Saturday, September 12, 2009

9/12

Today I had the distinct pleasure of joining over 1 million people (according to ABC news, the number may have been 2 million) march down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. The march was dedicated to the cause of limited government, lower taxes, and greater individual liberty. The attendance figure which I had heard mentioned on 9/11 by people decidedly in the know was over 100,000 people, which was impressive. However, when I read after returning from the march that the police estimate of attendance was 1.2 million, with estimates ranging up to 2 million people, I was astounded. As someone who was actually there, I can say that there were people literally farther than the eye can see.

It was a truly humbling experience to be a small part of the events today. I know that many organizations, including Freedomworks, the Heritage Foundation, and countless others, played a huge role in organizing it. But most of the credit has to go to the people who came from the farthest reaches of America (including Hawaii and Alaska) to protest the behavior in Washington.

It makes no sense to blame the politicians for the mess which we are in (trillions of dollars in debt, high taxes, onerous regulations, and out of control spending). The responsibility lies with us. As I have blogged before, the Constitution which limits the Congress to its enumerated powers does not actually limit the Congress in any way. Laws are binding because they have enforcement measures attached to them. Imagine if a state legislature said that going over 55 miles per hour was a crime, but there would be no punishment for violating this law. Why would anyone obey it?

Who exists to enforce the Constitution? We do. There are no formal powers given to any body to limit Congress to its enumerated powers. Our only recourse is to "vote the bums out" and give our votes to real, principled individuals who are willing to follow the Constitution.

I suppose if they want to, States can enact little Europeanized social democracies. Anyone who really wants to live with Big Brother constantly in your wallet and looking over your shoulder should be free to move into one of these states. But the Feds should definitely not be involved in turning all of America into a Europeanized country. And apparently at least 1 million people believe that passionately enough to come to D.C. from all over the country to let their voices be heard. Bravo.

5 comments:

  1. I really wish I could have been there.

    It truly was amazing to see the turn-out. Nothing like this has happened in recent history and certainly not in our time. It's about time people started fighting back, rather than rolling over and taking it.

    I agree also that we do have a lot of responsibility for the mess we're in - we didn't keep the politicians and government accountable. I'm glad we're finally taking a stand and trying to remedy the mess we helped create.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is a lot of people. Like a whole lot. The constitution rocks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad to hear it, wish I could've been there as well...I believe the reason that there is such a recent surge of the libertarian movement is most likely because the Obama administration is ignoring the Constitution and imposing policies and whatnot so quickly; previous administrations, though they did a good amount of damage to the country and took countless liberties from the american people, did so over a long period of time, while Obama has done the same amount of damage in under a year in office. People are starting to realize that the jig is up, that we've all been fooled by the mainstream media, by our indoctrinating public school system, etc. I think we still have time to take the country back, but theres a lot of work to do, especially since the majority of the population is so brainwashed that if you say anything against the government, its policies, or even try to advocate the following of the Constitution, you are instantly labeled an "extremist" or "terrorist".

    ReplyDelete
  4. The 2 million in attendance figure was not from ABC News, as was originally reported. A Freedomworks (the organization sponsoring the 9/12 march) spokesman cited the figure as being reported by ABC News. This is apparently not the case. Parks and Rec are still reporting attendance at 1.2 million, to my knowledge, however.

    ReplyDelete
  5. most if not all of the mainstream news networks reported the event "in the thousands" or "in the tens of thousands" while in reality is was near 2 million, making it several times larger than the martin luther king jr. "i have a dream" speech which was around 200,000 people. this makes it the biggest protest gathering in american history...you'd think people in washington would take notice.

    ReplyDelete