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03/17/10
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A talk to the Rotary Club of New York, by Kenneth Royce, 30 November 2004 I've some people to thank who made my appearance here today possible. Larry of FAME who invited me, and Andreas of the New York Rotary Club who welcomed me. Although I am primarily an author, I've been giving more and more speeches lately, causing some of my colleagues to tease me: "Ken, all somebody has to do is give you lunch and out pops a speech." I replied, "Well, that's better than the inverse where I give a speech and out pops your lunch! " <laughter> I'll try to avoid that today... I'd like to begin this talk to you today with a few words about... my Grandmother. Not that she has won some kind of prestigious award, or is renowned for some great achievement. She is a pretty typical elderly woman in her late 80s, but ironically this would seem to make her story unusual. My elderly grandmother has been required, since 2000, to have her Social Security Number on her driver's license. Why must she give a formerly private federal number on state documents as a national identifier? Because of the so-called "Deadbeat Dads Database" legislation which alleges to track fathers who are behind on their child-support payments. Hmmm. My grandmother in a Deadbeat Dads Database. Well, she's a she, and can't be a dad. Not only that, being nearly 90 she can't have any more children. Furthermore, even her youngest child is post-menopausal! If my grandmother spends more than $3,000 in cash during a transaction, she is then required to fill out a federal Currency Transaction Report allegedly designed to uncover drug-dealing money launderers. If my grandmother cashes someone's check at their bank, she must submit her fingerprint to the teller even though she can produce ID. This is to allegedly thwart fraudulent checks. When my grandmother boards a commercial airliner, she must remove her shoes and walk in stocking feet through a magnetometer. If she's lucky, she avoids being groped by some "security officer." This is allegedly for everyone's safety, even though the historic hijacker has been a swarthy Middle Eastern male, someone we're now prohibited from profiling. It is against public policy to search more than 2 Arabs per flight, and several airlines have already been fined $150,000+ for doing so. If my grandmother goes to purchase a handgun for personal protection, the transaction must first be approved by the FBI in a computerized background check with a notoriously flawed database. If my grandmother wants a report of the health records that she herself was responsible for generating, she will be told that she has no access to such records, but that nearly any government agency does. Folks, we're no longer presumed innocent, we're presumed guilty. We're no longer punished for what we've done, but for what we might do. This "prior restraint" is a slap in the face of our Common Law heritage, and is carried to such ridiculous extremes that 90 year old ladies are now automatically presumed to be people of aggression, theft, and fraud. My point is this: if my elderly grandmother,
has been caught up in the dragnet of modern federal police power allegedly constructed for criminals, then how can you or I ever expect to become free of it?
And this, ladies and gentlemen, was completely intentional. The primary source of America's ills is her rejection of the Natural Law. There are just Two Rules in life. Encapsulated by my colleague Rick Maybury in just 17 words: 1) Do all
you have agreed to do, and The first covers civil law; the second criminal. Civil and criminal matters, all neatly contained within those 17 words. This is the law which the Apostle Paul spoke of in Romans Chapter 2 Verse 15 as being written in our hearts. Meaning, the capacity for Natural Law was issued to us as universal inventory, along with the rest of our vital organs. It is in our very nature to recognize and wish to obey the Natural Law. This is why every major religion in history is in accord with those 17 words: Do all
you have agreed to do, and The Western world codified this over time and called it the common Law. Common Law was the system for discovering and applying Natural Law in human affairs. I say "was the system" because we don't have it any more. It's been stolen from us. Since law contains the guidelines for the use of force, governments want control of these guidelines to make themselves exempt. This is why governments hate the Common Law, and always nationalize the justice industry in order to implement their preferred system, Political Law. The Natural Law was stolen from us by government, and replaced with legal positivism, in which the law is no better than the source of its authority. This substitution was the ulterior motive of the "Founding Lawyers" of 1787 during the constitutional convention at Philadelphia. The American Revolution was a war over the difference between Scientific Natural Law and Political Law. After six years of war, the colonial forces fighting for Natural Law prevailed against the British in 1781 at Yorktown. Yet, the forces desiring Political Law had not been totally defeated. By 1787, they had successfully clamored for a constitutional convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." That was their ostensible goal. Of the 55 delegates, 41 were politicians and 34 were lawyers. Only 8 had signed the Declaration of Independence, and 6 the Articles of Confederation. The famous revolutionaries were not delegates. Jefferson and John Adams were in Europe, Patrick Henry had refused outright, while Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, and Christopher Gadsden were not even chosen. My point here is this: we had two sets of Founding Fathers: one which fought the Revolution, and a second which foisted upon an unsuspecting nation a new constitution chock full of Political Law. The first set of Founding Fathers fought for the rule of Natural Law. The second set of Founding Fathers organized to demolish the Natural Law and erect a system of legal positivism. And what kind of system did the Constitution ordain? deTocqueville understood what kind back in 1825. Not a federal govt. as we've been taught in school, but an incomplete national govt., one which would be gradually completed over time through the clever clauses of "necessary and proper" and "supreme law of the land" which energized the treaty and interstate commerce sections. A government not based on Natural Law, but on Political Law. The forces
