As my political views have evolved over the last few months, one fact has become more and more clear. The problem is not that the wrong kind of people are running the government (federal, state, local), but rather that we have a government that “runs” so much. When we saw Republicans running both the legislative and executive branches over the last 8 years, we saw the same (though to a slightly lesser degree) reckless spending and living beyond our means as what faces us in the new administration and congress. Before even taking power, the Democrats are pushing all-in and really showing us what “tax and spend” means. At this point, do we honestly, really believe that by simply getting some more (R)s into elected office is going to roll back this impending tsunami of debt come due? Is another piece of legislation or resolution going save us when the rest of the world realizes we cannot pay back the trillions of dollars we are borrowing to blow on “bailouts”, bridges to nowhere, and government leeches? And are more bailouts, stimuli, deposit insurance and the like going to do anything when the rest of the world wants nothing to do with the worthless, overinflated dollar?

These insanely ignorant and pride-filled jokers in Washington have set us on a course for long-term decline. True, “we the people” have sent them there time and again because they promised the world. So we are all to blame. Therefore, is it possible that 200+ years of U.S. history unfolding has demonstrated that the powers of the state cannot be, as Jefferson put it, chained down by a constitution? I love our Constitution and the framework it setup, but it has clearly not been strong enough to prevent greedy men to pervert it and deliver us the mercantilistic oligarchy we now live under. We used to turn to our families, our churches, and even our local town or city councils for law and protection of rights. we now look to some city hundreds or thousands of miles away to tell us what kind of toilet or lightbulb we can put in our own home, or what we can or cannot do on our own property.

So what do we do? We realize the painful, but very real, fact that the state we live under has no legitimacy, and the authority that it claims over our lives is false and imposed by force. They tax away our earnings, they mortgage our future through rampant debt, and they destroy our savings through unchecked inflation. They do not operate in our name. They buy our votes on empty promises and they ignore us for the duration of their term. If states can no longer withdrawl from this federal government, then we as individuals and communities need to secede on our own. I am not talking armed revolution, but a peaceful recinding of our consent. For indeed, as Jefferson wrote, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” I would argue the founders threw off their government for far less injustices than we suffer now.

So…we focus on our families. We raise your children right. We pray to God in heaven. We focus on what really matters. We stop turning to some city built on a swamp, even if it is with the eye of reform. Build up our local communities, work hard in our careers, focus on the real things in life and simply stop giving any sort of legitimacy to this insidious institution that brings us nothing but conflict, dishonesty, and loss.