December 27, 2002

By Jim Beers

jimbeers7@earthlink.net

Long ago Horace Greeley said, "Go West, young man. Go West!" He was trying to suggest where opportunity was greatest in these United States for young persons interested in making fruitful lives for themselves and their families. Today, young persons should be cautioned that their futures are threatened by the growth of central governments and the avalanche of laws and regulations constricting human freedoms and activities. The best place to glimpse where this is leading is the East. By the East I mean the European Community and the Eastside of Manhattan at the Headquarters of the United Nations.

The US Constitution proscribed a nation wherein the Federal government was divided into three branches to provide national defense, regulate interstate commerce, and enforce the Constitution. The states were given jurisdiction over the day-to-day activities of citizens. Certain individual rights were enumerated from freedom of speech and the press, to the right to bear arms. All powers not specifically delegated were "reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

The Federal government takes in more and more powers from the states every day. For instance, Endangered Species Act results are to unilaterally take over the jurisdiction of plants and animals from the states. Private property is taken without compensation for frivolous and spurious purposes at best. Human activities from ranching and logging to fishing and hunting are constricted. Plants and animals are less and less managed for sustainable uses. Recreational activities are restricted and eliminated from pet ownership to rodeos and circuses. Other Federal environmental and animal rights laws from the Animal Welfare Act to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Protection Act likewise abuse citizens and American ways of life in growing harmful ways. Today in addition to accepting annual growing needs for Federal income taxes that didn't even exist 100 years ago, young persons accept these laws and many others as legitimate and always having been there. So everything from Federal research into female arousal from pornography to seatbelt mandates and increasing Federal land acquisition are no longer noticed much less questioned.

The result of all this is an all-powerful Federal (central) government. The difference between a monarchy, a dictator, a supreme Parliament, or a patriarchy is minuscule. All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Founding Fathers knew this both academically and from experience. That is why they gave the Federal government narrow responsibilities and divided it into three branches. Most importantly that is why they gave all other designated powers to the states. We have come to think of state rights as destroyed by Grant and Sherman or as the way civil rights were abused after that war. The truth is all powers are abused and where appropriate should be rectified. When we throw out state rights and responsibilities, we throw out the only check on a central government that is never as responsive as lower levels of government; a central government that can more quickly and permanently dissolve rights and enslave people with the detached self-righteousness of a Henry VIII or Mao Tse Tung than any governor or mayor.

So what lies to the East? Increasingly socialist European national governments are banning everything from trapping and foxhunting to pets and mink farms. Hunting and fishing are being eliminated and wildlife management has all but disappeared. Farming for everything from hogs to mink is disappearing. Rural people, outnumbered by urbanites, are forced into imaginary Disney-like existences that ignore natural realities.

While this goes on, the European Union government bureaucrats in Brussels absorb more and more authorities from member nations. Environmental and animal rights laws for instance, are more and more dictated by rich non-governmental activists with large lobby allowances and powerful connections with corporations and rich donors. Like the US Federal government, the steady absorption of legal authorities from "lesser" jurisdictions result in ever more powerful central powers.

While that goes on we should watch the growth in United Nations authorities. International commerce and internal regulation of plants and animals by nations are more and more proscribed by UN bureaucrats and the same non-governmental organizations that steer EU and US politicians and bureaucrats.

To mention these things is to evoke charges of "black helicopters" or re-instituting past government abuses. You do that at your own eventual peril. Look at Europe and see where we will soon be without limiting our appetite for more legislation for every imagined problem. Think of Europe when voting for persons who believe their job is to "give" you more and more. Watch how the UN is used as a tool to usurp US National Authority when we consider Iraqi or North Korean threats to OUR Nation.

None of this is meant to deny the wisdom of cooperating with nations who desire cooperation. None of this is meant to deny Europe their right to determining their future course.

This is meant to remind the young that God has granted each of us certain inalienable rights. That government which rules least rules best. That the American system of checks and balances where the Federal government is split into three branches with certain limited powers; where state governments regulate certain day to day activities; and where all other powers are reserved TO THE PEOPLE has served us better that any other system of government to date. If we allow our Federal government to continue taking powers from states and the people, like the EU and UN are doing, the results will be disastrous and we will have no one to blame but ourselves. Pay attention to the East and ask yourself if this is the answer to your future. The longer this accumulation of power goes on, the harder it becomes to reverse and remedy things without trauma to our society.