behind Natural Law had won the American Revolution, only to lose it within
a single decade. After the anti-Federalists failed to prevent the Constitution's ratification in 1789, they did manage to push through two years later what we now call the Bill of Rights. It was their attempt to reassert at least some Natural Law. While the Bill of Rights has helped to limit govt, it sadly hasn't lasted over time. With the help of the federal courts, the 10 Amendments have been reduced to little more than speed bumps in the road of Tyranny. Our 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendment rights, for example, are 80% gone. We no longer have rights, we have permissions. Permission to speak, permission to publish, permission to own weapons for self-defense, permission to own a business and keep perhaps half the profits. We are being regulated to death, as deTocqueville described:
Does anybody in this room truly believe that your Government is dedicated to freedom and flourishing of every American? America is not the freest country in the world. We are
merely the healthiest patient in the cancer ward. Such has been the course of all collectivist nations in history. Yet, the United States of America had originally begun on such a fine footing of Natural Law, that its inertia was felt for over 100 years. While no country on earth has adhered to the rule of Natural Law, enough of its residue remained on these shores to create history's finest example of freedom technology. The fantastic wealth of Manhattan is ample proof of it.
-- Rick Maybury, What Ever Happened to Justice? p.56-57 All indices
show that America's standard of living peaked in about 1973, and has fallen
ever since. And why is that? Because we have lost the Natural Law, that device which makes justice and prosperity possible. Because Force and Fraud are, due to government regulation, inherent in nearly every transaction, the laissez-faire Win-Win scenario is generally a faint and fond memory. Thus, through millions of transactions involving guaranteed loss, America is sliding backwards. Because the scientific Common Law has been stolen from us, we no longer have the tool necessary to discover legal principles in such divisive matters as:
Now, these things are left up to random, ever changing democratic persuasion, assuming such can still prevail against the entrenched hierarchy. Because of the inherent turbulence of opinion, we'll never arrive at wise,stable answers to the above dilemmas. Political law applied to your right to keep and bear arms has made illegal:
...even though the 2nd Amendment clearly states that your right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed." This is strong, unequivocal verbiage that no other Amendment enjoys. You'll go to jail if your gun has a muffler, and if your car does not. Because of the rule of Political Law, in Vermont it is illegal to whistle under water. Well, has that become a problem? The legal and economic history of our nation's decline I quite well understand. But the sociological foundation required for this patent squandering of our Common Law rights escapes my comprehension. By some process not entirely clear to me, we have developed into a people unable to hear the truth, and thus have achieved a government incapable of telling the truth. About anything. About the origin and purpose of Natural Law, and why its lack today is responsible for nearly all of our ills. About money vs. currency vs. fiat currency and inflation. About the difference between violence and aggression. About Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City. About the legitimate purpose of government and why it must remain strictly limited to expressly delegated powers. By diligently avoiding Truth, about nearly everything, America has fully become the People of The Lie. Lies sell better than truth by a 30 to 1 margin. That is the book sales ratio of Fiction to Nonfiction. For example, the entertainment industry is, at its core, in the business of selling lies. I once worked on a movie set. What struck me was that there are so many more people behind the camera than in front of it. The viewer cannot truly appreciate this because the viewer is watching the actors. And what are the actors doing? Ignoring dozens of production people and stacks of equipment in order to say words they didn't write, conveying emotions they don't own. Actors must ignore what is real in order to sell the viewer what is not. Actors are professional liars, and this is a multi-billion dollar industry. Even historically based films are invariably saturated with lies. Who here saw Schindler's List? OK, now who also read the book? I read the book. It contains many things left out of the movie. Director Steven Spielberg chose to omit one of the most important events of what happened in 1945, at Schindler's camp in Czechoslovakia:
As a shooting instructor and gun collector, I can tell you that the rifles mentioned were technologically quite extravagant and expensive. Very few were manufactured, and they fetch about $3,500 today. Those G41s were not mere Mauser bolt-actions. It seems Oskar Schindler always purchased the best! What did you miss in the movie: Jews with guns then disarmed the camps guards and Commandant Motzek, who pleaded for his life. Not only was this an important historical event, it would have made a fantastic scene! Who here wouldn't have enjoyed watching formerly helpless Jewish prisoners, now armed, stripping the SS Camp Commandant of his pistol and the guards of their rifles? Yet director Steven Spielberg, himself a Jew, chose not to film this vital part of the story. He chose to lie by omission. He chose not to tell you the vital truth about the Holocaust, that it occurred solely because six million Jews were unarmed. The few times they did arm themselves and resist were greatly rewarded. The heroic Jews of the Warsaw uprising, Sobibor, and Treblinka not only had guns, they had unregistered guns. So should we:
Oskar Schindler bought his Jews unregistered guns! Spielberg had not only the chance, but the duty to tell you this truth in Schindler's List, but chose not to. This is all the more incredible when you learn that he has one of the largest automatic weapons collections in America. When chided for the apparent hypocrisy of his well-known support of gun-control, Spielberg is said to have replied, "That's for them!" Meaning, no unregistered guns for the average citizen. Only the elite can be trusted with the means to protect themselves. The lower and middle-classes are suspect and must be watched. If historically-based films are not truthful, then what about documentaries? Well, beware what poses as a "documentary" as Michael Moore's films have proven. His Bowling For Columbine was chock full of outright falsehoods, such as banks directly dispensing shotguns to new customers in the lobby. Now that America has an entrenched culture of the lie, little wonder that our government so rarely tells the truth. Let's take a local and fairly recent example: TWA flight 800 Federal authorities interviewed over 150 eyewitnesses, including airline pilots and doctors, who saw a missile streak up to that hapless 747. Oh, but what did the official investigation purport to find as the cause of the explosion? A spark in the central wing fuel tank. Oh, really? Well, if a fuel tank spark was the cause of the explosion (which, by the way, had never before happened in the 35 years of 747 flights), then why weren't the hundreds of 747s worldwide grounded because of this potential defect, hmmmm? Why wasn't the FBI and the FAA hounded into an embarrassed retraction of such a ridiculous story? By some process not entirely clear to me, we have developed into a people unable to hear the truth, and thus have achieved a government incapable of telling the truth. About anything. Including 9/11. What is the core truth about 9/11 Americans cannot hear and their Government cannot tell? The only one which no major newspaper can dare report? That 9/11 happened because of American cowardice. Look, our airplanes were hijacked by 5-man teams. Outnumbered by 20 to 1, and armed with only boxcutters, our airplanes were apparently hijacked and flown into buildings by 5-man teams. First, we submit to 30 years of unilateral in-flight passenger disarmament. Then, when a pack of rabid, opportunistic losers take notice of such a ripe vulnerability, what does America clamor for? To become even more defenselessness! The airport confiscation of their tweezers and nail clippers! And let's put up a fuss about arming pilots, too! One definition of insanity is the repetition of action with the expectation of different results. Unilaterally disarmed passengers invite hijackings. Yet what was the national response to 9/11? Disarming passengers even further. Ladies and gentleman, that is nothing short of insanity. Years ago on a South American flight, a fellow attempted to hijack the plane. The passengers instantly descended upon him with everything from fists to boots to butter knives, leaving him quite, well . . . dead. He was covered with an airline blanket, somewhat stuffed under some unoccupied seats, and the stewardess opened up the bar! The libertarian science-fiction author Robert Heinlein once wrote, "The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, anytime, and with utter recklessness." Those South American passengers lived through their flight because they refused to be terrorized. I'm not talking about merely being afraid. I'm talking about being terrorized, terrorized to the point that dozens of grown men will allow themselves to be herded like cattle to the back of a Boeing by a few guys with boxcutters. I'm talking about dozens of grown men being so terrorized that they will helplessly watch a stewardess having her throat cut before their very eyes. Terror, like dancing, requires two participants: one to lead, the other to follow. Manhattan lost its several prominent skyscrapers and over 3,000 people because Americans gave up their dignity to remain armed. They chose the likelihood of terror. Now, we've regressed to the pitiful state of children, whimpering for Sky Marshals on every flight. Daddy, protect us from the Bad Men! 9/11 was
not a tragedy, it was an atrocity. 9/11 happened not because those airplanes had 5 bad people who were armed, but because those airplanes had 100 good people who were not armed! That is the truth about 9/11. And I am
very, very angry about it. Whatever happened to the implacable ferocity of Americans when they were attacked? In the event of a water landing, your removable seat cushion will serve as a flotation device? How about: in the event of a terrorist hijacking, your removable armrest will serve as a club! By some process not entirely clear to me, we have developed into a people unable to hear the truth, and thus have achieved a government incapable of telling the truth. Be they
schools, airliners, or post offices--the fact that mandatory "gun-free"
zones get defenseless people killed is the truth which can neither be
heard nor told in this country. Instead of clamoring for this truth, Americans
