I was having a cordial political discussion with some people today and, as is often the case, someone made the comment that there will be new elections in 2010, and we will be able to take back America. This is a democracy after all. But is it? Is what we live in really a democracy? Sure, we all get to vote, but how are we casting our votes? For who? And why?

A democracy is a system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives, and as such, it is the common people who are considered as the primary source of political power. A democracy also assumes the existence and practice of the principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

Does that accurately describe the country we live in now? Have you ever looked at the people around you at work — who are complaining about overtime and wondering if the boss will figure out that they weren’t really sick on Friday — and told yourself, “These people, together with myself, rule this country,” without laughing at yourself afterword? Have you ever spent a moment at the local saloon — where the “common people” are hanging out, drinking, laughing, groping each other and spilling beer on their shoes — and thought solemnly, “Right here, in this room, is where the primary source of political power in our nation grows from,” and kept a straight face? Have you ever just looked in the mirror and said, “This is my country. I am a respected individual, and this nation recognizes my social equality,” and didn’t fall over on the floor laughing uncontrollably? I didn’t think so.

So, what happened? If the founding fathers were so careful to set up a government that would always represent “We the people,” how did it all go so wrong? Simple. We sold the farm.

Picture this:

Farmer George Augere has been tilling his fields for 50 years. The Augere Farm usually made enough money to support his immediate family, and he also provided jobs for many of his extended family members. On the day of his retirement, the farm supported George, his wife, three of their five children, six of their eleven grandchildren, two siblings, two cousins, three nephews, an uncle, and Mr. Davis, who had worked for George since he was young.

Sure, there had been rough times. The three years of drought back in the late nineties almost bankrupted them, but they survived. Then, when Aunt Irma got sick a few years back, they couldn’t afford a nursing home, but everyone chipped in and made her as comfortable as possible during her last months. Yes, George had been forced to borrow money sometimes to keep the farm going, but when he did he worked tirelessly to pay off the loans.

The days were long, and the work was hard, but like the generations of farmers before him, George was proud of the fact that he has been able to provide a future for his children and grandchildren, and given them the opportunity to build upon his success. He hoped that they would have the same chances to excel in their lives that his father and grandfather had given him.

When George decided to retire, he left it up to the family to decide who would inherit the reins of the Augere Farm. He left each family member an equal share of the farm with the only caveat being that every year a new election would be held to determine who would run the farm for the next 12 months. George’s nephew Barry was a great guy, and everyone liked him. He always knew just what to say, and he always knew just the right time to flash his pearly smile. He had the ability to make almost everyone in the family follow his lead, no matter where he thought to lead them, and it was no surprise when they voted to make him the new leader of the farm.

Right away he went to work making changes. He convinced them that they needed to trade in that old John Deere — it may have been twenty years old, but it had still run just fine — for a brand new Jinma tractor. Yes, it was $30,000 for a smaller tractor, but the new one was better for the environment, and of course Barry was good friends with the sales representative. He talked them into laying off Mr. Davis, who had worked for them for over thirty years, and replaced him with a couple of illegal immigrants, who worked for less money. Later, he switched to a hybrid seed stock. Sure, it was much more expensive, but Barry explained to the family that these new plants were better for the environment, and used less natural resources to grow.

Barry made all kinds of promises to his family as he led the farm into new directions. “We won’t have to work as hard for what we want,” he said. “Everyone who works on the farm should be equal,” he beamed. “Every family member and employee who works for this farm will make as much as he needs to live, but will only have to work as hard they are able,” he boomed!  Over the next few years, he promised and gave them more and more, and every year they re-elected him. Under Barry’s leadership, most of the family got new cars, and built new houses, and were able to go on vacations that they had only dreamed of before. He even convinced them to let the two illegal immigrants participate in future elections and gave them enough money to build new houses and buy new cars of their own. When Uncle Charlie, who was nearly 90 now, fell ill, Barry convinced the family to fund his stay in the best nursing home money could buy. Nothing was too good for a member of the farm. Barry’s family cheered him and told him that they wanted him to be in charge of the farm forever.

Barry’s cousin John, however, wasn’t as enamored with Barry as the rest of the family. John wasn’t as good as Barry at rallying the family behind him as Barry was, but he understood simple math. He eyed the family’s finances warily, and wondered how the family could afford such extravagance with the modest income of the Augere Farm. He asked, “Where is all this money coming from, Barry?”

“Everyone knows that you have to spend money to make money,” Barry answered.

“But where is it all coming from,” John persisted.

