decentralization paper
TRANSCRIPT
The “social experiment” known as the United States of America was birthed in an era rife
with corruption, much like that of our present situation. Contention was the euphemism of the
day, since there were rumblings of revolution all over the globe, and our struggle was the one
that would ignite the powder keg of the oppressed and enslaved people of the world against their
various oppressors. England, France, Spain, and others were exerting their power against their
respective colonies, while their monarchs imposed their will abroad, turning the peaceful
colonies into their proxies through which they could wage war on their personal vendettas.
Many of these Old World monarchies view for position, always taking where they could get
away with it, often at the expense of the other’s vassals, which had no real value to the monarch.
The land was the only real concern for them, since that is what netted them their riches, and they
could get another of their “subjects” to harvest them. This is the same picture we could paint of
today. This conflict is not waged by the literal monarchs of old, but by individuals and
organizations that act with impunity, trampling the freedoms so hard won by American patriots,
whose sacrifice is looked upon with horror and disdain, like a rotting corpse in a tragic murder in
broad daylight, where nothing and no one did anything to stop it. The special interest groups, the
minority causes in our nation, the so-called human and environmental advocates are merely the
symptom of the problem. Just as an individual who attempts to traverse a vast span of
wilderness without a compass, America has lost its bearing. America was built upon the
foundation of a moral society. In fact, John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for
a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." If this
statement stands true, our only true way to regain our former greatness from the thugs of
liberalism is to reclaim the original premise of what we were built to be: a government of the
people, by the people, for the people (Lincoln). As highlighted by the recent litigation, the
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conditions of our first revolutionary war are fast developing in our current society. The onus of
liberty is once again on the people’s shoulders. The current court case, mentioned above, Sissel
vs. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, litigated by the Pacific Legal Foundation on
behalf of businessman and veteran, Matt Sissel, is possibly the last nail in the coffin of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This long disputed bill
has done much to erode our American society. Liberty has been taken in the form of the right to
choose. The only choice is pay exorbitantly for health insurance or pay exorbitantly for the
penalties that will be placed upon you, with the federal government freezing your assets and
garnishing your wages until you comply. Does that sound like the America that threw off the
bands of colonial oppression due to excessive taxes, such as the Currency Act, the Stamp Act,
the Mutiny Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Intolerable Acts? Robert Anson Heinlein, a writer
who wrote much on the idea of personal liberty, said, "There is no worse tyranny than to force a
man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” For
this reason, the U.S. Constitution was written with certain safeguards in mind. The founding
fathers knew that the people would never submit to taxation without representation, so they
positioned an arm of the federal government among the people. This arm is supposed to be the
legislative branch, since they are elected by popular vote by the people in their respective
districts. Taxation was such a huge issue that more votes required to implement a taxation. This
drastically narrowed the margin of error in the discerning of the will of the people. Because of
this, the U.S. Constitution was endowed with an “Origination Clause,” declaring that all bills
having to do with taxation had to originate in the House of Representatives, the most populous
delegation of openly elected officials in the federal government. This was done purposefully,
since the House of Representatives was the closest to the general population, having homes in
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the smaller districts and having more contact with their constituents than their less numerous
counterparts, the Senate. Since the inception of the House, the trend has been that of a separation
from the people, holding no benefit to the people, instead demonstrating a trend toward
corruption and indifference to the plight of their constituents, with the wiles of the special
interest lobbyists deafening their ears to the appeals of their people. They have become less
representatives and more figureheads and town criers, who march to the beat of the executive
branch’s drum, merely parroting the rhetoric they have been paid to endorse. Truly, the gift
blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous. (Exodus 23:4) With this in mind, we
look to the technological advances the once free market enterprise has afforded us. The ability to
converse with people around the country, as well as around the world, is available to those in
even the poorest of nations. Why then not return the government of the people, by the people,
and for the people back to the people? Both the Senate and the House of Representatives could
be facilitated by a technological solution, leaving them among their own constituents, thus
bridging the culture gap between Washington, D.C. and Mainstreet, America. This was largely
the desire of our founding fathers, since they sought to decentralize power in order to more
effectively rule the people. The Declaration of Independence states that the government only has
the authority to rule based on the consent of the governed. With the ability to realize the
founders’ dream more fully, in the decentralization of power to the point of governance, the
people, why would we not fulfill this impetus with action? The implementation of modern
technology to decentralize the elected members of the U.S. Congress would benefit the elected
officials, the individual states, the local constituents, local state economic infrastructure, and the
American public at large.
