Ratchet goes only one way when it comes to losing our liberties

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Unfortunately, these noble words are from the Declaration of Independence, not our Constitution. From these principles Americans claim a unique and revolutionary legacy: that every person possesses his or her own sovereignty just by being born, and that these rights don’t come from any government or person.

Individuals have all the rights, and give a few of them up voluntarily to our governments. This is the basic principle on which our country was founded, but it is not the law. This is in direct contrast with an opposing view that government has all the rights and powers, and gives whatever it decides is appropriate back to individuals.

Most people expect that our government leaders are elected with certain concepts in mind: to keep us safe and to manage our grouped resources most efficiently for our mutual benefit, but to otherwise respect our sovereignty to live our lives as we each choose.

Nearly all of us grew up understanding this intuitively as part of American culture. Bit by bit, however, it has been turned on its head. Like frogs not noticing the boiling temperature if the heat is turned up slowly, our community lets our freedoms die progressively, bit by bit, and allows politicians more and more power over our daily lives.

A small recent example is the Hawaii County ban on plastic bags. Apart from the bogus "voodoo environomic" claims about the benefits, which are contradicted by scientific fact, it is another small grab of power by our government. Five of nine Council members and the mayor tell 185,000 people another tiny way to live their lives without even the courtesy of a referendum, where at least we’d all get a vote. This is the latest of many such laws micro-managing daily life: what light bulbs to buy, shower heads, toilet bowls, water heaters, windows, types of fat in our foods, salt content, what to pack in our kids’ school lunches. Next up, banning paper bags and Styrofoam. There is even pressure to tell us what toilet paper to use. (No, I am not making that up.)

At the other end of the rights spectrum is the Obamacare law mandating that everyone obtain government-specified health insurance. If you are alive and breathing, you must obey, no exceptions.

If the federal power to enact such economic mandates is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress would be free to require anything of the citizenry in the name of a regulatory plan, and fundamentally alter the relationship of the state to the people. Nobody would ever again be able to claim plausibly that the Constitution limits federal power. As U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson commented, Congress could theoretically legally require that people buy and eat broccoli.

When is the last time a law was passed giving us back an individual right or power?

Never. The ratchet goes only one way, only toward less personal sovereignty and rights and more government power and control.

So what can freedom-loving Americans do?

First, recognize the problem and resist at every turn. Demand that our Council members and mayor respect our individual sovereignty and stop passing such laws. Change our county charter to put the power back in the hands of the people, for true consent of the governed. Refuse to vote for any politician who does not respect our freedoms, including the president and all the other Obamacare supporters.

There is a better way. The Founding Fathers got it.