“Well, I took out a mortgage on the farm,” Barry told him, “but don’t worry, we won’t have to pay it off for decades.”

John asked fearfully, “How are we going to make payments on it?”

“Easy,” Barry answered, “Uncle Bill, and Cousin Warren both work extra jobs and have a lot more money than the rest of the family. They are just going to have to chip in a little extra to pay the interest on the loan.”

John was beside himself. He went to the rest of the family and explained to them that Barry’s plan would bankrupt the Augere Farm. His protests fell on deaf ears however, and the rest of the family thought John was just a troublemaker. Even Bill and Warren thought that Barry was doing a great job, and wouldn’t hear of replacing him in the next election. “He’s so smart, and so caring,” they said, “we don’t mind paying a little extra.”

After a while though, as Barry spent more and more money keeping his family happy, and now the families of his immigrant workers, the size of the mortgage against the farm grew. Soon, Bill and Warren were told that they would have to work a little harder at their second jobs and contribute a little bit more to the family’s finances. Cousin Brad and Nephew Mike were also told that they would have to start working a little harder and contributing more. “From each according to their ability, guys,” Barry told them. “You have a responsibility to take care of your family.” Over time, more members of the family were asked to contribute a little bit more the benefit of the others. Brad and Mike were asked to contribute even more, and Bill and Warren were asked to give up almost all of their income from their second jobs to support the farm.

Later that year, hardly anyone noticed when when Uncle Bill stopped showing up for work at the farm. Barry noticed when Bill’s check didn’t get deposited in the bank that month, though, and went looking for him. He found Bill’s house empty and his car gone. After a little investigation he learned that Bill had quit his second job and moved out of the state where he had started his own farm with Mr. Davis as a partner. Then Warren lost his second job due to budget cuts and was no longer able to contribute extra money to the farm every month. Brad broke his leg in an accident and could no longer work at all. Mike was told that he would have to work even harder.

Over time, one by one, several more of the hardest working members of the family resigned and moved away. The Augere Farm began to suffer, and its income began to shrink.

“I told you,” John cried. “You can’t keep spending money like this and expect the farm to survive.”

“Nonsense,” Barry answered, “I’ll just borrow a little more money. We’ll get through this.”

And that’s what he did. He took out another mortgage on the farm, and took out loans against the homes his family had built during the last several years. “Don’t worry,” he told them, “we won’t have to pay these loans off for years to come.”

The next few years were a little tougher. More of the hardest working family members gave up and moved away, and with each one that left the farm produced less and less. The family who remained, though, demanded more and more from Barry. He sold off the harvester to pay the interest on the loans, and then borrowed a little more to buy a new car for his daughter. During the following fall harvest he had to rent a harvester, and sold the tractor in order to pay for it. It became a never ending downward spiral. Realizing that he was in trouble, Barry started looking for a solution.

He found that solution in Mr. Yen, who agreed to take on some of the Augere Farm’s debt in exchange for the land. “You can stay there and work the land,” he told Barry, “nothing will change, other than how the land is titled. Instead of paying all that interest on the loans, you’ll just have to pay rent. Besides, I’ll pay you a little under the table so you’ll have some money in your pocket when all is said and done.”

“But what about my family?” Barry asked.

“I can’t give you enough to pay off all of their debts,” Mr. Yen told him, “and I can’t employ them all. I run a tight ship. But you’ll be taken care of, my friend.”

“Okay,” Barry relented, “let’s do it.”

And just like that, Barry sold the farm.

What happened to George’s farm is exactly what is happening to our country. The votes of our electorate are being bought with promises of extravagant benefits to the “common people.” The problem is of course, that all of these benefits have to be paid for someday, by someone. The crime wasn’t Barry selling the farm to Mr. Yen, the crime was committed when the family sold the farm to Barry for a few material promises and a pretty smile. The crime was selling out the future for a little extra stuff today.

The Obama administration is telling us that only the rich will have to pay more so everyone else can have free health care. Only the rich corporations will have to fund the new environmental revolution. He tells us that all of the common people deserve economic justice and equality. In short, the government is buying the votes of the American people, and it has destroyed our democracy. Our president, our congress, and our supreme court have all thrown their hats into the bidding circle, looking to buy the farm, and then sell it down the river.

These are lies that they tell us for one purpose, and one purpose only. To stay in power. And in order to keep that power, they are willing to buy our votes with our very own souls. In the end, all it will cost us is our freedom.

