It's time for a national mutiny

Dear Editor,

The time is come to effect a radical change in course for the U.S.S. Columbia: to waylay the federal fervor for running our ship aground; to keel haul the deck hands that plot to scuttle her, and; to place in irons the haughty officers who have ignored the sage advice of her designers. It is time for these unfaithful servants to "walk the plank"--it is time for a national mutiny.

Up to now, our indifference has enabled a crew of petulant, incorrigibly perfidious bureaucrats to plunder with abandon our national treasure. Worse, the scoundrels have molested and defiled our revered Constitution. Their devious cronies--from federal judge to municipal dog catcher--have scoffed at long established civil law, subverting its moral precepts whenever convenient. However, because national complacency on many occasions made this behavior acceptable, the irregular incursion of gratuitous infringement upon our liberties has now become the rule. We are obliged to end this tyranny--but, to those who find our solution too extreme, we remind them that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue."

Wily federal doctrines that spurn individual liberty and hold the patriotic American citizen a danger to the state are incompatible with our Constitution. It is a mocking absurdity that these policies provide monetary aid, diplomatic access and constitutional protections to our enemies. Granting political privilege to Islamic states and their agents; betraying traditional allies; arming barbaric jihadists under the pretext that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend;" providing a clear path to nuclear weapons development to state sponsors of terrorism; paying ransom for the return of American citizens; allowing Muslims to conduct self-screening at U.S. airports ... The sum of these actions proves that those who presently govern, at minimum, lack sound judgment--and I am being charitable considering the damage such measures have done to our credibility abroad.

On the 15th anniversary of the most devastating attack in U.S. history, inflicted by the hands of Islamic supremacists, we experience a political correctness so pervasive that Muslims are now excluded from the same level of scrutiny focused on American citizens. The federal government admits "Syrian refugees" by the thousands, doing so without proper vetting--while its agents treat Americans like criminals. The September 11th attacks apparently destroyed common sense; for when absurd pejoratives, such as "Islamophobia," dictate security protocol, then we have fallen down a rabbit hole. To the extent that non-Muslims are considered suspect, federal policy demonstrates its true object is not the preservation of the life and property of American citizens, nor the security of our republic; but rather the goal is the establishment of an oligarchic police state. We are being systematically stripped of essential liberties, while our ruling class provides benefits and protection to those who are sworn to kill us.

When government aggressively and with palpable despotism works to deprive Americans of their freedoms, when its agents recklessly endanger our lives and livelihoods for the sake of a false tolerance or the suppression of some contrived prejudice, then we must suspend obedience. Contrary to federal policy, inalienable rights are not subordinate to executive fiat, congressional acts, or the capricious opinions of renegade jurists. 'The People' granted government specific limited powers. Among them exists no authority to conduct unlimited ubiquitous surveillance and molestation of the citizenry. Less our leaders forget, it is the disposition of Americans to spill the blood of tyrants rather than suffer the continued usurpation of our freedoms.

Alas, with prosperity, we have grown apathetic and apologetic to tyrants--but America is not immune to the progressive disease that destroyed empires long gone before us. Government corruption, and the tyranny by which it invariably sustains itself, are monsters that grow exponentially with appeasement. What we naively label "soft" tyranny today will become its cruel cousin tomorrow. Our learned habit of indifference puts us on a collision course with disaster, and I fear that the rudder which guides our ship of state--that's you and me--is slow to make the needed correction ... We would rather have the devil we know.

But if our present course is not arrested, then government of, by and for the people will indeed "perish from the earth." Decisive action is necessary now, not after our ship runs aground. Pray the coming election is not a rearranging of deck chairs, but a radical change of course--we owe that much to the men and women who sacrificed all for the cause of freedom, and to those souls who perished on September 11, 2001. Failing this absolute duty, the U.S.S. Columbia will sink to a crushing death under the increasing weight of federal tyranny. And know this, friends: if she slips beneath the waves, no power on Earth will raise her ...

Sometimes a mutiny is your only option.

Bruce C. Desautels

Stratton, Nebraska