The United States Design Flaw
by Brent Johnson
Frequently these days, I am approached by someone complaining to me about the problems with modern society in the United States. The complaints tend to cover a wide spectrum: the economy is collapsing, the education system is inadequate, there are too many regulations, taxation is out of control, etc.
While each of these statements may be true, I do not believe that any of them represent the cause of their respective complaints. Rather, they are each a symptom of a more basic problem.
There is a root cause that precipitates all of these societal ills, and more, which is seldom if ever directly addressed. It is that the United States society of the 21st century is operating with a fundamental design flaw.
A design flaw is something that is basic to the engineering of an object or structure. Replacing a component or moving around some of the elements cannot correct it. It is a flaw in the construct of the object. It can only be reengineered. The flawed design must be discarded; it is of no viable use.
So what is to be done about a country whose social structure is fundamentally flawed? First, let us try to more clearly define the problem. What is this design flaw of which I am speaking? To answer this question, we must go back to the original design for our country.
The Republic of the united States of America was established as a Union of states, each of which would exercise absolute sovereignty within its borders. The 1777 Articles of Confederation helped to codify how the sovereign states of the Union would work together to provide a freer, more fruitful society for the American people.
Of course, as with any experiment, there were problems that arose along the way. As a result, a Constitutional Convention was convened in 1783 to establish a system in which the states would have a federal government agent to act on their behalf. Only powers specifically ceded by the states would comprise the legitimate powers of the federal (not national) government. The Constitution for the United States was a series of limitations on this newly created governmental entity. It was designed to keep the federal government chained in place. It was made as a protective device for the rights of the American people and their respective states.
If that had been all there was to the story, it would be unnecessary for me to offer this commentary, some 225 years later.
Unfortunately, corruption has set in, like it so often does, and today’s United States (note that I no longer refer to it as the united States of America; that entity is effectively dead) does not even resemble the bastion of freedom and individual rights that our Republic was originally meant to be.
In the United States today, citizens accused of crimes are assumed to be guilty and have to prove their innocence, though the reverse was established in the Constitution. Accused parties are regularly denied a trial by jury, coerced into testifying against themselves, indicted by anonymous witnesses (meaning they do not get to face their accusers), and frequently locked in prison - and often in solitary confinement - for most of their lives without having committed a crime under common law (i.e. they have not harmed anyone’s rights to life, liberty or property). This is a perversion of our system (See Bill of Rights, Articles Four, Five and Six).
This has all occurred because the federal government has, for the past almost 150 years, disregarded constitutional limitations and done whatever it saw fit to do, and the American people have failed to stand up and stop the government from its egregious overstepping of authority. Over time, the public has become docile and obedient, even to the point of defending the illegal acts of their governments and officials.
In 21st century Amerika (sic), highway checkpoints are normal; motorists are asked to produce their travel papers and if they do not, they are taken to jail and their vehicles are impounded.
Air passengers are regularly accosted by mindless bureaucrats, often assaulted, detained, or otherwise humiliated. Over a million Americans have been placed on a no-fly list, thereby denying them air travel, which effectively keeps them prisoners of the U.S. government (because they cannot leave). No standard exists for how names get on the list, and no procedure is in place to protest your name being placed there, or to get it removed from the list.
Citizens are routinely arrested for disobeying police orders. Police frequently enter private homes without warrants and without announcing themselves, then shoot the homeowner when he attempts to fight back against the unlawful intrusion.
Judges have taken to automatically sentencing accused persons, even though the Constitution guarantees a fair trial before an impartial jury. Judges decide for themselves whether to allow evidence to be admitted. Courts are heavily biased, almost always siding with government or corporate parties over individual citizens. Punishments issued by these bogus courts are generally both cruel and unusual, considering the charges levied and the lack of Due Process during most trials. Of course, this is one more violation of the law (See Bill of Rights, Article Eight).
We are told there is a terrorist problem and that these hard-nosed, police state tactics are necessary in order to preserve our safety.
If the cost of safety is our freedom and individual rights, then isn’t it too high a price to pay? Personally, I would prefer to live with the risk of terrorism rather than sacrifice everything that made our country special in the first place.
You see, the 21st century version of the United States has been redesigned, and the redesign is fundamentally flawed!