2010? Maybe we can take back our country, but I’m not optimistic. We still have too much wealth in this country for Obama and his lackeys to buy votes with. They’ll bankrupt us eventually, though. Even Vice President Biden said so. When that happens, maybe real democracy can make a comeback.

Until then, welcome to augereocracy, where control of the government goes to the highest bidder.

augereocracy

au·ger·e·oc·ra·cy [aw-jeer-ee-ok-ruh-see]
-noun, plural -cies.

1. a puppet republic where the members of the supposedly democratically elected government received the majority of the votes by promising the most benefits (ie. kickbacks, bribes) to the voters
2. a government that provides increasingly greater benefits to its electorate in order keep power.
3. a state or society characterized by a formal relinquishing of rights in exchange for perceived financial benefits.
4. political or social inequality resulting from class warfare and wealth redistribution.
5. majority rule, where such majority is purchased through the promise of personal benefit.
6. a system of government in which the power, which used to be vested in the people, who ruled either directly or through free elected representatives, is now solidly controlled by a select few who have purchased that power from the people by promising ever increasing benefits from the treasury.
   

Origin:
2009; [root: augere (Latin, present infinitive) - 1. increase, augment; 2. enlarge, spread; 3. lengthen; 4. exaggerate; 5. honor, enrich; 6. (figuratively) exalt, praise. - rel. auction]

Related words or phrases for : augereocracy
socialism, communism, progressivism, voter auction, bribery, influence peddling

example: “The people in this country have forsaken their democracy and sold their votes and control of our government to the highest bidder in exchange for free healthcare and rent controlled housing. We are now an augereocracy.”

Yep. This is what it’s all about. The key words? “Global Governance.” The plan isn’t to green the world. The plan is to rule the world.

Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About ‘Global Governance’ | Climate Depot

Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About ‘Global Governance’  

Climate Depot Exclusive

Friday, July 10, 2009By Marc Morano  –  Climate Depot

Former Vice President Al Gore declared that the Congressional climate bill will help bring about “global governance.”

“I bring you good news from the U.S., “Gore said on July 7, 2009 in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by UK Times.

“Just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey climate bill,” Gore said, noting it was “very much a step in the right direction.” President Obama has pushed for the passage of the bill in the Senate and attended a G8 summit this week where he agreed to attempt to keep the Earth’s temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C.

Gore touted the Congressional climate bill, claiming it “will dramatically increase the prospects for success” in combating what he sees as the “crisis” of man-made global warming.

“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.” (Editor’s Note: Gore makes the “global governance” comment at the 1min. 10 sec. mark in this UK Times video.)

[Read More...]

We’ve all seen it. In our schools, our children’s schools, public meetings, television shows, leadership seminars, political speeches, and even in legislation supported by the President, the message is clear: we should all be doing community service. The fact is that the call to service is greater now than at any time in our country’s past, and the pressure to provide it even greater.

The pressure to conform to the growing demand to volunteer your self, in body and bankbook, can be daunting. When confronted with a group of peers, all telling you how much you are needed, it can be difficult to resist. When your child’s teacher tells you how important it is that you volunteer for the school bake sale, how can you say no? When your Mayor asks you to volunteer your time for the citywide cleanup, how can you refuse? And when the girl scout who lives next door asks you to buy cookies, or the soccer player who lives down the street asks you to buy raffle tickets, how can you not open your wallet and hand them the money?

Simple. Say “no.” Unless, that is, you want to do it, and can.

First of all, it’s not so much “community service” that I have a problem with. Serving your community has plenty of merit, and everyone should do it, provided of course that you are willing, and just as important, able. The problem arises when you are expected to give your time and your money to a cause that you don’t want to support. And more problems arise when you are expected to give your time and your money to a cause when you can’t afford it.

None of that matters to the people who are asking for you services, though. It doesn’t matter to them that your boss has cut back on your overtime and money is scarce, and it doesn’t matter to them that you took a second job to cover the bills, making your time even more scarce. What matters to them is their cause. You see, to the people who are promoting them, causes are just like children. Everyone thinks theirs is the most important, and anyone who thinks differently be damned. It doesn’t matter how much time or money you’ve given to any cause, even theirs, in the past, if you don’t see how important their baby is today, you’re dirt. Even if you can’t afford it, they expect your support, and they expect it now.

