By Jim Beers

 

UNALIENABLE

un-alien-able  \un-al-ye-ne-bel\   adj.  1.  Attributes that make a thing
what it is.  2. Traits that cannot be removed from an entity without
destroying the very nature of that entity. 3. Inherent characteristics given
by God to each and every person.  4. Universal and unique properties of
human nature and the proper object of government in a free society, as in
protecting unalienable rights.

'Unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'

How mellifluous as it rolls off the tongue.

This precept from the founding of our nation is eroding today like a Florida
beach beneath the eye of a hurricane making landfall.

The name of this ancient and recurring storm is tyranny.

Life is assaulted at every turn.

Embryos for cells, fetuses for convenience, and the old and the handicapped for the welfare of others.

Liberty melts before our eyes like a high mountain snowball in July.

Liberty is measured by rights and rights are disappearing everywhere, like elk calves to wolves in the spring.

Where have they gone, those rights?

The right to describe evils openly?  The right to raise our children?

The right to equal treatment before the law?  The right to protect property?

The right to those rights named in Our Bill of Rights?

They have gone to bureaucrat/oligarchs and animals and plants to be worshiped and manipulated.

Liberty is being shredded to fertilize despotism.

How can we pursue happiness in the face of expanding government powers and mandates that seep into every facet of our lives?

Federal government power and regulations have increased at a breathtaking pace over the past thirty years.

Federal power growth of unimagined proportions has become an acceptable part of our lives, most ominously, for the young.

Radical organizations, bureaucrats, courts and politicians cooperate to claim Our guaranteed Private Property Rights, thereby denying us all but what government grants.

Everywhere public lands are closed to uses, left unmanaged, treated as locked vaults for energy, used to oppress neighbors, and made more inaccessible to the poor, the old, and the immigrant.

Federal agencies concentrate and exercise more and more powers that either did not exist before, or formerly resided with States or with citizens.

Government now merely takes private property, be it urban homes for development, rural property for an endangered bird, "viewsheds" for other Federal lands, or even major State roads that offend Federal bureaucrats.

More and more, the only Happiness that we may Pursue is that which government defines under the conditions government permits.

Property rights over plants and animals are taken from States and citizens
and given to Federal bureaucrats where they are used to destroy other rights and traditions.

Pet ownership, pet breeding, medical testing on animals, hunting, all manner
of fishing, trapping, rodeos, circuses, farming, ranching, timber harvest,
animal training, cockfighting, bullfighting, use of and access to public lands, habitat management for useful purposes, and wild animal management for a human-friendly environment are but a few examples of rights slated for national extinction through prohibitions, regulations, inspections, licensing, and bureaucratic impediments spawned by recent Federal laws.

Rural life, American lifestyles, liberty, and happiness for millions are what are really "Endangered" in America today.

Propaganda masquerading as science fuels public support and court decisions that impoverish our economy, waste our renewable natural resources, and move us toward the totally discredited Soviet model of citizenship.

Tales of Endangered jumping mice and lynx are blended with lies about wolf
benevolence, Invasive Species mythology and Native Ecosystem sophistry to concoct a brew worthy of the witches in Macbeth.

These specious assertions not only grow new and old Federal powers, they
stop construction projects, prevent energy development, prevent road construction and expansion, limit housing choices, decimate rural communities and rural families, close lumber mills and farms, drive up prices of commodities and energy, transfer billions overseas for resources we have here at home, make us hostage to foreign powers that wish us harm, justify more government land acquisition, and create legal tornadoes like those spun from a powerful hurricane moving inland, visiting community after community and leaving only death and destruction in their wakes.

How long will we tolerate the pagan assertions that animals have Rights or
that they may not be "owned"?

How long will we be gulled about unused, unmanaged lands having Value?

How long can farmers, ranchers, rural communities, pets, and game animals
exist among uncontrolled, harmful, and dangerous predators protected and spread by Federal Druids?

