I wonder if anyone really thinks about where the government derives its authority.

"The instrument by which [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty! "--Alexander Hamilton, Tully, No. 3, 1794

I think Mr. Hamilton about hit the nail on the head with the above quote. So when does the citizen stop being the master of the government and become the slave? When does the citizen cease to be served by the government and instead be forced to serve the government?

In so many instances in today’s federal policies it is hard to see the law that grants the government the authority for its actions, and if that authority does not exists then the action is instituted with just the force of the government and as Hamilton said liberty is lost. Once the force of the government is the only justification needed for an action then any action can be justified by the government. Let me say that again – once the force of the government is the only justification needed for an action - - - then ANY action can be justified by the government.

It is very easy to confuse the government with the country and both with the constitution. But they are not the same. When a person joins the military they do not swear an oath to “protect and defend the government” or even the county. They swear to “protect and defend the constitution”.

That is because the constitution is the law that all government authority flows from. The constitution is the law that protects us FROM the government. It lays out the exact duties of the government to prevent the government from taking on other duties that will surly decrease our liberty. The founding fathers understood from history the very nature of governments. They slowly take over more and more control of society until the only reason the citizen exists is to serve the government itself.

In the past I have talked about federal spending for education. In this case money that originates from the states flows to the federal government only to have some portion returned to the states. Does this system serve the cause of education? Or does it just supply the tools for the federal government to control education? Is the citizen being served by the government or the other way around? We pay federal taxes that are then used to assist states in highway construction and maintenance. Again we have the federal government collecting money from the states then re-distributing a portion back to the very state it collected it from in the first place. Then if the states do not do the federal governments bidding on highway safety laws, the federal government withholds the money. Things like mandatory seat belt use would never fall under the constitutional mandate of the federal government. But using our own taxes dollars as a club to enforce the governments will, most certainly falls under the force of government if we let it.

The constitution gives the government the authority to collect income taxes but does it give it the authority to force business owners to do the tax collecting for them? So many federal actions we just accept today would be unheard of when the country was founded and unfathomable to our founding fathers. But that’s the way tyranny is, most times it does not happen in one big dramatic event. In most cases, it is a slow loss of one small liberty after another until the people are living in chains and poverty and wondering “how the heck did we get here”.