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Decentralization is not a new idea. In fact, we can easily trace it back to at least the
1700s when our own government used it to create our republic. In all actuality, it can be traced
back to the time of Moses, where Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, saw the toll the centralized
approach of governance was taking on his son-in-law. In Exodus 18, Jethro admonished Moses
to decentralize the burden of responsibility for the judgment of the people, but only if God
approved (vs 23). This example is a succinct illustration of the very definition of
decentralization. While we are on the topic of definitions, the 11th Edition of the Merriam-
Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines decentralization as follows: 1) the dispersion or
distribution of functions and powers; specif: the delegation of power from a central authority to
regional and local authorities 2) the redistribution of population and industry from urban centers
to outlying areas. First, let us explore the details of these two definitions to get a better
understanding of this concept, just as we would exegete out a verse in an expository message to
gain a better understanding of what is truly meant by the syntax and grammar in a scriptural
passage.
This definition gives us a two-fold example of the effects of decentralization in both a
legislative facet and an economic facet, or we could basically add financial aspects to them both,
since both of these would result in the redistribution of finances to the respective areas in which
this was accomplished. The first definition refers to the governance of an area, signified by the
word “powers.” This could refer to the legislative process, judicial decisions, or even the
entrusting of executive powers, such as those invested in a state governor for circumstances
requiring immediate action like disaster relief, public defense, and stay of executions granted
based on merit. This concept of decentralization is built upon the dispersion or distribution of
these powers. The reason this is such an attractive concept was voiced by Aristotle when he
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said, “The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water
which is less easily corrupted than a little.” Power is not the only facet of governance mentioned
in the first definition. It also mentions the functions delineated to those powers. Now in our
society, we have several governmental tiers represented in local government. We have the
federal, the state, the county, and the municipal areas of governance. Just as a doctor with a
stethoscope can hear your heart better the closer he gets, the closer government is to the level of
the people, the better they can serve their constituents.
The second definition is very similar, and rightfully so, since it is defining the same
term. The second has a different perspective with which to drive the point home. This definition
has more to do with tangible assets as opposed to the intangible resources of power and function.
The specific tangibles represented here are people, or as the definition puts it “population,” and
industry, which is the natural progression of placing population in an area. Industry is the goods
and services that would naturally be demanded by the influx or redistribution of groups or
masses of people. If you look at this word in light of both of these definitions, they are
advocating a dispersion of power, the utility of wielding that power, manpower, and the
resources needed for the manpower. This is a pretty comprehensive idea in just the definition of
a single word, but that is exactly what the founding fathers intended. They believed that too
much power in too few hands would spontaneously breed corruption, greed, and all the other
vices we denigrate as people. Thomas Jefferson mimicked this premise when he said,
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with
power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
With this definition in mind, there are several different arenas in which decentralization
would have an affect. The first of these arenas would be the most obvious realm of politics.
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Imagine a world in which the leaders of a community were unaffected by the members of other
political communities, causing them to remain true to the people which they have sworn an oath,
to uphold their interests and not squander the people’s faith in their leadership and representative
capabilities. How many politicians who started out as honest, well-meaning delegates have been
caught by the mudslinging of other party members and thrust into conflicts they had no personal
stake in at the expense of their integrity? How many associations have tainted their personal
reputation, merely because the corruptness of one drives them to seek others’ culpability?