If you accept (as do I) that the purpose of all legitimate government is to protect the free exercise of the God-given, unalienable rights of each individual citizen, then the redesigned U.S. of today has basic and serious flaws in its structure.
Every engineer needs to examine whether the functionality of a given mechanism accomplishes its purpose. If it does not, then something is wrong with the mechanism.
If the mechanism in question is a society, then we must ask whether the protocols and processes performed by the society generate results in harmony with the fundamental objectives of that same society.
Applying this principle to today’s United States, do the strong-arm police state tactics employed by officers and approved by the courts, further the objective of protecting and preserving each individual citizen’s rights to life, liberty and property? If not, then it is the system that is broken. This is the design flaw to which I referred earlier.
If you own a broken down car that runs poorly, and you continue to fill its tank with gasoline, then your car will never be anything more than a broken down vehicle that runs poorly.
By the same token, if you keep pumping money into a system that is broken, then the system may continue to exist, but it will remain broken.
The problems ordinary citizens face in today’s United States police state can only be fixed by rebuilding the country from scratch! We must start by restructuring our government so that it gives us the protections it was meant to provide. We must hold our public servants fully and severely accountable for even the most minor violations of our rights.
For example, if we punished government officials who violate citizens’ rights in the same manner we punish people found guilty of “victimless crimes”, then we would have taken a positive first step toward restoring freedom and the Rule of Law to our country. (Note: It is unlawful to deprive a citizen of his right to liberty based on a so-called victimless crime, because if there is no victim then there is no crime; in other words, there are no victimless crimes.)
Thomas Jefferson advocated a Revolution every 20-25 years. Perhaps it is time for the American people to rise up and put down by force of arms the terrorists and criminals in their state and federal governments. Most certainly, no government will reform its behavior on its own. Force must be met with force. Power never concedes anything without a demand.
If ever our country is to resurrect its godly principles, we must forcibly stop the criminals who have taken over our governments from imposing their tyrannies on us. We must set aside our incessant desires for comfort and convenience, money and position, and looking good, and dedicate ourselves to the far more important objectives of reestablishing truth and justice, liberty and property rights, and a free environment in which our children can spiritually thrive.
If not now, then when? If not you, then who?
Frequently these days, I am approached by someone complaining to me about the problems with modern society in the United States. The complaints tend to cover a wide spectrum: the economy is collapsing, the education system is inadequate, there are too many regulations, taxation is out of control, etc.
While each of these statements may be true, I do not believe that any of them represent the cause of their respective complaints. Rather, they are each a symptom of a more basic problem.
There is a root cause that precipitates all of these societal ills, and more, which is seldom if ever directly addressed. It is that the United States society of the 21st century is operating with a fundamental design flaw.
A design flaw is something that is basic to the engineering of an object or structure. Replacing a component or moving around some of the elements cannot correct it. It is a flaw in the construct of the object. It can only be reengineered. The flawed design must be discarded; it is of no viable use.
So what is to be done about a country whose social structure is fundamentally flawed? First, let us try to more clearly define the problem. What is this design flaw of which I am speaking? To answer this question, we must go back to the original design for our country.
The Republic of the united States of America was established as a Union of states, each of which would exercise absolute sovereignty within its borders. The 1777 Articles of Confederation helped to codify how the sovereign states of the Union would work together to provide a freer, more fruitful society for the American people.
Of course, as with any experiment, there were problems that arose along the way. As a result, a Constitutional Convention was convened in 1783 to establish a system in which the states would have a federal government agent to act on their behalf. Only powers specifically ceded by the states would comprise the legitimate powers of the federal (not national) government. The Constitution for the United States was a series of limitations on this newly created governmental entity. It was designed to keep the federal government chained in place. It was made as a protective device for the rights of the American people and their respective states.
If that had been all there was to the story, it would be unnecessary for me to offer this commentary, some 225 years later.
Unfortunately, corruption has set in, like it so often does, and today’s United States (note that I no longer refer to it as the united States of America; that entity is effectively dead) does not even resemble the bastion of freedom and individual rights that our Republic was originally meant to be.