are willing to trade their dwindling liberty for something called "Homeland
Security." This has never worked for any length of time. It's like
burning dollar bills to keep warm. Pretty quickly you'll be broke, and
cold . . . permanently. That a police state is the price we must pay to live in a free country. Well, that lie has been hawked by every government supremacist in history, from George Washington, to Abraham Lincoln, to Franklin Roosevelt, to Bill Clinton, to George W. Bush. And there is always somebody we are urged to fear: the Redcoats, the Confederate Rebels, the Japanese and German Americans, the Patriot militias, the Islamic terrorists. Another cartoon comes to mind. There's a lynch mob running down the street after somebody, and one club-wielding member asks another, "This guy we're chasing--what did he do?" William Pitt said: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." Ladies and Gentlemen, I refuse to accept the proposition that a police state is the price we must pay to live in a free country. I refuse to be daily treated like a criminal while evil is allowed to flourish. I refuse to live in fear of my government when it is supposed to be my servant protector. Americans have lost their liberties and their nation because they have chosen to reject courage for cowardice. Most Americans have chosen to live in fear. In fear
of asking the right questions, But not all of them. Many Americans are moving out West. Of those, many of us have chosen, for many good reasons, Wyoming, where we may live as adults, not as terrorized and helpless children. Where we may look to ourselves and to our neighbors for help, not to the Government which must necessarily plunder others first. Where life exists without a preponderance of government supremacists. Where our local Sheriff is our friend and neighbor, not some outpost of a faraway tyranny. Where we may enjoy our rights, unless we abuse them at another's expense. Where we are not domesticated to the point of docility. Where we don't cower before street criminals. Where street criminals cower before us because we with our skill at arms outnumber them 50:1 everywhere they go. Where we do not give up our personal weapons at any time or for any reason, because to do so would be to place ourselves under the physical power of armed strangers whose intentions and mercies can never be known in advance. I'm looking
for people who are tired of living under government supremacists and their
irrational, To help facilitate this migration, I founded the Free State Wyoming. Dot org. Who may join? Anybody who will formally renounce fraud, theft, and aggression as political and social expedients and pledge to be good neighbors for the goals of political liberty, free trade, and voluntary cooperation is welcome to join Free State Wyoming. This isn't about race, religion, or creed. It's about reinstating the rule of Natural Law in at least some portion of America. Thomas Jefferson wrote,
I am moving to Wyoming because I want live peaceably amongst good neighbors who believe in that just as strongly as I do. Amongst those who will not plunder each other through the ballot box. This is what my new novel Molôn Labé! is about. What life could be like in a free society, and how we might achieve that in Wyoming. We don't want a lawless society, rather one that is free of political law. We desire to live under the scientific, Natural, Common Law, because the rights of each of us are equally protected. We yearn for a locale where personal integrity is the norm, not the exception. Do you know what integrity is? It is loyalty to those...not present. I want to help rediscover, in Wyoming, what it once meant to be an American. Which was a person with specific and definable principles. A person who exuded character and honor. Who obeyed the common law even when no police were around. Who did not steal, aggress, or encroach on his neighbor through the vehicle of government. Who showed flawless loyalty . . .to those not present. In "The Covenant" Rudyard Kipling wrote:
We don't have to be the People of the Lie, besetting ourselves with a government that steals and slays. This isn't about Democrats vs. Republicans. Both parties violate the Two Rules: Democrats
infamously encroach on your property. No moral political party would encroach on either, which is why I am a libertarian. It takes courage, however, to lead an honorable life. Especially these days. As the old Indian put it, "The first step in a successful life is the conquest of fear. Once that has been achieved, everything else falls into place." Those who live in fear are incapable of consistently doing the right thing. They can act neither bravely nor honorably--not for themselves, not for their families, and certainly not for America. We don't suffer in this country for lack of knowledge, but for lack of courage. We know what the right thing to do is. We just don't have the guts to do it. We are no longer brave enough to think for ourselves. We know what the truth is. We just don't have the guts to hear it, much less repeat it. In George Orwell's 1984, one line stands out: "Freedom is the freedom to say 2 + 2 = 4. If that is granted, all else follows." I have come here today to proclaim that 2 + 2 = 4, not 3 and not 5. What you do with that is up to you. In closing, I hope that you will live by what you value, and not by what you fear. I hope that you will show the courage to consistently do the right things in life--to live by the Two Rules and their 17 words. Do all
you have agreed to do, and I hope you are, or will become, a person of integrity, always showing loyalty to those not present . . . even if you must move to Wyoming to do so. Thank you.
Common Law Copyright 2004-2006. All rights reserved.(Published with special permission) |
Free State Wyoming Website
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