The important part of this is that giving your time and money to a cause when you can’t afford either hurts everyone in the long run. It hurts you, it hurts your family, and ultimately it even hurts the cause. If you give money that you can’t afford to support your local food bank, it impairs your ability to put food on your own table, and that of your family. If you sacrifice time you can’t spare, whether it’s time you could be working to pay your bills, or time you should have spent playing baseball with your son, to participate in the latest jail and bail fundraiser, you risk putting a strain on your budget, or on your family. Both situations threaten your future security, your attitude, and your willingness and ability to participate in community service in the future.

It is quite common these days to pressure our children to “give back” to their communities, provide volunteer service, and even sign pledges to provide even more service in the future. From their classrooms to their football practices to their leadership conferences, they are bombarded at every turn with the message that it is the responsibility of every able bodied youth to serve their communities. They are told that service will make them better people, and that their duty is to their fellow man. More disturbing, it has become a trend lately to begin making this expectation of service into a requirement.

President Obama’s official transitional website stated that “Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.”

Congress followed suit with HR 1388 that authorized a committee to study “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented…” When the language was stripped out of the final version of that bill, it was resurrected again as the still living HR 1444. It seems that our federal government is determined to make “volunteers” out of all our children.

The problem with this, aside from the fact that the 13th amendment of the Constitution clearly prohibits “indentured servitude,” is that if you take our youth, in the prime of their life, and put them on a mandated course of community service, you rob the community of it’s greatest potential producers, both physical and mental.

Can you imagine how different the world would be right now if a young college student named Bill Gates had been cutting weeds in the Boston National Historic Park instead of exploring the operations of computers and developing a BASIC interpreter for MITS? Gates built a fortune after that initial foray, which he later used to enable him to funnel billions of dollars into charitable organizations. He has now retired from the corporate world and donates all of his time to community service. Would the world be a better place if he had been doing community service while he was in college instead? Would have 100 hours of service to his fellow man when he was 20 been a good trade for the tens of billions of dollars that he has been able to raise for charity in his post corporate life?

If two college students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had been serving dinners at the Palo Alto Opportunity Center instead of spending their evenings writing the code that would later power Google.com, they would have never had a billion dollars to fund the charitable wing of their company, Google.org, which works to fight global poverty, among other causes. Would the world have been better served by them providing community service while they were in school rather than later when they were successful entrepreneurs and wanted to make a difference in the world?

In reality, Americans are the most generous charitable givers in the world. In 2006, Americans donated a record $295 billion to charitable organizations, the vast majority of which came from individuals. That is in addition to the 61 million Americans who donated time and labor to charitable organizations during that same year.

By allowing and encouraging our budding youth to provide for themselves and their families first, and by empowering them to become responsible and productive members of society, we also put a down payment on their future ability to give back to society when they are more able, ready and willing to do so. Someone who is forced to “donate” their time or money to causes they may not support will likely become bitter and much less likely to support any cause in the future. Additionally, a person who gives willingly, and to causes or charities they believe in, will always give more. If our government moves forward with their plan to require mandatory service from every American, and dictates to what causes that service is given, they will likely guarantee that will be the only community service that person ever provides again.

The underlying motive here is that these people don’t want you to volunteer your time and your money, because that means you are in control. They want to decide how your time and money is used to benefit society as they see fit. They want to decide which charities are worthy of your time and they want to decide which charities are worthy of your money. They don’t care if you miss a day of work, or if you have a hard time paying your bills, and they don’t care that your kids could be spending their afternoons developing cold fusion in the basement lab instead of planting grass on a reclaimed garbage dump, because in the end all they want is control.

How do we fight back? How do we make sure that our time and money is dedicated to causes and charities that we believe in? How do we make sure that our families, and ourselves, don’t go without to provide for charities that we might not believe in? And how do we make sure that our children are given the opportunity to become successful in their own right before they are expected to “give back” to their “fellow man?”

The answer is still simple. Say “no.” Unless, that is, you want to do it, and can.

A sombering article about what happens when a government stops recognizing the individual rights of its citizens. Written by Jeff Snyder by way of LewRockwell.com Thanks to Eric for the link.

Plastic People

by Jeff Snyder
by Jeff Snyder

‘plas•tic’: . . . 5: capable of being deformed continuously and permanently in any direction without rupture” ~ mirriam.webster.com

Pierre Lemieux, a French Canadian, economist, professor, author, libertarian thorn in the flesh of the Canadian Leviathan, and a friend, has become a felon. Pierre refused to answer one of the questions on his application to renew his firearms license, and the licensing center refused to renew his license. He now faces the prospect of 10 years in prison for keeping firearms without a license.

