Guest Editorial: Force, Liberty and the Potential of the Third Party Vote

by Charles H. Sawders

The future of this nation will be settled by force. Make no mistake about that. Either the public will be victorious through the ability to muster the most force, or not enough will participate and state force will prevail. Or the public will only resist verbally and acquiesce to the threat of state force.

Either way, the issue will be settled by force. If McCain wins, the usurpation of citizen rights will be much slower and much more subtle, thus making the possibility of non-resistance in any effective manner less likely. For, by the time the public awakes, they will no longer have the wherewithal to resist actively and most probably not even the right to speak in opposition. Remember it was McCain who partnered with Russ Feingold to prohibit the exercise of free speech within sixty days of an election. This does not auger well for his future actions as our president, since he has already shown a willingness to deny the second most important right guaranteed under the Bill of Rights. He has also stated publicly and voted to place ever more infringement on the most important right guaranteed in that magnificent document, the right to keep and bear arms, the one which the second amendment states unequivocally "shall not be infringed". The end game under McCain will probably not be realized in his tenure, even if he were to serve two terms, but the pattern will be set and irrevocable. His pattern doesn't just suggest an antipathy to individual "unalienable rights" it proclaims such, loud and clear.

If Obama wins, I expect the exact same problems. The only difference will be the accelerated timetable for accomplishment of the total subjugation of the American citizen. This acceleration may just be noticeable enough to the average non-involved, non-interested citizen to make him notice and become involved. While he still has the tools to resist!

So, when one says a vote for a write-in candidate or third party candidate is a wasted vote, I say it is a moot point as to the general direction of this society. Such a movement, should it prove widespread could possibly, but not probably, result in at least a suspension of the plans of power mongers, if not a downright abandonment of them. Power mongers never abandon their quest to rule others. That is why "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." But eternal vigilance does no good without the will to act, except as to note at what point one has surrendered his life's service to the whim of another.

A large enough loss of formerly reliable votes to other than the two main candidates may just return the political parties closer to the ideals and principles held by the majority of Americans and codified in our constitution. The outcome of the election will probably not be changed by such action, but neither party can be sure how many of the lost votes would have ordinarily been theirs. Of necessity each major political party would be forced to wonder about ever larger desertions in future elections. This can't help but be a better consideration than the American citizen is now receiving. It could possibly lead to a renewed effort to woo the American voter by each party in the hopes of staving off political suicide.

Potential force in the service of liberty is preferable to kinetic force. But the decision is not ours to make, it will be made by those who view us as livestock, disposable commodities to be utilized for maximum profit of the herdsmen. Therefore any indication of the weakening of resolve to remain free will be seen as a signal by those people to proceed.

Voting third party, or write-in should be considered a rejection of both our primary choices, by them if they be capable of rational analysis, and could possibly serve as a warning, thereby avoiding or postponing the application of kinetic force. Make no mistake that kinetic force will be used by the state under either of these candidates if they perceive a lack of will to respond in kind by the public. This application of kinetic force would most probably occur in response to civil disobedience and/or peaceful protest to finally remove them from the arsenal of the citizenry and gain a much more compliant populace.

Worse than the above statement is that there could be no more damning indictment of the American character than if the state need not apply kinetic force, but through threat and isolated example of kinetic force achieve their goals by only the application of potential force on the majority of the American public. That would mean the tables have been completely reversed, because it is the potential for the application of kinetic force by the public that restrained the state up to now. In this instant turnabout is not fair play, because the rightful object of any free state is to serve at the will of the people and not the other way around.

For more than 200 years, the issue has been settled by force. But thanks to the founders we only had to rely on potential force. The public ability to actively resist and their known willingness to do so, has served as a brake on the ambitions of our would-be masters. Should we surrender that, as it seems most Americans are now willing to do, mistakenly, in the name of "public safety", the likely machinations of either of these presidential candidates will most certainly require the public's ability to transition potential force into kinetic force.

We have already seen this dynamic in civilian law enforcement by civilian policing forces. One need only read a little news each day to see accounts of atrocities committed by our policing forces on innocents and misidentified persons and property with absolutely no consequences for the malefactors in blue uniform.

Just recently the Army has designated a brigade for use in civilian law enforcement, emergency response and "crowd control" while stationed on dwell time in the continental U.S. (CONUS), with an eye to continuing this with other brigades as duty rotations take place. The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, to be exact per the Army Times. If the over all command structure is pleased with the results of one brigade thusly employed, the practice is certain to expand, both in number of units employed and added tasks (mission creep).

We have an all volunteer military now. That means that many of the people in armed service of the nation are careerists. Careerists only advance by pleasing their superiors in the hierarchy of the organization, this applies to all organizations. Never in history has liberty survived in a society where the military became the civil police force. Not once, not in any nation, throughout history has liberty survived just such an arrangement. The reasons are simple.

A nation's military is under the over-all command of people farthest removed from the realities and principles of the majority of the people of their nation. Whether those people be a president, premier, junta, tribunal, politburo or something else, they are at the farthest remove from the populace. When they control a police force, it is also at a much farther remove than local policing agencies which are answerable more directly to the public either through political pressures put upon local politicians to manage that police force appropriately, or through court actions. This cannot happen when the military becomes the police force for a nation. And it never has. Our civil law enforcement agencies are almost beyond control now, how much worse would it be if instead of a city, county or state matter, recourse was not even possible at any level poised to respond to the people of a particular locality?

In summary voting one's conscience is never a wasted vote. In this particular election a vote means less than it ever has as to the assertion of the public will. Ergo, I cannot adhere to the philosophy that "He's a sonofabitch, but he might be our sonofabitch."

It is time to warn all sonsofbitches and rid ourselves of them. Peacefully, if possible, otherwise, if not.