By Nathan Barton

Mama Liberty sent this story and comment to me the other morning: As Vladimir Putin steals the Russian election, our leaders are shamefully silent.
She wrote: Now, wait just a cotton pickin’ minute here. Washington DC about boiled over with the mere suggestion that Russia “influenced” the US elections… but some seem to think it is perfectly proper to influence an election in Russia? The thing that comes to my mind is that there are probably millions of people like me who see no difference at all between any politicians, anywhere, and wouldn’t “vote” for any of them.

Do I hear an “amen” from the crowd?

Now I, like many others, have been hearing all this accusation about meddling in elections back and forth. My early morning newsfeed included this story (Las Vegas Review Journal) reporting that George W Bush is certain that Russia interfered with the 2016 Presidential election – with the story insinuating that this was yet another attack on Trump by the Bush Family. (Actually, based on that memo and other reports, it could also be that he believes that Russians aided the CLINTON Campaign in trying to interfere with the election.)

But whether it was Republicans or Democrats that were cats’ paws of the Russians, just as whether or not it is GOP or Dems that “corrupted” and “politicized” (or want to politicize) the FBI, DOJ, DEA, and no doubt DARPA and NTSB, they BOTH agree that the good old FedGov can do whatever it wants, even while attacking OTHER nations and OTHER governments, often for doing the exact same thing.

This is, of course nothing new. The FedGov has been doing this since about the time the ink was still drying on the Constitution.

But it is getting more and more disgusting to people like Mama Liberty and I. What can we do?

Ultimately, we need to slay this monster called government. Not as a matter of revenge or punishment, but as a matter of self-defense. No more than we have any choice about what to do with a rabid dog, we cannot live any longer with it and the threat it poses, not just to liberty, but to life.

It is too late to reform it – as a correspondent recently pointed out about government-run, tax-funded “public” schools, it cannot be reformed. In the past it was, at very best, an almost-intolerable evil, but now, we can no longer tolerate it.

That is, of course, not going to happen anytime soon, unless something massive triggers it – and then it might happen overnight. As it did in France, in Russia (twice now), or in long and bloody struggle as it did in England and so many other places.

So in the meantime, we need to make it clear to DC that the FedGov has no more legitimate right OR authority to meddle in elections in Russia than they do in elections for student body president in Rapid City Christian High School. And that politicians who think we elected them to be the moral and political referees of the world are wrong.

We need to tell and teach people that the Golden Rule and the Zero Aggression Principle are just as applicable to DC (and to Pierre or Cheyenne) as they are to each one of us individually. That patriotism (love of county, love of land) no more means blind slavish obedience or acceptance than our love for a family member can allow us to overlook their being a murderer or a thief.

But there is more than just speaking and teaching and writing.

Until WE accept and act every day that we understand and accept responsibility and limits on our actions, we will see that society and government get worse and worse. Until we (as individuals, and Americans) stop being hypocrites, matters will go downhill. And until we make it clear to the people in DC that we are no longer going to tolerate their interference, NOT just overseas but right here in our own homes and lives, they will keep on doing it.

The choice is ours.