I will tell you some of his story. At this stage you may be thinking that it’s going to be about gun control but, rest assured, it’s not. Too many see trees, only trees, everywhere they look, and never a forest. Every abuse, every injustice is singular, isolate, one more thing to be addressed, corrected or reformed – unfortunate, deplorable really, but circumscribed, in an arena separate from the rest of life, someone else’s problem, and someone else’s cause.

No, Pierre’s story is about what it means to be ruled, what it means to need permission from the state. And if you stop looking at trees and see the forest, then Pierre’s refusal to follow orders may pose a question for you: How far will you accommodate the state before you resist? Is there some limit to your ability to mold yourself to the state’s designs? At what point will the state cross a line within you, when what you are ordered to do is more than you will accept or bear, when you will say, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise”?

Or does no such line exist? Are you that final object of all the state’s labors, that Quintessential Being that the state expects, demands and needs you to be: a plastic person?

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In 1995 Canada passed an “Act Respecting Firearms and Other Weapons,” generally referred to simply as the “Firearms Act” or by its original bill number, C-68. At the time, Canada already had handgun registration. The Firearms Act created a long gun registry and a new firearm licensing authority, and required citizens to possess licenses to own firearms. The licenses are good for five years. Pierre registered his firearms, and submitted his first application for a firearms license in 1996, which was granted, his first application for renewal in 2001, which was granted, and his second request for renewal in 2007, which was denied.

Pierre believes that Canadians have the right to own firearms without government approval. In fact, he has written extensively on the subject to educate his fellow Canadians and to peaceably restore respect for this right. Nevertheless, like most people, Pierre complied with the registration and licensing scheme in order to keep what he loves and to live a “quiet life.” Unfortunately, despite his best efforts to comply, Pierre ran into his own personal limit with an impertinence in the license application that he simply could not abide, viz., question 6(d) of the license application, which asks:

“During the past two (2) years, have you experienced a divorce, a separation, a breakdown of a significant relationship, job loss or bankruptcy?”

The instructions to the application state that all personal history questions must be answered, and that “[I]f you answer YES to any of the questions . . . you MUST provide details on a second page. . . . If details are not provided, your application cannot be processed. A YES answer does not mean your application will be refused but it may lead to further examination.”

In each of 1996, 2001 and 2007, Pierre, waging what he describes as “a dignity battle” against the law, refused to answer this question, instead responding that “My love affairs are none of your business / Ça ne vous regarde pas.” In 2007, Pierre took the additional step of sending, by registered mail, a copy of his application, a cover letter and three pages of his book, Confessions d’un coureur des bois hors-la-loi, which chronicles his resistance against Canadian gun control laws, to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Two months after his license expired, having heard nothing from the licensing center, Pierre made a freedom of information request to find out the status of his application. Eventually, he received word that his license renewal was denied by reason of his failure to answer question 6(d). Pierre now owns firearms – registered firearms – in violation of the law, a crime punishable by 10 years in prison. On the webpage where he chronicles his resistance to the Canadian license law, Pierre wonders: ” Will I be the first Canadian to be jailed for refusing to tell the state about his love life? Not the last one, I fear.”

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If an activity is licensed by the state, then it is a privilege conferred and controlled by the state, and not a right. The conditions on which the privilege is conferred are matters of legislative or administrative grace; the person may not lawfully engage in the activity and is not affirmatively protected from state incursion simply by reason of being a person, as would be the case with an “individual right.” The Firearms Act empowered an agency with a mandate to create and administer a licensing program and vested very broad powers in the agency to establish the particulars of the program. The Act clearly establishes that ownership of firearms in Canada is a privilege conferred only upon those deemed worthy by satisfaction of conditions determined by the licensing authority.

Stop and consider for a moment this by method of “legislation.” The founding “law” simply directs a combined legislative/judicial/executive agency to create and enforce a program without bothering to prescribe the contents of the program or even any significant limits on the exercise of that “authority.” Instead, it vests the agency with very broad discretion to define and administer the program. This form of legislation is, historically, a favorite with advocates of gun control, but it is by no means atypical of modern law-making, and is often used to control all sorts of activities. For example, the act establishing the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States is in large part of this nature, being essentially a mandate to the agency to go forth and create clean air and water.

