http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2013/07/22/defending-american-principles-is-now-a-revolutionary-act-n1644675/print

 

July 22, 2013

Defending American Principles Is Now a Revolutionary Act

Kurt Schlichter

7/22/2013 12:01:00 AM - Kurt Schlichter

The liberal elite is still in shock that six Americans resisted the relentless pressure of its hack politicians, slavering mainstream media mediocrities and progressive hustlers in order to acquit George Zimmerman. Consciously or not, the jurors’ verdict was an act of rebellion against the progressives who wants to jettison our most sacred principles.

The case was a joke, but you wouldn’t know that if you only listened to the mainstream media. The media’s rank speculation, mischaracterization of the evidence and outright lies were designed to replace the strict adherence to law and the rules of evidence that for a thousand years have protected the accused from the mindless fury of the mob.

Progressives needed Zimmerman to be guilty, so when mere facts and laws got in the way of the predetermined narrative they could be dispensed with. Luckily, no one told the jury they were not supposed to take seriously all that stuff about the State having to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

But the undermining of the rule of law in criminal cases is just one component of their insidious strategy. The elite and their slobbering minions are growing more and more frustrated at the obstacles the American principles embodied in our Constitution and our traditions place in the pathway to their hideous progressive Utopia, so they seek to undercut these principles at every turn.

They don’t even try to hide it any more. Here are just a few examples:

The First Amendment, the cornerstone of our nation’s great experiment in freedom, is a prime target. Progressives want to limit the freedom of the press to only those designated media outlets they know will back the status quo, calling their censorship “campaign finance reform.” The government, defending the McCain-Feingold Act, once even told the Supreme Court that it was perfectly constitutional to charge an American citizen with a crime for writing a book critical of a politician.

Think about that. Our government actually argued that it was A-OK for the feds to stick you in jail for writing a book.

Fortunately, the conservatives on the High Court rejected that insanity. The liberals? Don’t think they would not happily give the power to bureaucrats to decide who can and cannot say what. In fact, in their dissent in Citizens United they argued hard that the First Amendment should come with an asterisk.

How about the right to petition the government? The IRS launches a campaign of harassment and intimidation designed to silence opponents of the regime and the elite thinks that it’s perfectly all right.

Freedom of religion? Obamacare is designed to target religious groups, to force them out of the health care field by making them to choose between their principles and their charities. That’s not a bug. That’s a feature designed to eliminate faith-based competitors to the government in providing health care to the poor.

Need we even mention the liberal hatred of the Second Amendment? The same people who scoured the Bill of Rights to find a right to an abortion up until junior gets his driver’s license can’t manage to find a right to keep and bear arms in the text guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms.

How about the Fourth Amendment? You have a right not to have the government poking around your stuff without probable cause unless, of course, the government decides it feels like it.

Astonishingly, the government has now even managed to infringe on the Third Amendment. How the hell do you even do that?

Too bad the government isn’t even a hundredth as creative and competent its actual duties as it is in engaging in petty tyranny.

This is not a matter of a few rogue villains lurking out in Cincinnati. This is a systemic attack on our nation’s basic principles led by the reigning progressive elite and abetted by its mainstream media buddies.

It’s time to resist. It’s time to say “Hell no!”

When you get called up for jury duty, don’t weasel out of it. Proudly sit as a juror, and if the State fails to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, proudly acquit. If the case was so weak it never should have been brought, after giving your verdict tell the judge what you think on the record. Let’s deincentivize overcharging by embarrassing abusive prosecutors.

And exercise your other rights – exercise the hell out of them because if you don’t you will lose them. Speak out, loudly and proudly, and refuse to be silenced. When the government annoys you, petition it for the redress of your grievances. Petition it until the bureaucrats shiver when they see you coming.

Demand your right to live according to your conscience, and refuse to abide by the oppression of other people based on their religion or lack thereof.

Own a gun and ammunition, and be prepared to defend yourself, your family, your community and our Constitution.

When some government flunky gets into your private affairs without a warrant based upon probable cause, drag his sorry rear into court.

And when some agent of the government attempts to quarter troops in your home during peacetime, you tell him to get off your lawn.

Americans are citizens and not subjects because our forefathers refused to countenance the abuses of far-away elites who sought to control their lives. That’s our heritage, and that’s our duty.

Let’s get back to where standing up for our American principles, as the Zimmerman jurors manifestly did, is no longer courageous but a minimum expectation.