Use the Ballot Box
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <5/20>

      The people who refuse to recognize any statement from the Justice Department that the bomber has no militia connections and they are investigating his Army connections are taking the opportunity to run down all citizen militias. Standing back from this exchange it is hard to tell which is more paranoid, those worried about black helicopters or those worried about these militias.
      The greatest bit a paranoia is that some how these people are planning to overthrow the United States government. They say that force should not be used because there is the ballot box to make changes. That is a common belief. Let us examine it.
      But first I want to remind you of the mindset in this country. This view holds that if 51% agree to it then, absent an expensive and time consuming Supreme Court reversal on Constitutional grounds, then any law whatsoever can be passed. This further holds the 49% must continue in blind obedience to those laws even when it is clearly known they are passed for partisan political purposes or the result of a pork for votes deal.
      Such laws are clearly immoral and should have no standing; certainly they should have no compliance. Certainly when a law carries all the moral force of a new bridge in the 3rd district of Massachusetts it has little going for it.
      Now to the point, if people do not like these laws, the argument goes that they have to comply until the laws are changed. And they are reminded they can change the laws simply by electing different people and all will be right with democracy. Lets take some practical examples.
      Logging of federal lands. If every state affected by the regulations were to elect people committed to repealing those laws, they would not have 1/10 enough to outvote the tree huggers living in the cities in the rest of the states.
      Grazing on federal lands. Again if all the ranching states did the same as the logging states, the restrictions would still be in place.
      Endangered species. If all the people being hassled and losing the value of their property were to get together and vote as a block for as many representatives as they could they would not have enough.
      There are a myriad of such laws and regulations and I have not left the favorite issues of the crazy environmentalists.
      There is another entire category of evil that can not addressed by the ballot box. When was the last time the existence of the BATF was up for a vote? When was the last time the civil forfeiture laws were up for a vote?
      Since the policy is that a law need not be moral or even constitutional to be passed and enforced then as long as only a small number of people are directly harmed there is no recourse in the vote. Of course anyone who has five years and three million dollars to devote to a Supreme Court challenge has another option. It is safe to disregard that possibility and stay with the uselessness of the vote to small numbers of people in this climate.
      As we saw in 1993 hundreds of billlions of dollars in tax increases being moral and just because the president held a conference in the district of one voter we see other "moral and just" laws passed on such false and flimsy grounds.
      From the beginning the Endangered Species Act has had no concern for the preservation of any species. Rather it has been used by people in the city who "care" to preserve what they will never care to see from the exploitation of greedy corporations. And of course they will lie to do that such as in in the case of the Spotted Owl. Following from such laws, such as the wetlands provisions, come hundreds a regulations by the unelected and the unfirable who certainly can not be voted out of office or controlled by the number of elected officials those harmed can produce.
      Clearly, your backyard can be declared a wetland and your lawncare prohibited. But that will not happen. Why? Because the people in the city will see it as unjust. Yet the same actions become just and noble and for the good of all mankind when the same thing is done to a few people far from the cities.
      Every argument for restoring wolves to Yellowstone applies to restoring them to Rock Creek Park in Washington DC. Every argument but one. That argument is that those who pass laws should not be subject to the consequences.
      Wolves should be restored to every city and suburb in the US and the $100,000 fine and year in jail should apply to anyone who kills them. They will not be. What is unjust for people in the city is just for people in the country.
      That is the form of the deliberate and willful injustice we see as a result of the ballot box. Telling they can go to the ballot box to change things is the ultimate, let them eat cake. Arguing that a law must be good because it is passed democratically is to argue against democracy rather than for the law.
      Now if there were not federal lands and no "federal" species these matter could be handled at the state level where the harmed people would have a much greater ability to use the ballot box. But at the federal level those people become insignificant and are no longer functional members of the political process.
      And in a democracy when there is no effective recourse at the ballot box then there needs be a recourse from that democracy. (Again, this ignores a constitutional recourse as it is not clearly available without enough money not to have to worry about the problem.) In the early 1770s the colonists were denied their right of recourse, they being granted no representation in Parliament, however ineffective Commons was in those days. They were subject to unjust laws and taxation as they were not living in Britain but in some far away place. They were told to obey no matter how unjust they held the laws.
      The colonists were taxed for the French and Indian War as it was to protect the colonies even though an extension of European conflict. The City of Glasgow was not taxed to pay for Naval protection of shipping from the French. Glasgow was close and had representation. The colonies were far away. What was just for the colonies was unjust for Glasgow.
      What we are seeing today is a growing number of people who are subject to punishment by laws they see as unjust. We see them powerless as individuals and as groups of like-minded individuals. In the militia movement we see them all finding common ground in a strictly limited federal government. Together they find a strength and common purpose in something greater than a passing concern over a piece of property here or a job there.
      Together they find joint purpose in liberty and freedom from injustice. That the government continues to ignore these injustices and tells them to eat the ballot box only hastens the day when it will instigate armed confrontation.