Consider what this type of “legislation” says about how truly, deeply, worried your “representatives” are about your lives. They cannot be troubled to precisely define the contents of the “laws” to which you will be subject, to define or circumscribe the conditions that may ultimately be imposed upon you or resultant burdens upon you and, therefore, do not limit how impertinent, overreaching or arbitrary they may become. Instead, the laws to which you will be subject largely or in significant part are devised by men and women who are not subject even to the minimum accountability of having to be re-elected to maintain office, who are protected from removal from office by civil service laws and who will never, ever be accountable to the innumerable citizens they harm for the harebrained regulations they impose. The legislators don’t have to make any of the difficult decisions, won’t be blamed for agency regulations that outrage the electorate, and it’s just fine with them if you have to incur significant costs in time, money and energy to bring actions in the courts to overturn the agency’s edicts, or to lobby the legislators to bring their administrative dogs to heel. There’s certainly no problem with more lobbying, it means more political contributions! The legislators dodge responsibility and accountability to the electorate, and position themselves as saviors who can remedy the abuses of the administrative agencies. An ideal system, really!

For reasons known only to it, the Canadian licensing bureau decided that it needs to know details about each applicant’s love life, job losses, and bankruptcies in order to determine whether to issue a firearms license. Doubtless many of us are dulled, if not numb, to the presumptions of wisdom and competence, and intrusiveness, of government agencies, but consider the god-like heights that the Canadian firearms licensing bureau claims as its own. The air is indeed rare there! It is going to make decisions whether to grant or deny a firearms license based on its evaluation of your love woes, job loss or bankruptcy!

“Provide details,” it commands. Assuming you can get past the monumental presumptuousness that demands that you submit, as a matter of official record, intimate details about your life to be mulled over by some police official, really, how does one respond to that? What level of detail, exactly, are they demanding? Would “My wife and I were divorced six months ago” be sufficient? Or is one required to add some salient, hopefully spicy details? “My God! For a while there, it was almost like “War of the Roses!” I refused to leave the house! She smashed some of my things and in retaliation I uprooted her beloved rose bushes! The tears! The screaming fits of rage! It was a complete nightmare! Now it’s over and, fortunately for all concerned, we live in completely different provinces!” Or does one add page after page of Henry James-like psychological detail of every gesture, facial expression and step of the breakup, the job loss, the bankruptcy?

Assuming one provides sufficient details, the agents who process the applications will then decide what significance these personal facts have for firearms ownership. This is pretty impressive! Consider that state-licensed psychiatrists, actual medical doctors who have specialized in the scientific study of mental health, cannot reliably predict, do not even claim to be able to predict, who is and is not going to commit an act of violence. Yet fear not and be ye amazed! The intrepid agents of the licensing bureau can and will determine who among those recently wounded in love, employment or credit relationships may safely own a firearm, doubtless relying upon gut instincts finely-honed through years of processing applications!

Maybe the licensing bureau isn’t going to use psychological profiling. Maybe, instead, the details it needs are the names and phone numbers of your ex-lover, your ex-boss and the creditors who lost a bundle when you filed for bankruptcy. And maybe the bureau will then contact them and make inquiries. “Hello. This is Officer Smith from the Firearms Licensing Bureau. Your [choose one] [ex-lover], [former employee] [former debtor] is asking us to renew his firearms license so that he can continue to own firearms for the next five years. Are you okay with that? Does that give you any cause for concern?” And then the bureau can decide whether to issue a license based on what these people say about you. Not quite a judicial determination of the existence of a crime, you understand, with an actual crime charged, penalties for perjury, the opportunity to confront and cross-examine your accusers and rules about what is and isn’t admissible evidence, but hey! Good enough for administrative agencies, which make their own rules and act as legislature, judge and enforcer.

Who knows how the licensing bureau will evaluate this information? They want it, and they will act upon it, and that is all the applicant needs to know. The activity for which the supplicant need a license is a privilege conferred by the state and, therefore, at bottom rests on nothing more than meeting their conditions, i.e., on pleasing the authorities, who most assuredly will do as they please.

This is what it is to be ruled, for your activities to be privileges conferred by the state, for the conditions of your life to be determined based on some legislator’s or administrator’s “good ideas” for governance. This is what it is to have your life controlled by another who has the power to fine you and throw you in jail for failing to comply with his conditions.

