The biggest thing individuals can do is decide which type of governance you support. And I don't mean which political party you advocate. Either you believe in a large, centralized entity that controls top-down, with unlimited powers, or you believe in a small, decentralized entity that controls from the bottom up, with limited jurisdiction. This decision is the only one that really matters regarding America's future. One thing is certain: Both Republicans and Democrats are on the side of top-down unlimited powers and jurisdiction.
The U.S. Bill of Rights emphasizes the latter, with the first 10 amendments clearly indicating what the government is limited to, not what it has the authority to bestow. In other words, the first 10 amendments state "shall nots" in enumerating the tasks of government. Its purpose is a singular mandate to protect the "unalienable rights of each individual," rights that already existed before the creation of a government to protect them.
Our "rights" come from God to each of us equally. They are not privileges granted by a government composed of men. If they were, then those same men could take the privileges away at their whim. Coming from God, however, makes such withdrawal of our rights impossible. Such rights exist for each of us regardless of government, or the men who serve it. The understanding of this fundamental aspect is where America has gotten so badly off the rail.
We have confused government's purpose -- its mandate to protect rights already bestowed by God -- with its ability to create privileges through legislation for its own ends. The law is not the government! The law is supposed to conform to the foundational principles of Common Law, which is at the heart of civilized society. It has two basic tenets: (1) Do everything you agreed to do, and 2) Do not encroach on any person or his property.
Common Law has systematically been replaced by Maritime/Admiralty Law, especially relative to civil law. The differences abound and are so detrimental that it is staggering to think such a systemic conversion possible right under our noses. For example, most Americans think the designation of U.S. Citizen means a person is an American National. In fact it denotes each of us as a fictional sub-corporation of the parent corporation of the United States of America. This status encumbers each of us in ways of which we are ignorant. It means that as Americans we are basically governed by commerce law under Maritime Law, but without our consent.
I urge readers to research this subject -- Common Law versus Maritime Law -- because it will profoundly change your perspective, and perhaps guide you in answering the above question: Which type of governance do you support? Are you willing to be the newly conquered? Or will you do the conquering of the growing threat to your national identity?
Speaking of commerce, Cap & Trade is being sold as an environmental measure to curb global warming. While many around the world still believe that human-produced carbon dioxide is causing the planet's rising temperature, this theory no longer has scientific consensus.
Still Congress continues to advance Cap & Trade legislation under the guise of decreasing carbon dioxide and avoiding a global meltdown. Unfortunately, we can't count on the mainstream media to give us the truth on this subject because the owners of most of the news-broadcast networks stand to greatly profit from Cap & Trade legislation, especially General Electric, which owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
The coverage of this issue by these stations is so flagrantly biased and uninformed as to insult viewers' intelligence. GE's financial future depends on Cap & Trade as much as it depends on health-care reform for its very survival. So it is using its position as a broadcaster to influence Americans that carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas destroying the environment, even though there is not a scintilla of evidence to conclusively prove this theory.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCE) has been established to facilitate carbon-credit trading. Trading carbon credits is at the heart of Cap & Trade legislation, because it will create a new commodities market out of thin air, estimated at $30 trillion. Carbon-credit trading threatens to be the single largest direct tax on productivity and/or consumption since the income tax. Because it is inherently subjective in its conjuring, such trading will make previous derivative investing look like penny candy.
This scheme literally creates value out of unseen air/gas, then trades it as a commodity. It does absolutely nothing to reduce the temperature of the planet. All the carbon polluters will still be polluting, but with proper legislation, they will be able to offset the taxes imposed on their emissions by purchasing carbon credits from the CCE. (The current Cap & Trade bill allows for all kinds of exemptions. Big surprise.)
This scheme only works with coercion, just like health care. All activity by individual persons or companies will be assessed as either carbon-polluting or -offsetting. A carbon credit functions as an offset. The good thing for legislators and Wall Street is that nearly every human activity is a carbon-polluter, and we will be taxed accordingly.
Electricity and wood- and fuel-burning, to name a few big carbon-polluters, are examples of everyday living that will furnish the government with an entirely new source of tax revenue that has the potential of wiping out America's middle class. Look to Germany for evidence of the destructive nature of carbon taxation/credit-trading.
Cap & Trade represents another unholy alliance between government; giant global corporations in industries that include central banks, energy, and finance; and a new host of "green" enterprises cropping up everywhere to get a share of the pending loot.
It is a disgrace that Americans are meeting this new challenge with the same complacency that defined our disapproval of the two bailouts (Bush's $700-billion TARP and Obama's $850-billion stimulus package) and health-care reform. "Save the planet" is pure rhetoric for the scam of the millennium!
Help stop this legislation now. Initiate a household savings account for the purpose of helping to fund legal challenges to legislation that is financially detrimental and unconstitutional under Common Law. There are a host of other potential legal paths possible needing only a unified challenge by the people and the funding to see it through. Legitimate groups are beginning to surface to take on these challenges, and we must be there to help with our resources if we are to conquer the beast of oppressive legislation and taxation.
