Notes From Gordon 250121: How To Surrender Your Rights (Sign Here)

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How To Surrender Your Rights (Sign Here)

Yesterday I asked how it is that you can sign your rights away with a simple ball point pen.

The answer is that you obtain permission from your benevolent overlords by making application for the exercise of a privilege.

You fill out a form, enter your most personal information, then government operatives forcibly wrestle your hand down to the writing surface so your signature can be extracted from you under protest as the cords in your neck bulge and you strain to resist with all your might.

No?

That's not what actually happens?

I see...

You say you actually sign the document of your own free will, thereby converting a right—for which your forefathers (and mothers) shed their precious blood—into a mere administrative privilege to be granted at the whim of a bureaucrat?

No kidding?

You actually consent to apply your signature, freely and voluntarily, in the hopes that his Excellency will allow you to get married, cut hair, fish on public property, even build your own home on your own land?

That's amazing.

At this point I would ordinarily try to interest you in some oceanfront property in Kansas, but we're not in Kansas anymore.

A dog with its leash clipped to a rope strung between two trees may be free to move back and forth, but is not truly at Liberty. So are you at liberty, or merely 'free' to operate within administratively permitted bounds?

Did you ever stop to ponder that everything you have ever signed throughout your entire life, and I do mean everything, has been an overt act of voluntary consent?

Forms and applications of all kinds, bank signature cards, library cards, tax returns, greeting cards from Hallmark, you name it—all signed as an act of your own free will.

You see, the administrative process can be quite deceiving. You are told that you are “required” to do such and such, that everyone else does it because it is compulsory, mandatory, required and so forth.

But reality is quite different from illusion. The Administrative Procedure Express is a mighty train indeed. It rumbles down the tracks straight towards you (Woo!, Woo!), thundering and belching smoke. It stops directly in front of you and a door opens.

A Little Man steps out with a clipboard in his hand and says, "I am from the Licensing Department. I am here to help you process your application. Please sign here, and make your application fee payable to __________."

You take the pen and apply your signature, whereupon the Little Man thanks you, the door closes and—Woo!, Woo!—the Administrative Procedure Express gets back up to speed and heads for the Emerald City where your application is processed.

A short time later the government (local, county, state, national, global, perhaps one day interplanetary) approves your application, while reminding you that you now come under the rules and limitations that apply to all applicants (of course, to applicants only, but that's in the fine print).

If you find those rules restrictive or in any way violative of your rights as a free man or woman, please do not complain. After all, the government is just doing its job which is to exercise control over you as any owner would over a loyal if occasionally disobedient pet.

Remember, you are the one who requested permission! Did his most Honorable Excellency forcibly extract your signature? Torture you? Threaten your family?

Of course not. He didn't compel you to do anything. Why would he want to anger you? After all, he needs you as a licensed participant so he can fine you when you disobey his rules.

Otherwise, where would he get the funds to feed his growing bureaucracy, let alone feed the families of the thousands of other functionaries who manage and operate the entire regulatory licensure apparatus?

When we contemplate the raw sacrifices made by so many of our nation's forebears, we are reminded that Patrick Henry did not exclaim: "Give me liberty, or give me benefits!"

It is remarkable how little our nation's Founders expected from the government they forged.

Yet, today, with hundreds of millions of adult Americans licensed and regulated in almost everything they do, I think it only fair to call the next 4th of July by its proper term:

"Co-Dependence Day!”