This is why American gun owners vehemently oppose registration of guns and licensure of firearms ownership. It doesn’t matter what the law says or whether it’s a “good idea” or what its supposed socially-worthwhile, beneficially-motivated “intent” is. It’s how the law’s power is wielded that determines the conditions of your life. This is why, when the NRA and gun owners supported “shall issue” concealed carry licensing laws, currently in place in 37 states, the laws were carefully crafted to specify precisely the procedures to be followed, to enumerate the only conditions that could be imposed, all of which were objectively determinable and none of which depended upon the exercise of agency discretion, and to impose time and cost limits for processing, so that, upon satisfaction of strictly objectively verifiable criteria, the licensing authority was required to issue the permit. This is why American gun owners demanded that state legislatures pass these new laws and repeal the old licensing laws that were enacted in the early 20^th Century, laws like the Sullivan Act, which still governs the residents of New York City. While appearing on the surface to be even-handed, those older statutes simply conferred broad, nebulous discretion on a licensing authority, with the result that they have been and, where still in effect, are, administered in a way to insure that only the “right” sort of people obtain permits. In New York City, this means that men like Donald Trump and Howard Stern get carry permits, but not the multitudes whose lives just aren’t important enough to warrant the privilege of self-protection. (For a more extensive discussion of the arbitrary nature of discretionary licensing statutes, see this policy analysis of “shall issue” concealed carry laws.)

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While Pierre is now a felon because of his nation’s gun control laws, never forget that this is how he got in trouble with the state: He acted on the basis that there are some details about his life, important to him, that are his affair and his alone.

No one who believes he has the right to control you, who believes, further, that he has the right to engineer a society according to his ideas and plans, will ever accept this. It is an affront to his arrogance, to his arrogation of power to control you as he deems fit. To have “lawful authority” – really, political power – is precisely to have a free hand to use coercion to suit your purpose, without necessity of justification. If you are simply carrying out a prescribed course, if there is no discretionary element to your “authority” that permits you to shape it and use it to your purpose, it is not power but mere processing and ministration: you are a mere servant, a functionary, a minion. In brief, you are you: a servant and whatever government requires you to be, and manifestly not a king, a sovereign, a president, a semi-divine one, a colossus bestriding the earth.

Anyone who believes they have the right to control you ultimately must act ruthlessly, because a person does not control another unless, in the absence of willing consent or consent obtained through misrepresentation or fraud, he will compel the other to act as he commands. Ask yourself why a refusal to answer a single question about your love life is accompanied by a threat of, and merits, 10 years in prison. The failure to answer this question inflicts no actual harm on any citizen. The punishment cannot, therefore, be for harm the refusal has caused any specific victim or “society” at large. No, the injured party here is the state itself. The refusal to answer the state’s question is an affront to the state’s “authority,” and its claims to operate, and manage society, as it sees fit. The real “crime” is that the subject has failed to follow the state’s orders. He has failed to submit to and participate in the state’s project to control or engineer society in accordance with the state’s plans. Possibly, for example, the licensing bureau’s motivation for asking about love woes, job losses and bankruptcies is that it hopes to be able to prevent some future crimes (with guns, at least) based on certain facts that the licensing bureau believes have some degree of predictive value for determining who will and won’t commit crimes. That is, it may be implementing a general policy directive to shape an aggregate outcome (a reduction in crime) based on the fact that a certain small percentage of ex-lovers, ex-employees and bankrupts will commit armed violence against their former lovers, former employers or creditors. In refusing to answer the question, then, the applicant thwarts the state’s plans and rebukes the state’s claim to an authority to control or engineer society in accordance with its purpose. The “crime” is not a personal crime, like murder, robbery or pollution of the air or water, but a political crime. The essence of the crime is lèse majesté. The “criminal” has refused to obey the state’s fiat, and in so doing has committed an intolerable affront to the state’s claim to an absolute “authority.” He has shown his willingness to keep and act upon his own counsel and not follow orders. The state cannot let that stand and continue to be a state. It is the ultimate crime, and that it is why it is dealt with ruthlessly, meriting the same punishment that Solzhenitsyn informed us that Stalin’s political prisoners in the Gulag received for rebukes to authority: a tenner. Evidently, like minds, each claiming a right to control and engineer both man and society, perceive like threats, and respond with a like “solution.”

In his letter to the Prime Minister, Pierre notes that he is ashamed that he has not joined the Canadian heroes who are resisting the Firearms Act by refusing to register their guns or apply for licenses. These peaceful, otherwise law-abiding men and women occasionally hold open protests in front of government buildings daring the authorities to arrest them and throw them all in jail for ten years. According to information obtained by Pierre under a freedom of information request, as of February 2009, the Royal Mounted Canadian Police estimate that there were 185,925 owners of long guns alone who are not in compliance with the firearms registration and license laws.

