After 21 years of publishing, the depth and breadth of civic disengagement continues to befuddle me, confirming that people get the government they deserve. Everyone senses the undercurrent of serious trouble afoot in this country. But no amount of leaderships' disgraceful conduct, criminal enterprise, or wholesale injustice - all of which cause profound suffering for our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and community at large - rises to a level that produces meaningful activism. Why is that?

Mostly it is because of denial, lack of imagination, laziness, inertia, and an absurd amount of self-absorption. Ignorance plays a part, but most people are intelligent enough to grasp problems. Instead, they choose to ignore such matters as a means to absolve themselves from responsibility head-in-the-sand style. Clearly, this is not the American way. Or at least it didn't used to be.

No matter how much civic impotence we claim, there is still plenty we can individually affect if we are willing to sacrifice a bit of convenience. Our ancestors, after all, sacrificed their lives.

First, we must reaffirm that we are created with inherent rights that are ours whether government exists or not. The United States Constitution protects rights we already have by limiting government's ability to interfere with those inherent rights. That is a core principle that must be internalized before we can correct our course as a nation.

Each individual has enormous, albeit mostly unused, power in our form of bottom-up governance; a constitutional Republic under the rule of law, including, but not limited to, the power of the vote, the power of the purse, and the power of the jury. The Bill of Rights secures free speech and the press, worship, assembly, petitions for redress of grievances, due process, and the right to bear arms, to name a few. Read the Bill of Rights and you will find that it states very clearly, without ambiguity, "Congress shall make no law" that interferes with the above.

Is anyone surprised when politicians and bureaucrats readily step in and usurp more and more governance with cumbersome and deliberately vague legalese, especially when the people are abdicating their responsibility and not doing their part, on such a massive scale, by not utilizing their individual power? Leadership is giddy to do so, in partnership with the largest global corporations that control the infrastructure needs of mankind. But don't kid yourself. The largest corporation on the planet is the United States of America Inc., with countless sub-corporations in the form of agency departments in all 50 states contributing to this global behemoth. The actual head-count comprising leadership in the government sector is one and the same with those running the private sector. The crossover, commonly referred to as the revolving door, is widespread and entirely toxic to economies, and also poses a dire threat to republics under the rule of law - such as America.

If you truly want to engage, then begin by educating yourself in one of these four areas:

1) How to effectively protect our vote. Explore BlackBoxVoting.org to understand the vulnerabilities prevalent in computerized voting.

2) Learn how money and debt really work, including mortgages, because debt is public enemy number one. I suggest beginning with Murray N. Rothbard's The Mystery of Banking, a modern expansion of The Theory of Money & Credit by Ludwig Von Mises, because both of these economists give the instability of credit and debt the weight it richly deserves.

3) Understand the real purpose and strength of the grand and petit jury in our legal system. (Fully Informed Jury Association, at FIJA.org, is a good starting point.) Both have been severely undermined, rendering courts into small fiefdoms of control that abuse people with the least resources to defend themselves. There are many excellent books and articles on America's corrupted court system and abuse of power worth exploring (among them Justice: An Impossible Dream), written by knowledgeable authors who demonstrate rare courage in exposing ever-increasing injustice.

4) Research alternative, trustworthy media sources for accurate, relevant information beyond the largely propagandized mainstream media that many of us parrot in an effort to feign being informed. It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is, DemoCRIT or RepubliCON - the talking points are nearly identical, with the only difference being who gets the blame. Alternative news organizations will cite their sources, allowing you, the reader, to verify information presented. Your process for determining merit: "Mistrust and verify."

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