Fear is the greatest tool of the wanna-be dictator. We’re all susceptible to it, hence George Mason’s warning:

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

@StewartRhodesOK https://twitter.com/liberty4masses/status/1253524395194269697

Worth remembering: Our rights do not come from government. They are part of us, from nature and nature’s God. Government’s only just purpose is to secure these rights. It does so only through limited powers granted by our consent. We have written constitutions laying out ..

... those limited powers (state and federal). No government had any power to suspend those constitutions (including the federal Bill of Right & the various state bill of rights). “Martial law” is nowhere in our Constitution. Go look. You won’t find that term. It’s illegitimate

The US Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. Period. No government agent can step outside it, not even during an emergency. There is no “virus clause” anywhere in the Bill of Rights.

As the Ninth Amendment makes clear:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Such as the right to live your life as you see fit so long as you don’t violate the equal rights of others.

The right to own & dispose of property & to ply a trade or own a business or to work for others. The right to do with your own body as you please (your most fundamental property). Your rights are countless as the stars. But government powers are few & defined.

The states have car broader legislative powers than the federal government. As the Tenth Amendment makes clear:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But the state government can do nothing that violates the US Constitution - period. Nor can state governments do anything that violates the state constitution.

The arbitrary shutdowns of some businesses & restrictions on human action violate multiple constitutional provisions

The most glaring are the violations of the First Amendment & Second Amendment. But there is also due process and equal protection of the laws, and the takings clause.

However, the most glaring for me is the Orwellian “essential/non-essential” determination by fiat. ...

Where is THAT arbitrary power enumerated ANYWHERE in either the federal constitution or in a state constitution? Or in a federal or state statute? Nowhere. It was made up, whole cloth, by DHS by taking standards of what government should seek to support in emergencies ...

And twisting it into what government should allow during emergencies, and then BAN all other activity not determined to be “essential” by some politician. They flipped liberty on its head. Now, all that is not expressly permitted by THE LEADER is forbidden. By what criteria? .

By whatever criteria the leader deems proper with a waive of the hand. Not by vote of the legislature. Not pursuant to any statutory criteria. Just executive fiat. & this got its start in “guidelines” issued by DHS but left open to interpretation by state & local politicians

This is what is known as arbitrary, capricious, overly broad, & vague power that is ripe for abuse - untethered to any actual written law- and in one set of hands. It can, and is, being used to violate the rights of the people. As James Madison warned:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” - Federalist No 47.

We now live under tyranny, at every level of government, from the federal (through those DHS “recommendations”) to state; to local. And that arbitrary, concentrated tyrannical power is putting the boot on the neck of the American people through FEAR of a virus. And that boot .

That boot will NEVER come off unless we remove it now, in a very decisive and direct manner.

When there’s a boot on the back of your neck, it doesn’t matter if it’s a right boot or a left boot.

Both Republican (I.e. Abbot in TX) & Democrat Governors (i.e. Lujan in NM) ...

Are acting as tyrants, imposing their own made up restrictions on your liberty nowhere granted, enumerated, or passed into law & often in direct violation of clear, bright line “shall not” Bill of Right prohibitions. And they do so in an inherently arbitrary & capricious manner.

Hence the absurdity of Lujan forcing gun stores & churches closed while leaving marijuana dispensaries open. Or MS & KY mayors banning even drive-up church services while drive-up liquor stores are open, with police telling pastors “your rights are suspended.” & “the military ..

... can order it.” Or Raleigh, NC police declaring that “protesting is non-essential” & therefor banned. Or stores not allowed or sell garden seeds to customers already in the store because they are deemed “non-essential items” or one business allowed to be open while other ..

businesses are closed & driven out of business because a Governor (such as Gov. Abbot or the local county judge) doesn’t consider that business “essential” while Walmart stays open & sells the same type of merchandise or service.

Small towns across America will be ghost towns

With only the big box stores left standing & all the small local owned Mom & Pop businesses boarded up & gone. Driven under by executive fiat ... unless they have sufficient political connections like the big boys do.

In WA state, the unionized Boeing factory is open but smaller manufactures are shut down. In PA the Governor’s cabinet business is deemed essential while his competitors are all shut down.

Any business with even a small .gov contract is allowed to be open while others can’t.

This is the very definition of corrupt, arbitrary, capricious, & ripe for abuse. And it sets a horrific precedent for the future. Will any and all viruses or “pandemics” be used to do whatever “the leader” wants to do anytime he wants to declare an emergency?” Looks like if.

And the now obvious goal is to steer us toward a Bio-medical Patriot Act and Orwellian dystopia of compulsory testing, mandatory vaccines, & biometric tracking (your immunization e-papers, please) where you MUST comply or you can’t work, travel, buy or sell without it.

We the people must stand up, en mass, & rebel against this biometric tyranny in every way available to us.

Declare it illegitimate, devoid of our consent & unconstitutional, & pledge our undying nullification & resistance.

Stand now or kneel forever. @StewartRhodesOK