Consent of the Governed Smothered

The last death-rattle of the Pelosi Congress looks to be more spending.

Middle-class tax cuts, deficit-reduction tax increases, more unemployment benefits, reduced health-care for the military, where's any substantive reduction in handouts to the constituents? Will the censure of Charles Rangel finally save us from ourselves?

When did life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness disappear from the national debate? Did we really believe that ratification of the Constitutional Recipe for equality would take care of everything forever?

In the middle of the 18th century in America, the struggle between Loyalists and Revolutionaries came to the fore. The Loyalists were content with their handouts from the King, America exported her precious raw materials to England, and Americans purchased finished goods from England, courtesy of George III. Read the British version of this history and George will be exonerated. It was the cost of managing the colonies in America that caused the taxation that got the Patriots (Revolutionaries) upset. Golly gee!

Here it is holiday time 2010 and there are those Patriots yearning to be free of the burden of the handouts to the politically fortunate, now feeling righteously entitled to their piece of the public treasury.

As a nation, we seem to have lost any sense of duty to those 'yearning to breathe free.' More like a dedication to those 'yearning to get it for free.' Where is there any meaningful debate on a reduction in spending?

It would appear that our government has lost interest in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What we have in stead is the pursuit of the special interest. When was the last time we heard anything about the common good?

What we hear instead is a bunch of rhetoric (read bullshit) about how unemployment benefits will get our fellow citizens back to work. How about some tax credits for companies that insource the work that is now done overseas? How about some teeth in our immigration laws to stop illegals from draining our local governments of cash?

The Declaration of Independence spells out the solution to this state of affairs in no uncertain terms:

...whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it...