We know now that Pierre need not have been ashamed, for it is clear that he is no less heroic. The state pushes and pushes; too much is never enough. It demands nothing less than absolute, complete control over an avidly obedient populace. To the state, there is no difference between 99% compliance and zero compliance. If there is one thing, one thing alone that it commands that you are unwilling to do for it, you have rebuked its authority and you are a threat, and the state will take you down. Pierre tried to comply for the sake of an undisturbed, peaceful life, but there was one thing the state demanded that he was not willing to do. There is something within him, some inherent dignity, he is not willing to relinquish or alter to suit the bastards. And so he refused to act as he was commanded to act, he refused to be a plastic person, forever conforming himself to the shapes devised for him by men and women with delusions of grandeur and whose tools for creating utopia are tasers, guns, fines and prison. And for that he may get ten years in jail.

So this is how it is. If you can labor “within the system” forever to obtain the reform that will correct this abuse, and that one, and each and every other abuse that arises, now and forever; if you can labor forever to exchange your current masters for better ones, a better Congressperson, a better Senator, a better President; if, in short, your idea of “citizenship” or “activism” is playing whack-a-mole with those lording it over you; if you can wait forever for the permission that you need to live life peaceably as you envision it; if you can march forward uplifted on Hope and Change; if you can find reasons and make excuses forever why Change cannot be achieved fully, just yet; if, in short, nothing can cause you to call into question the fundamental belief that it is good and proper for some people to have a “right” to control your life and the rest of society, using, as their tools, lying, fraud, manipulation, threats, grants of legal monopolies, protection and immunities, payoffs (“subsidies”), confiscation, fines, tasers, guns and jail; and if, when their commands are finally issued directly to you and you are confronted with tasers, guns, fines and jail, everything about you is conformable, malleable; if at no point will you ever openly refuse to comply with their plans when you are ordered to do so; then relax, the state is not coming for you. You are a plastic person, deforming yourself to fit into the shape that the state designs for you. You are no threat and you can be controlled because there is no one there to offer any resistance.

But if there is some peaceful activity you care about deeply, if you invest your life in it and the state should seek to control this in a way that that truly hurts you, then you will collide with the state, and what you love will be used against you. That is how the state operates. That is how it implements its self-described mission of “protecting” and “caring” for you. And if, because of this thing you love, you have some limit, some thing or aspect of yourself you will not give up or alter, then you are a threat, then you are an affront and rebuke to your government’s assumption of complete control. You have demonstrated that you will not dance to the state’s tune, that you are an individual and not a cog in the state’s machine, and Pierre’s story may someday also be your story.

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Pierre has filed a motion of appeal before the Québec provincial court, asking that the license refusal be quashed and apologies issued. He also argues that the Firearms Act and related criminal code provisions are unconstitutional, and that he does not need any license to exercise his traditional liberty to possess firearms. The court date has been set for May 26 and 27, 2009, in room 207 of the Mont-Laurier Courthouse, Québec, starting at 9:30 a.m. each morning. Richard A. Fritze, an Alberta lawyer and well-known defender of Canadian firearms owners and their rights, is representing Pierre pro bono. In addition, several expert witnesses will testify on behalf of Pierre’s position, including Joyce Malcolm, author of To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origin of an Anglo-American Right, Colin Greenwood, a now retired senior English police officer who authored a landmark work on the history of England’s gun control laws and their failure to reduce violent crime, and Professor Gary Mauser, who co-authored an article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy with Don Kates titled, “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?

These experts have generously agreed to assist Pierre for only the cost of their travel and accommodations, but Pierre needs funds to pay for what will most likely be a long and difficult battle. Please consider supporting him. If you wish to assist Pierre’s fight by donating, please contact Paul Rogan, publisher of Canadian Access to Firearms, who is acting as a pro bono fund-raiser. Alternatively, The Canadian Constitution Foundation has established a “Pierre Lemieux Legal Fund.” to provide funds to support Pierre’s case and you may instead donate earmarked funds to the CCF. Mr. Rogan can provide details on how to make your contribution through CCF.

May 6, 2009

Jeff Snyder [send him mail] is an attorney who works in Manhattan. He is the author of Nation of Cowards – Essays on the Ethics of Gun Control, which examines the American character as revealed by the gun control debate. He occasionally blogs at The Shining Wire. Read this interview with him.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Jeff Snyder Archives

These are actual police mugshots. I bet the president is so proud of the people who support him! This is probably the kind of criminals that the One thinks is waiting in Gitmo for him to save. Can anyone remember ever seeing a mugshot of someone wearing a George W. Bush shirt? How about a Ronald Reagan shirt? Barry Goldwater? George H.W. Bush? Bob Dole?