Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Permit me to begin this discussion in an unusual way, since it may turn out to be the most important thing I’ve ever written. I urge you to copy it and distribute it to your own list of friends and correspondents before it’s taken down because, given what it proposes, it will be.

We find ourselves here, in this particular time and this particular place in the history of our republic, because of a 239-year-old oversight made by the Founding Fathers, in that the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights (the name itself is a mistake), contain no penalty clause for those—politicians, bureaucrats, policemen—who violate them. I’m not entirely sure it was accidental, but, as a result, they are violated daily, hourly, as a matter of course, and this Corona Virus farce—many others come to mind—is simply the most recent and most preposterous example.

(The name itself is an error because this document is not a mere list of privileges that the government generously lets the people exercise. Quite the opposite, it is a list of things that the government is absolutely forbidden to do It should have been called the “Bill of Limits”. And if the Founders, who had just fought and won a desperate, bloody war against the world’s most brutal and rapacious super-power, hadn’t meant them to be absolute, then why—for all you “living document” idiots out there—would they have even bothered to write them down?)

All over this bruised and battered country, a flock of mean, moronic, petty tyrants have issued illegal orders to those they clearly regard as the peasantry: stay home, avoid your fellow human beings, and above all, shut down the Machinery of Freedom which we know as capitalism. If it’s ever allowed to start up again, it must strictly be on terms that are essentially Marxist in character. No mere individual can ever again scratch his ass without written government approval and permission. In effect, the left has the revolution—as usual, achieved by somebody else—it has wanted for 180 years, since the days of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

What’s more, many otherwise decent and intelligent folks are out there begging for their rulers to let them be free again. I find that repulsive and unAmerican. And to those boobies (including Sean Hannity and Joy Behar) blubbering about patriots bring their weapons to demonstrations, listen up: the Founders meant the government to be intimidated by the people, you hapless buffoons.

My bottom line, here, is that, in the short run, we must free ourselves—now—from what we have to call Faucism. Scientific pleaders like the dictatorial doctor must be made painfully aware that when their pronouncements have clear political and economic consequences, their protests of innocence sound a bit too much like “I was just following orders”.

In the long run, another Constitutional amendment is called for. Although its provisions are already clearly implicit to anybody who can read (unlike the simpletons who pretend to wonder what the Second Amendment really says), and it would be the Twenty-somethingth Amendment, it would be in fact, the Zeroth, the point where all Constitutional discussion of rights begins. It would hold that no “emergency” of any kind is a sufficient justification for violating the Bill of Rights. And, unlike the other amendments, it would contain a penalty clause, providing Draconian (look it up) punishments for those politicians, bureaucrats, and policemen stupid—or evil or crazy—enough to break the highest law of the land.

While I’m at it—I’m not sure whether this should be a statute or an amendment—we must make sure that all corporations, being, in effect, arms of the government, must be subject to the Bill or Rights, just like Congress was meant to be, just like City Hall, just like the police department.

For the record, I propose this primarily because of “social media”—where the light of the First Amendment never shines—so if you manufacture brake linings, you bake pizzas, or you drive trucks, you have Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon to thank for the new responsibility—not burdensome to most Americans—that I want to see imposed on you. I want to see Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Bezos, and every one of their elitist their ilk behind bars. All censorship must end, completely and forever. Corporations, especially including public colleges and universities, must enforce the highest law of the land, or be stripped all the powers, immunities, privileges, and special considerations owing to their partnership with the State.

America can be free again if we demand it. Think about Moses and the Pharaoh. You cannot beg to be set free.