Everyone's Opinion Newsletter

On January 21, 1921 Justice George Sutherland of the U.S. Supreme Court in an annual address to the New York State Bar Association made this observation: “It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual –the man- has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his LIFE, the right to his LIBERTY, the right to his PROPERTY…. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worth living. To give him his liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to leave him a slave.”

These distinctions are worthy of consideration and the entire quote hits the nail on the head as far as the right of, to, for, or, in property and the liberties associated with the right. Aside from mentioning this interesting quote from Justice Sutherland to reinforce my dogged insistence on property rights, I mention it for another reason. It serves as a good indication of how technical a legal mind can be with words; in this situation, the right use of, of or to.

If one has ever had the experience of being on the witness stand you will find out real quick how quickly one can come under verbal assault and verbal harassment if you misspeak or present an unfavorable position. Talk about getting the book thrown at you, in this case it will be Webster’s entire dictionary and to spice it up they can even throw in some Latin; of course, under your breath, your thinking in terms of every slang and profane word that Webster was afraid to define or never heard of.

The devil is in the details and it is this critical judicial subtleness of words, which has eroded fundamental principles to a point where the question has to be asked: are we a republic or a democracy?

On September 17th, the Altoona Mirror had an article on Constitution day, titled: Constituting America. In this article was reference to a remark made by Judge Marjorie Rendell, who sits on the U.S., 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, the remark: “Teaching the Constitution,” she said, “is needed for the protection of our democracy.”

Now it is understandable that us common working people may skew the meaning between a republic and a democracy, but when a Judge of this position fails to realize the distinction, it subtly speaks of many things.

A republic is a state in which the sovereignty resides in the people and the legislative and administrative powers are lodged in officers elected by them. A democracy is a form of government in which political power resides in all the people and is exercised by them directly or is given to elected representatives.

The first distinction between the two is sovereignty or who is the ultimate authority. In our republic the ultimate authority is the people through the right to property, in a democracy the ultimate authority is political power. A republic demands system in the protection of its sovereignty and its citizen’s sovereignty. Democracies will sacrifice the right to property purely for political power. It has been the history of democracies to self-destruct in anarchy or dictatorships; the one begets the other in a vicious cycle that ultimately destroys sovereignty. The best way to insure sovereignty is to invest the citizen with the right to property and the constitutional authority to defend that property; militarily, it’s called boots on the ground.

Keeping in context that Judge Rendell’s remarks were made on a day when our constitution was being celebrated, brings into question the caliber of her jurisprudence. She was either absentminded that day or else insidiously ignorant by design. Our federal constitution was written for a republic not a democracy. Her unguarded remark betrays the subtleness of a design. The design is to bring systems of a republic into conflict with a democracy. What this does is create confusion. A political cohort of hers who is a master in the use of this tactic with extreme astuteness is Sen. Specter. The end, for people of this political ilk, is Administrative law and confusion is the means to their end.

Health care debate in perspective as an example - If Sen. John Mcain held up 1,000 pages containing four health care bills and one of them is only 14 pages long, you can bet your bottom dollar and your property too that when the legal eagles in these bureaucracies are done with it, it will be 14,000 pages long. Our lives, our liberties, our property, our sovereignty, our republic are being undermined by statutes codes and standards cloaked in administrative law.

We are a nation of laws not men, they will tell you. Their kind of treachery hides behind cute, shallow phrases that ring profound airs of authority but when put under scrutiny ring as hollow as they are, a piece of trashy propaganda. -As long as man writes law and man interprets the law, the law will always have to be severely scrutinized and challenged by men defending principle. To let your guard down and think otherwise is to invite an administratively legal, lethal kiss from Judas marking our LIBERTY to be led away.

The Freeman

Blair County

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