The second capacity in which decentralization would influence is similar to politics, but
is more concerned with its function, administration. When we look to a representative who is
able to meet the needs of the communities and families they exemplify, do we seek to choose
someone who is from outside the area to plead our causes? In the same fashion, would we
entrust the facilitation of our needs to someone who has no idea what those needs are, let alone
how to mitigate those obstacles effectively? This would also require the decentralization of the
fiscal office. Both the political and the administrative facets rely on the monetary means with
which to finance the functions and policies. There have been many legislative acts that have
been rendered moot by the merely defunding of the measure by the House Appropriations
Committee. This is the same effect decentralization of politics and administration would have
without the fiscal facets being involved. This allows us to understand the requisition of
autonomy in the fullest sense, since any restrictions placed upon the complete and utter control
of any of these assets would not truly be decentralized.
Following financial decentralization, the next in the progression would in the economic
sector. As the politics and administrative processes are funded, naturally more money is
dispersed bringing more economic growth to local societies (Akai and Sakata).
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Finally, the last area to be decentralized would be the environmental aspects of the
region. Without the ability to utilize the natural resources God has given, the decentralization
process would be short lived. This is easily demonstrated by the restrictive regulations that have
been foisted upon American workers, costing billions of dollars in revenue, many people’s jobs,
and adding insult to injury, costing the local governance money by placing those that were
working and generating revenues on welfare, drawing from the system instead of contributing
towards it.
All of these allegations being put forward mean nothing and amount to nothing if the
problem cannot be mitigated, or resolved, by a vehicle capable of enacting this change. As
mentioned above, our technological advances allow this type of vehicle to be employed. The
only reason centralized government was necessary was the remoteness of the governing
assemblies and their inability to communicate effectively with the voting process, requiring a
dual residence of many of the delegates, but this is no longer the case. Many corporations, some
of which are more complex entities than our Congress, utilize a series of systems that allow them
internal security, a necessity due to industrial espionage, with the ability to access the vast
consumer base outside that internal network. These are called intranets and extranets. The
prefixes state largely to what the scope of these are referring, but to present it plainly removes all
confusion and possibility of miscommunication. Intranets are a network of informational
systems that are linked within a limited number of authorized users. This is something a
company uses to transmit data from one individual within an organization to another without the
possibility of intercept by a competitor. It requires internal monitoring by an internal regulatory
mechanism. These systems are closed systems, much like a closed circuit camera is not privy to
those outside of the room in which the monitors sit for that specific entity. This also allows for a
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secure connection between partners within the organization as they discuss details candidly,
preventing account hacking and other ill-conceived notions commonly used to rob someone of
some type of information (Mitchell). The most enticing feature of this kind of closed system is
the ability to encrypt the data sent outside the organization, allowing for a greater degree of
success and less intercept from rival entities (Goldreich). Beyond that, there is the counterpart to
intranets, which are also required in any competitive environment, an extranet. The extranet is a
network that operates outside of the bounds of the organization’s intranet system, which allows
for information to be distributed to individuals outside the sphere of the organization. This
application is seen in the utilization of the World Wide Web, or the internet as we know it now.
The other technological advance that would need to be implemented would be video
teleconferencing. Programs such as Yahoo! chat and Skype have limited capabilities, but there
are other companies, who focus on this aspect for the purpose of marketing it to corporate
organizations, who would benefit from the gain in revenue from not having to arrange as many
travel arrangements, due to the immediacy and clarity with which they can communicate directly
with commercial partners. One such company is called TrueConf. This software interface is
specifically designed for large group meetings and is even capable of carrying this on across
various intranets and extranets, giving a variety of applications and places in which meetings can
be conducted, streamlining schedules and adding flexibility to itineraries for delegates across the
board. If you know anything about Congress, dialogue is an integral part of the legislative
process. TrueConf would retain the ability of delegates to wax eloquent as well as the all-
important audibility of the resulting votes (IT News Today). Beyond the ability to communicate
with their colleagues, the ability of the public to hear these speeches and react to the mindsets
revealed in the demagoguery could also be broadcasted to external decrypting repeater towers.