In the United States today, citizens accused of crimes are assumed to be guilty and have to prove their innocence, though the reverse was established in the Constitution. Accused parties are regularly denied a trial by jury, coerced into testifying against themselves, indicted by anonymous witnesses (meaning they do not get to face their accusers), and frequently locked in prison - and often in solitary confinement - for most of their lives without having committed a crime under common law (i.e. they have not harmed anyone’s rights to life, liberty or property). This is a perversion of our system (See Bill of Rights, Articles Four, Five and Six).
This has all occurred because the federal government has, for the past almost 150 years, disregarded constitutional limitations and done whatever it saw fit to do, and the American people have failed to stand up and stop the government from its egregious overstepping of authority. Over time, the public has become docile and obedient, even to the point of defending the illegal acts of their governments and officials.
In 21st century Amerika (sic), highway checkpoints are normal; motorists are asked to produce their travel papers and if they do not, they are taken to jail and their vehicles are impounded.
Air passengers are regularly accosted by mindless bureaucrats, often assaulted, detained, or otherwise humiliated. Over a million Americans have been placed on a no-fly list, thereby denying them air travel, which effectively keeps them prisoners of the U.S. government (because they cannot leave). No standard exists for how names get on the list, and no procedure is in place to protest your name being placed there, or to get it removed from the list.
Citizens are routinely arrested for disobeying police orders. Police frequently enter private homes without warrants and without announcing themselves, then shoot the homeowner when he attempts to fight back against the unlawful intrusion.
Judges have taken to automatically sentencing accused persons, even though the Constitution guarantees a fair trial before an impartial jury. Judges decide for themselves whether to allow evidence to be admitted. Courts are heavily biased, almost always siding with government or corporate parties over individual citizens. Punishments issued by these bogus courts are generally both cruel and unusual, considering the charges levied and the lack of Due Process during most trials. Of course, this is one more violation of the law (See Bill of Rights, Article Eight).
We are told there is a terrorist problem and that these hard-nosed, police state tactics are necessary in order to preserve our safety.
If the cost of safety is our freedom and individual rights, then isn’t it too high a price to pay? Personally, I would prefer to live with the risk of terrorism rather than sacrifice everything that made our country special in the first place.
You see, the 21st century version of the United States has been redesigned, and the redesign is fundamentally flawed!
If you accept (as do I) that the purpose of all legitimate government is to protect the free exercise of the God-given, unalienable rights of each individual citizen, then the redesigned U.S. of today has basic and serious flaws in its structure.
Every engineer needs to examine whether the functionality of a given mechanism accomplishes its purpose. If it does not, then something is wrong with the mechanism.
If the mechanism in question is a society, then we must ask whether the protocols and processes performed by the society generate results in harmony with the fundamental objectives of that same society.
Applying this principle to today’s United States, do the strong-arm police state tactics employed by officers and approved by the courts, further the objective of protecting and preserving each individual citizen’s rights to life, liberty and property? If not, then it is the system that is broken. This is the design flaw to which I referred earlier.
If you own a broken down car that runs poorly, and you continue to fill its tank with gasoline, then your car will never be anything more than a broken down vehicle that runs poorly.
By the same token, if you keep pumping money into a system that is broken, then the system may continue to exist, but it will remain broken.
The problems ordinary citizens face in today’s United States police state can only be fixed by rebuilding the country from scratch! We must start by restructuring our government so that it gives us the protections it was meant to provide. We must hold our public servants fully and severely accountable for even the most minor violations of our rights.
For example, if we punished government officials who violate citizens’ rights in the same manner we punish people found guilty of “victimless crimes”, then we would have taken a positive first step toward restoring freedom and the Rule of Law to our country. (Note: It is unlawful to deprive a citizen of his right to liberty based on a so-called victimless crime, because if there is no victim then there is no crime; in other words, there are no victimless crimes.)
Thomas Jefferson advocated a Revolution every 20-25 years. Perhaps it is time for the American people to rise up and put down by force of arms the terrorists and criminals in their state and federal governments. Most certainly, no government will reform its behavior on its own. Force must be met with force. Power never concedes anything without a demand.
If ever our country is to resurrect its godly principles, we must forcibly stop the criminals who have taken over our governments from imposing their tyrannies on us. We must set aside our incessant desires for comfort and convenience, money and position, and looking good, and dedicate ourselves to the far more important objectives of reestablishing truth and justice, liberty and property rights, and a free environment in which our children can spiritually thrive.
If not now, then when? If not you, then who?