How long will we believe the lies about Native Ecosystems and Invasive Species?

How long will we allow more land to be made into sacrosanct Federal fiefdoms like historic English Estates in Scotland and Ireland, or elite Soviet dachas in Russia, or Nazi hunting estates in Poland?

How long can we endure the arrests of ranchers and hunters protecting themselves and their property from "Endangered Species", while Federal bureaucrats dump toxic waste at night twice a month for decades on "Endangered " fish spawning grounds in Washington DC
for the convenience of the rich and powerful?

How long?  How long?

The threat to Life is obvious and the answer lies within each of us.

The threat to Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is more complex and subtle.

A tangle of environmental and animal laws has given Federal bureaucrats enormous power and generated a blizzard of regulations and policies that strip States and citizens of jurisdictions and Liberties.

Federal landholdings and lands they control through surrogates and easements and "strings" to Federal funding exceed half of all lands in our country.

Remaining private property is encumbered and controlled with increasing
frequency and increasingly bizarre and unconstitutional means.

State roads are forced to close, animals are given the status of mistletoe under Druidical societies, and pets are protected as simultaneously lethal and harmful predators are introduced and allowed to devastate persons and property.

The combination of these threats is perverting Our government from a protector of Unalienable Rights to a Central Power point that is merely bait for a future despot that will put past kings, emperors, and dictators to shame.

Affirming the Right to Life involves repeal of the Roe Court decision.

Can you "repeal" a decision?

This question alone suggests the slippery nature of this threat, that it is not a law but a "decision".

Affirming Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is more straightforward.

Outright repeal of laws such as The Wild Horse and Burro Act and The Marine Mammal Protection Act would restore State jurisdiction and proactive resource management over animals that are valued yet cause problems amenable to management.

Repeal of The Wilderness Act would restore access and natural resource management to millions of acres of "public" land and excise the bureaucrat's penchant for making more unmanaged and inaccessible lands.

Amendment of The Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act to either contain them to Interstate issues or repeal them would restore State and Local authority to State and Local Constitutional responsibilities.

Divestiture of much of the Federal estate and lands quasi-controlled by Federal bureaucrats to States and the private sector would, like the reduction of ancient royal estates, reduce the exercise of un-checkable Federal Power proportionately.

A target of one-third to one-half would be a reasonable beginning.

The Federal government should begin to cooperate with other nations and international programs to project the values of our society regarding national sovereignty, Unalienable Rights, and private property.

Too long have US delegations represented central controls, no-management, and no-use of natural resources instead of private property, local controls, and proactive uses and management of resources.

We must stop the future growth plans of bureaucrats as well, by rejecting all the seductive tunes about Invasive Species and Native Ecosystems intended to grow Federal power and Federal budgets.

Extreme?  Impossible?

Not at all!

The threats are extreme; the remedies are necessary.

Impossible describes the thought of living under a dictatorship be it some individual or an oligarchy of bureaucrats.

The longer we delay, the tougher the task of pruning all the laws, regulations, policies, and precedents that beguile us with imagined benefits while laying snares and traps for Americans in the future.

The concept of the Unalienable Right of each and every one of us to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness introduced Our Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence was written during the Revolutionary War by The Founding Fathers to tell every American Patriot why he or she was fighting a War of Independence and risking All, even death.

The Declaration of Independence was the foundation for the government and Rights proclaimed in Our US Constitution and Bill of Rights that were written and ratified after our Victory over Imperial and Parliamentary Power.

Our Unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is The Cornerstone of Our Declaration of Independence and therefore, the Basic Rationale for the sort of government and Rights found in Our Constitution.

Can a Cornerstone dissolve and the building remain?

Can a Foundation erode and the building still stand?

Only when those who own the building acknowledge the damage and determine how to repair it and prevent future damage and then, most importantly, Proceed to Act, can there be any hope of saving the building.

Of saving ourselves and our descendants from the looming specter of despotism on Our horizon.

Jim Beers
September 2004
South Carolina