If They Come for Your Guns, Do You Have a Responsibility to Fight?

That is the question Dean Garrison, a blogger I haven’t heard of before, is asking. It’s a question we should all be asking ourselves. He’s made it clear where he comes out on the question.  You’ll have to answer it for yourself though.

An important reminder from the post:

About a month ago I let the “democracy” word slip in a discussion with a fellow blogger. I know better. Americans have been conditioned to use this term. It’s not an accurate term and it never has been a correct term to describe our form of government. The truth is that the United States of America is a constitutional republic. This is similar to a democracy because our representatives are selected by democratic elections, but ultimately our representatives are required to work within the framework of our constitution. In other words, even if 90% of Americans want something that goes against our founding principles, they have no right to call for a violation of constitutional rights.

Our founders did not want a “democracy” for they feared a true democracy was just as dangerous as a monarchy. The founders were highly educated people who were experienced in defending themselves against tyranny. They understood that the constitution could protect the people by limiting the power of anyone to work outside of it much better than a pure system of popularity. A system of checks and balances was set up to help limit corruption of government and also the potential for an “immoral majority” developing within the American People. We have forgotten in this country that we are ultimately ruled by a constitution.

Read the whole thing.

Letters from an Ohio Farmer

Steven Hayward over at Power Line links to a fairly new site today called "Letters from an Ohio Farmer."  The site is inspired by the "Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer", penned by John Dickinson under the pen name Fabius contemporaneously and in agreement with The Federalist Papers in the 1787-88 era during the birthing of our Constitution. Dickinson was a collaborator with Thomas Jefferson in 1775 on the Declaration and Causes of the Necessity of Taking up Arms which, perhaps due to the less than catchy name didn't quite take. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence (much better!) the following year but Dickinson abstained from voting on it, hoping for some reconciliation with Britain. Here is Hayward's summary of what the Ohio letters is about:

"These letters are formally addressed to members of the 112th Congress but are also written for the engaged citizen. Many of the large class of new House members came to office in an election marked by an unprecedented populist fervor for constitutionalism. For that is partly what the Tea Party movement is--a populist constitutional movement--something James Madison would have thought at first glance not merely improbable, but an oxymoron, though on second thought he might have celebrated that the Tea Party represents the fulfillment of one of the Constitution's larger purposes, which was to create a reverence among citizens for the principles of the nation."

Read Hayward's whole post for background, then head on over to the Ohio Farmer letters, eight so far, and be inspired.

Update: I just had to call out this paragraph from the most recent Letter, "A Republican Form of Government" :

"Here Madison may have been too optimistic. The lessons of recent American politics suggest that minority factions can be more dangerous than he imagined. The modern phenomenon he failed to anticipate was a government entrusted with so many responsibilities, and so much power and money, that it becomes a faction unto itself, with its own passions and interests adverse to the rights of other citizens. Those in the control room have both the motive and means to steer the ship of state in directions advantageous to themselves, rather than ones preferred by the passengers who employ them."