancers. There is likely a genetic disposition toward these diseases, a family history similar to other comparable diseases. I smoke up to three cigars a day. If I had to stop smoking I would probably have to stop writing because I write best with a cigar in my mouth. Babies suck on pacifiers. Grown men smoke big cigars. Whose choice is it that I smoke or not? Up to now it has been my choice, but the cost of my tobacco preference has been rising exponentially. The government has decided that I and everyone else who choose to smoke must be punished because the government has decided we are harming ourselves and allegedly others around us. The worst kind of tyrant is the one who forbids you free choice under the guise of knowing what is best for you.
I have searched the Constitution for where it says the government has this right and I have not found it, nor does the Constitution say anything about the right of government to determine how much or what I want to eat, but every day in every way the government is depriving me of the right to make these decisions for myself. The first crop that generated any kind of real income for colonial America was tobacco. Smoking has a long history in our nation. All around the world people light up and take a drag. If the Food and Drug Administration regulates the permissible amount of nicotine in a cigarette, people will just smoke more of them to get some level of satisfaction. This is not just a “sin tax” such as all governments have leveled on alcohol and tobacco. This is the deliberate effort of government to end the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and, presumably, other forms of tobacco. The government will deny this, but the government will be lying. When Barack Obama signed this law into effect it was just one more way that the government of the United States of America is asserting its right to control every single aspect of your life. This is the purpose of so-called healthcare reform as well. At some point, the nation becomes a communist entity and you become a slave of the state. Even the Russians are warning us against this. The federal government does not have that right to determine if one wants to smoke or not and what the cost of tobacco will be. However, through taxation, it can impose its will on everyone. In Florida, where the Hav-A-Tampa company trademarked its cigars in 1902, the company announced it will close its plant, leave 495 workers unemployed, and transfer production to Puerto Rico. In New York City, there are plans afoot to require that huge anti-smoking signs be posted wherever tobacco products are sold. This is gangster government at work and it is prohibited from taking these actions. As the 9th Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” It does not have that right. As the 10th Amendment says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The people! The people who up to now have had an inherent, unspoken and accepted right to smoke. The people! The people who up to now have had an inherent right to eat what they want and as much as they want. People cannot be compelled to be “healthy” in ways determined by the government. The federal government is presently getting ready to require everyone to purchase health insurance whether they want to or not. It is getting ready to require that every company that generates or uses energy purchase carbon offsets at the same time it is interdicting access to coal, oil, and natural gas. This is a repeat of the failed Prohibition of alcohol from 1919 to 1933 that roiled America until its repeal. There was a time when Calvin Coolidge could say, “The business of America is business”, but it is not the business of America is to get into your business, your life, and to dictate every aspect of it while denying you any control over it. As we get ready to celebrate Independence Day, if you still think you live in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave”, think again. Have you visited our blog |
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Present day Americans take for granted the story of the American Revolution, but few consider what a fearful undertaking that was when the Declaration was published on July 4, 1776. 
Referring to “The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Act” Rep. Ron Paul said it best on June 15. “Last week, another bill was passed and signed into law that takes more of our freedoms and violates the Constitution of the United States. It was, of course, done for the sake of the children, and in the name of the health of the citizenry. It’s always the case that when your liberty is seized, it is seized for your own good. Such is the condescension of Washington.”