ONLY “From The Consent Of The Governed”

It was a close call this week with Republican Senators knocking down legislation — pushed by one of their own — that would have further incentivized illegal aliens to cross our borders and enjoy free federal, state, and local government services. But of course, someone has to pay for those benefits, and that’s us — it’s our money and hard-earned. We could have used it for our children’s college fund, our own retirement fund, a family vacation, or a home improvement project. That money is the fruit of our labor, and we get to spend it as we like.

Charity is vanity when you’re giving away someone else’s money to make yourself look like a saint. And our political establishment employs gilded rhetoric to make themselves look like righteous philanthropists. In opening the borders, the administration claims it is protecting innocents from persecution in their home countries. But in reality, at best, the illegals are looking for work here, which will result in depressed wages for American citizens. At worst, they’re making their way through America to terrorize and cause harm. In giving hundreds of billions to Ukraine, American lawmakers, left and right, claim they’re defending democracy. In fact, they’re backing a corrupt government in Kyiv to push hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into a losing war on the borders of a foreign power with a formidable nuclear arsenal.

Americans can see through the smoke and mirrors. The political elites are giving away our money to enhance their own power and enrich their donors. They have the media in their pocket, so their racket is portrayed as “policy” when it’s just grift on a massive scale. And Washington lawmakers don’t have to worry about being called to account on election day since they figure they can rig the vote — it’s been done before, after all. Taken altogether, that makes our corrupt ruling class worse than unaccountable, it makes them tyrants.

“Taxation without representation is tyranny,” said the 18th-century Boston lawyer and politician James Otis. The colonial firebrand was a mentor to Founding Father Samuel Adams and inspired the rhetorical style of Adams’ second cousin John, the second president of the United States. “Otis was a flame of fire,” wrote President Adams.

In 1761, Otis argued in a Massachusetts court against the “writs of assistance,” which permitted the Crown authorities to enter any home with no advance notice, no probable cause, and no reason given. According to John Adams, Otis’ argument before the court inspired what would become the revolution more than a decade later. “Then and there was the first scene of the first Act of opposition to the Arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the Child Independence was born,” wrote Adams. “The seeds of Patriots & Heroes … were then & there sown.”

Is it possible that nearly 250 years after our forefathers declared the 13 colonies’ independence from Great Britain, we are again living under a tyranny?

That’s how Otis would have seen it. He was a loyal subject of the British Crown but would not be silent when his rights were abused. The men and women of America’s revolutionary generation were all loyal subjects until the government that was supposed to have enshrined their rights instead trampled on them. And so are we loyal Americans, patriots — but we will not stand for our government treating us like sheep to be sheared for its profit.

Enough already. We get to say when we’ve had enough. And our representatives better listen because that’s what consent of the governed means. And now the future of our great nation depends on whether our lawmakers will listen. We are a powerful and big-hearted people — but we also know how to recognize tyrants when we see them. And it’s in our history to take back what’s rightfully ours. It’s in our blood. We are flames of fire.

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