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This retains the ability of the people to engage their government and its agents with a knowledge
of proceedings and accuracy of issues at hand. Decentralization does not have to mean
disinformation.
The benefits of decentralization are far-reaching, stretching, as we have stated, from the
delegates to the very place with which they need to reconnect, Mainstreet, America. Discussion
on these benefits will start with the envoys themselves, then follow in logical progression to the
states that sent them; the local constituents they represent; and finally, to the general populace
extending beyond that of the respective districts of America at large. As already stated, the first
benefit of this alteration to our congressional organization would be to our state emissaries. The
initial impact of this concept would allow the senators and representatives to gain a sense of
stabilization. The stabilization of not having to traverse the continent, often stripped of their
families, to attend ambiguous federal functions. Another aspect beneficial would be the loss of
focus on Washington, D.C. as a means to eliminate the entire hierarchal structure of the United
States with the detonation of a “misplaced” Russian “dirty bomb” or any one of several nuclear
devices that have been reported missing in the international community. Besides the thought of
terrorism, any other attacks could be thwarted by the locals, who are more likely to notice when
something is wrong in Hometown, America than some random federal official, who is a
transplant. These two senses of stabilization and safety should be all that is required to prompt
the senators and representatives to clamor for the initiation of these measures. Experience
teaches us that there is no true rest in an environment where safety and the concerns of one’s
family weigh heavily on a person. This lack of rest leads to fatigue, which leads to bad decisions
that have repercussions throughout the rest of his or her career and the rest of the existence of
this once great State of the Union.
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The second group to prosper as a result of these measures would be the very instruments
of the delegate’s election. These people obviously support his or her administration and as such
are directly responsible for their rise to power. Furthermore, since they are the means to the
power, it would stand to reason they entrust him or her because they believe it is of the greatest
benefit, or in many cases the least harm, to them. The first avenue in which benefits would be
seen through the return of the delegate to their own districts would be the increase in the demand
for employment. Quite honestly, the demands for a staff to properly inform and assist one of
these men and women is considerably large. There are several staffs required to keep the reps
abreast of all the matters in which they are participating. Staffs are required for committees;
professional applications, where they draft legislation, write committee reports, plan hearings
and mark-ups, provide support to Members during committee sessions, floor debate, and
conference negotiations; and administrative functions, who handle all the logistics for hearings
and other committee meetings, maintain committee records, administer the committee's funds,
distribute documents, schedule and work with witnesses, answer mail and phone inquiries from
the public (C-SPAN). In that realm alone, imagine how much could be added to the education
on locals by the locals being part of the process, not to mention how many of our own local
college graduates could serve in a capacity that would most benefit their community and
themselves, since they would definitely have a vested interested in local affairs. In fact, the
impetus of locals to champion their own causes is a “no brainer,” since human nature drives us to
seek our own benefit. Even those in the labyrinth of bureaucracy, known as Washington, D.C.
make their own local agendas known to the incoming White House administrations (Preston).
Beyond the administrative process lies the physical security teams and measures that would be
employed as result. Specialized law enforcement and military tactical training would be taught
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to local agencies, who would already be subsidized by local taxes already in place. This could
also make greater use of the National Guard forces training in the immediate vicinity, using tried
and true methods already being implemented on the battlefield (Ambinder). The strengthening
of the militias under state control is the strengthening of America’s military prowess as a whole,
much like the strengthening of a foundation makes the entire structure more sound. This
utilization of local security assets would also foster a sense of rapport between the agencies that
protect their representative and the citizens, since they would be one and the same (Services).
