when governments violate the law...

While a group of very much American men and women stood trial for standing up for humanity and calling attention to the horrors of war, illegal and immoral, a juror began to write questions for the Court to consider. That juror was Samuel Braithwaite...and during a trial that ended in one of the greatest acts of jury nullification in this nation's history, Mr. Braithwaite sent this simple question out of the jury box...

If, when a citizen violates the law, he is punished by the government, who does the punishing when the government violates the law?

And now, some three decades later, the question again must be asked...who will oversee the overseer? In a nation based upon the rule of law, how does one ensure that the enforcers follow the law when those same enforcers boldly declare they are, in fact, above the very rule of law they took a solemn oath to defend and uphold?

There are millions of human beings, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, husbands, wives, sons and daughters being held in cages for violating the rule of law and stepping outside what the overseers have declared is acceptable behavior. There are millions more treated as animals living amongst us, doomed to a life without basic liberty while they wither away on parole or probation. And all the while, the government goes about violating the law with impunity, proudly declaring itself to be above the very basic law it is formed to uphold.

As I write this your government is murdering by the millions. Some of these acts are clear, some are hidden as "collateral damage," some cannot be doubted will lead to hardship and death for billions worldwide. And then, this same government that spends more money on death and destruction than it will ever spend on knowledge, health and community has the audacity to seek the death of suspected killers, all to show that killing is wrong...when it is done by the individual. All the while, this same government is in the business of wholesale violence against the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the poor huddled masses of the world, making a mockery of the solemn promise Lady Liberty has made for us all.

As I write this your government and those that control it are stealing from you, me and everyone else. The United States government has become the antithesis of Robin Hood, constantly doing whatever is in its power to ensure that what little wealth remains at the bottom for the rest of us is siphoned up the ladder to the very few on the very top rung. The government is selling your land, your resources, your wealth, your labor, your livelihood, and even your children to the god of greed.

As I write this your government is hard at work destroying your right to life and liberty and any hope you may have of pursuing happiness. You no longer have any recourse if the powers that be are to snatch you off the street and declare you to be an enemy of the state. The government is blatantly violating every sacred pact it made with those that came before us. You are no longer able to receive an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. The liberties granted to you by the Bill of Rights no longer apply if the Mighty Boy King and his minions place the wrong label before your name. You no longer have any security from financial ruin, robbing you of the ability to pursue happiness through education, hard work, and entrepreneurial acts. You are no longer free to pursue your happiness through a loving relationship with the person of your choosing. You are no longer free to live free of anxiety over health. You are no longer free to a basic human existence.

The government has abandoned the American people. It has violated the very purpose for which it was created.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

It is you and I that must punish the government that violates the law, that must refuse to be subjected to despotism and war-mongering hate. Speak out. Take action. You are not alone.

"The law will never make man free; it is men who have got to make the law free."

...and it sounds like a whisper...