Speech: "Government, Keep Out!"

Performed by Jerry Hughes of the Accent Radio Network. For more information on how YOU can help bring back a Bill of Rights culture, go to www.your10rights.com. For more on the "Government Keep Out" series of speeches, go to www.jpfo.org/keepoutspeeches.htm. MP3 format

 

They call us the world's only superpower. But life feels less "super" every day. Our incomes fall. Our debts rise. Our leaders tell us inflation is low. Yet costs for housing, fuel, and even food balloon beyond our means.

 

Haven't we had enough?

 

Our businesses close while we buy goods made by entrepreneurial Chinese. We call India to get advice about our Japanese cellphones. America's factories and millions of jobs have gone overseas. America moves from a manufacturing to a service economy and a nation doesn't prosper when we repair each others washing machines.

 

Haven't we had enough?

 

That same government spends trillions on an ever-growing array of programs, reaching tentacles into every part of daily life. Whether they call themselves Republicans or Democrats, politicians all share the same creed: "Spend more. Go into debt. Mind everybody else's business. Control everything -- and everybody."

 

Haven't we had enough?

 

Politicians take more than 40 percent of everything we produce and tell us they're going to spend it on programs that make things better. But things aren't getting better. They're getting worse. And what do the politicians say? "Give us more! And more! And more!"

 

Listen: We are being conned, cheated, had, lied to. This country's economic well-being and its freedoms are being plundered right before our very eyes by people more interested in their personal agendas than in our future. And we are falling for it.

 

Enough is enough.

 

It's time for ordinary Americans to get off our butts, say no to out-of-control government, and take our own country back.

 

We don't need to "reinvent government." We need to restore freedom from government.. We must get big government out of our way. Americans will build a fair, just, prosperous, stable, and free society again. We already have the tools. Including the most important tool of all. The Bill of Rights.

 

Go to the Internet or to your library and look at one short document. This document has only 482 words, and most of them are simple, plain language. A blueprint for building a free and prosperous society. It says that government can't take away our natural-born right to choose our own religion, speak our own mind, or assemble in protest.

 

This document says we have the right to defend ourselves and our freedom against tyrants. It says we can't be locked up forever without trial, that punishment has to fit the crime. It says we're entitled to our day in court, heard by a jury. It says our property can't be stolen from us by government. In just 482 short words, it says all that and a lot more.

 

But what it really says is "government, keep out." .

 

"Government, keep out." In all its simplicity, that is the key to freedom and economic stability.

 

It says government is to protect our freedom of speech: Yet today, the government sets up concrete-barriered, barb-wired "free-speech zones" that turn the very concept of free speech into a joke. We can be investigated by the FBI for innocent political activities.. Today our phones may be tapped without warrant. Our reading monitored. Our opinions and our activities tracked. In a free country, people are free to criticize without fear of reprisal. Political opinions are not a threat and the First Amendment tells government to keep its hands off them.

 

The Fourth Amendment says our doors shouldn't be kicked down on unchecked tips from informants. The Fifth Amendment says we shouldn't be forced into guilty pleas just so courts can crank millions of us through the system more quickly and it forbids random confiscation of property..

 

Government, keep out: These 482 words tell us government has no authority over what we voluntarily do in the privacy of our own homes.

 

Our court systems have become a travesty. Instead of justice, we have crank-'em-out plea bargains in which citizens incriminate themselves under pressure and prosecutors seek not fairness but high conviction "scores."

 

Today a bureaucratic government says, "The people are immature, violent children; and we can't be trusted with firearms." So it turns our right to self-defense into a government-granted privilege. Or in some places government outright forbids us to effectively defend ourselves against violent criminals. This, too, is nonsense. If average people can't be trusted with weapons, than neither can police officers, soldiers, or government agents all of whom come from us average Americans.

 

Government, keep out: The Second Amendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Note that: the right of the people, not the right of the government. And that's good. Because the people can be trusted -- more than any government can. And we are most trustworthy when we're taught every day to respect the rights of others and be responsible for our own choices.

 

And let us not forget taxes: There's a word for people who aren't allowed to keep and manage their own earnings. That word is "slave." True, we are among the most prosperous serfs ever to live. But the principle remains. If some greater power takes away our earnings and decided how that money is to be spent, that power is our master.

 

But you might say, the Bill of Rights has been around since 1791, and if it protects all these freedoms and forbids all these abuses, how did we get into this fix? How can the Bill of Rights be of any use if things have gone bad?

 

It is because we haven't protected the Bill of Rights. Because we haven't used the Bill of Rights. We have not lived it. We have not loved it. The fault isn't in the document. The fault is ours. The government trespassed, and we allowed it.

 

There is an answer. There is a solution. In the future, put every law and regulation, both existing and proposed, to the Bill of Rights test. Does a law violate any part of any amendment in the Bill of Rights? Then out it goes. Does a regulation exceed the specific, limited, delegated powers given to the government? If so, then wipe it away forever.

 

In a truly free, healthy America, if any government action doesn't meet the Bill of Rights test ... out it goes. This is the way to restore freedom and prosperity for all.

 

The problem is government. The solution is less government.

The solution is personal responsibility and initiative.

The problem is government. The solution is us. We the people.

The solution is freedom.

The problem is government. The solution is a Bill of Rights culture.

 

Enough is enough. All people who genuinely want to be free must say it and mean it: "Government, keep out."

 

If not for ourselves then for our children, grand-children and generations of Americans to come.

 

Enough is enough. "Government, keep out."

 

Enough is enough. "Government, keep out."

 

Please say it with me... Enough is enough. "Government, keep out."

 

For a copy of the Bill of Rights, in 15 different languages, visit the website jpfo.org Opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of JPFO.org or its members. Talkin’ to America is a production of JPFO.org. © 1997-2006 JPFO