This increase in local earnings would also result in a boost in tax revenues at the local level,
allowing taxes to be lowered, since there would be a wider taxable base. This means that
because more people are earning money, more taxes could be collected. Because more taxes are
collected, a lower tax rate would be required to reach the same amount of revenue. Lower taxes
are a sure thing to improve your standing with your voter base. This increase in the revenues
gained through taxation would fill the coffers that provide the funding for improvements in the
community. This is another mechanism that increases employment opportunities as contracts are
written with local contractors to facilitate the completions of these projects. This upswing in the
number of jobs is sure to make the unemployment rate plummet, meaning fewer individuals and
families on welfare, reducing the drain on the local treasury, resulting in even more projects
being able to be funded (Rector). This one aspect of benefit would create a chain reaction of
exponential proportions if implemented, and this is only speaking of a single community. What
would the implications be for an expanded landscape on the county and district levels?
With all of the benefits described above, these are not yet the end of the benefits to locals.
The fact of the representative’s proximity to the voters has its own benefit. First, people trust
local officials more than if they were far removed from them as they are now (Rahm and
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Rudolph). Just as it is easier to solicit a response from someone close to you than from someone
that is distant, as you have no doubt experienced if you have attempted to contact the corporate
level of an insurance company, it is easier to gain a response from a local representative that is
truly local. The reasons for this are the same as any other person. The closer in proximity one
is, the more they are likely to address any situations at hand. The proverb “out of sight, out of
mind” comes to mind. The result of this frequency of exposure to constituents tends to foster a
heightened sense of accountability to their voter component. This heightened sense of
accountability, or responsibility, makes them more proactive in tackling local concerns, resulting
from the greater amount of public awareness, since they live in and among the community
(Preston). This level of culpability tends to make one more conscious of their own behavior and
actions, inclining them to transparency and scrupulous behavior rather than corruption. This
specific point would reduce lobbying drastically, since the very premise of lobbying is that of
back room deals and huge payouts to solicit endorsements for endeavors that one would not
normally endorse. Besides that, the staff of lobbying firms would have to increase greatly,
requiring more money to the lobbyists and less kickback to those who are targeted by the
solicitors. This alone would demoralize the lobbying efforts of many of the special interest
groups. A third benefit to the locals, and the representative as well, would be the great amount
of satisfaction on the part of the voter base. With the demand of travel being greatly reduced, the
envoy could foster relationships with their man or woman of choice (Presentation Testing Inc.;
The Congressional Institute). With this ease of communication between the incumbent and his
voter block and less travel time, public events are easier to attend, giving the rep more face time
and rapport with the people, translating to a longer tenure in office unless otherwise legislated
shorter. Finally, closer proximity of emissaries translates to less expenditure by the state they are
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employed in (Brudnick), once again reverting back into the local economy. With less travel, less
money is spent flying to and from events, not to mention the security details required to secure
them. There is also the relegation to only one residence. It does not take a genius to see that
paying for one house instead of two results in a higher quality of life for the rep and his family,
as well as a lower expenditure on the part of the people. This would once again translate into
more local and state improvement projects, such as roads, schools, grants, and conservation
programs.
Benefits of the people would obviously translate into that of the individual states as well,
since the people are the very building blocks of the towns, counties, and districts that make up
the states themselves. The benefits of the people are magnified at the state level. As stated
already, more jobs at the local level would exponentially be revealed in the amount of taxes
collected by the state government, in addition to the already benefited municipal and county
treasuries. Once more, this would require less taxation upon the general populace, but still allow
for the implementation of more employment (Moore). These factors attract emigrants from other
states boosting the need for construction, broadening the amount of taxable residents even
further. Consumed with the resultant bloom of infrastructure, quality of life in the state as a
whole will noticeably skyrocket. These residual effects are only secondary to the effect achieved
by inserting a representative into a particular community. The requisite applications of
technology and the infrastructure required to facilitate it would also be inserted, causing a sudden
technological upgrade in the local area. Beside the fact of residual improvements being made,
the representatives that live in a local community are more apt to vote for additional
improvements to be made from grants at the state and federal level. These comprehensive
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updates also attract businesses to the area, who provide tax revenue, additional business being
conducted, and the reclaiming of fallow real estate back to usefulness.
