WHY DO WE WATCH FOR GOVERNMENT TYRANNY?

For those of us who have blathered on about government tyranny and been derided for it, this week has proven what the founding fathers knew.  Man can't be trusted with power unchecked.  The founders built checks and balances into the Constitution.  Not because they were worried about the form of government they chose but that they didn't trust the humans who would control it.  History is rife with evidence that humans can't be trusted with power.  The Roman Empire, the German Empire, the Persian Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire; need I name more? 

That being the case, the prescience of the founding fathers is absolute.  They understood that as Madison said, "if men were angels, no government would be necessary."  But lest you think that the founding generation were big government people you are sadly mistaken.  As president, Madison vetoed the "American  System" in 1816, which was a plan for the federal government to fund state public works projects using federal tax money.  He felt the use of federal tax money to fund projects within states was unconstitutional.  What did Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," know?

The founders understood that humans needed a government to assure that they could survive as a common entity.  However, they needed freedom to thrive.  It was this balance that the founders strove to achieve.  Our form of government is the least evil form of all governments.  Most assuredly, government is evil if left unchecked.  Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.   

George Mason, a Virginian who was respected second only to George Washington, refused to sign the Constitution because it didn't include a Bill of Rights.  When he was told by others that the rights of Americans were included in the text, he stated he wanted them explicitly written for all to see.  We would do well to exercise his skepticism about "implied rights."  Of all the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, two are extremely important.  The Second Amendment is the one that ensures all others will be obeyed by putting the ultimate power in the hands of the people and the Tenth gives the power to the states that they reserved to themselves.  After all, the states formed the federal government, not the other way around.  The Founding Fathers understood this.  It's time we did too. 

That brings us to the IRS.  The most intrusive and potentially the most evil of all government agencies.  As the opinion in the  court case, McCulloch vs. Maryland in 1819, states, "the power to tax is the power to destroy."

The progressives will profit from Americans accepting that more government is good for humans.  In reality it is the opposite.  The more powerful the government, the less the people thrive.  That's to the benefit of those among us who feel they are better fit to make decisions for us than we are for ourselves.    

It's time we all wake up and check the power of the government.