The final piece of the puzzle to understanding the benefit of decentralization is how it
will benefit the American public at large. The first three words of the U.S. Constitution are “We
the People…” This was understood to mean that the people, not the representatives, had the final
word as to whether a legislative act would remain viable. This was because regardless of the
funding provided by Congress, the implementation of these measures was relegated to the
enforcers at the local level. As things stand now, we have devolved, governmentally speaking,
with ambiguous federal grants of new police cars and obsolete military grade armaments
securing the local police forces’ allegiance to the federal government instead of the people they
were meant to protect and serve. This is totalitarianism at its worst. Decentralization would
return us to the balance between the old Federalists and anti-Federalists of the 1780s. States and
more properly, their constituents would regain the ability to affect their own situation, because
just as our third president, Thomas Jefferson stated, “A government big enough to give you
everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." The
people did not require the federal government, the federal government relied on the existence of
the people, for the funding of their armies, the payment of the delegates, the sending of
ambassadors to France. Why does the federal government think the people need them now?
Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, had this to say, in his first inaugural address, about the
so-called importance of the government in the lives of the people, “…government is not the
solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to
believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an
elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is
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capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All
of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.” This return of delegates to their
home districts and states would alleviate the funds being used there, now funding by the home
state would allow for the elimination of taxes for those purposes, requiring less money being
siphoned from the states and back into the states. This would give states a greater autonomy,
which is granted by the Constitution under the 10th amendment, but is seldom enforced by the
states and seldom adhered to by the executive branch. They will have cut the umbilical cords to
the federal system, since the extra money gained by increase in jobs and less money being paid
out will render the grants by the federal system moot, since the states will have less need for
these grants. They will be no more holden to stipulations attached to these grants, granting the
federal system less oversight and control over the states. There will be less bureaucratic “red
tape” to go through with the new found autonomy at the state level, allowing the states to rule
themselves and make empirical decisions on what goes on in their territory. Decentralization
would continue to render the people more powerful by funneling more of the money to the home
districts, which will be backed by the reps, who live in the districts, instead of the current
propensity to siphon it into Washington, D.C. Furthermore, lobbying will be all but debilitated,
since the former advantage of centralization would be gone. This would require lobbying offices
at least in every state, if not in every district, racking up billions of dollars in travel and
representation without even considering the “kickbacks” we mentioned above. The power of
the lobby would be much diminished simply by the war waged on their pocket books (Bardhan
and Mookherjee), leaving much of the congressional system untouched by the corruption that is
inherent in the practices involved (Fagan). The representative’s lack of contact with other
delegates will also allow them to remain true to the causes which they championed, backed by
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the people they swore an oath to represent. This would result in a greater realization of
campaign trail integrity across the board, since one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. For
those who choose to take a stroll down the darksome path, the disenfranchised voter base will
more readily initiate referendums, recalls, and initiatives (Underhill), showing the disdain for
even the slightest skewing of representation, because when the people are ill represented, that by
definition is taxation without representation. The more visible a delegate is to their district, the
more the people will be proactive, with public awareness, which is a safeguard against corruption
on the official’s part, much like a guilty conscience to that of our own sin nature. The increase in
jobs allows for more spending on the part of the citizens, and the less taxes that have to be
collected, the more people tend to spend. As stated above, the goal is to return the people to their
rightful place and the federal government to its place of obscurity. The autonomy afforded
communities when the people are allowed to govern themselves, allowing states, districts,
counties, and municipalities to choose for themselves on issues that should not even be a
questions, like gun control, school reform, environmental sanctions, etc.
Decentralization has a vast array of benefits, as seen by the original design of our once
great State of the Union. This failure on the part of the American populace is reversible, to the
benefit of all involved. Have we had enough of the lies and games of the federal government
trying to legislate us into safety? Life is not safe! The federal government has no control of the
death of anyone. The Bible makes it clear in Hebrews 9:27 that God has set an appointment for
our death and judgment. Jethro had the right idea, this is clear because God obviously
sanctioned it. Let’s be wise and decentralize.
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