It’s time for a Great Reset

But not the kind proposed by the WEF

Anyone at least 30 years old has memory of owning some electronic device that had a pinhole in the back labeled “RESET” into which a pin or paperclip was to be inserted so the unit could be reset when experiencing a problem. Everyone, both old and young, who has seen a cellular phone, also is familiar with the RESET function whereby all data and custom settings can be removed from the phone returning it to the state in which it came out of the box. The reset returns your toy or tool to a pristine configuration, as originally set by the manufacturer, so that it will once again operate as intended.

Why do these devices require resets? Over time, as a user modifies settings, adds apps, and enables features, things can become corrupt. This is an unfortunate side-effect of allowing user the ability to have such access. While many may possess the knowledge and skill to make modifications without a detrimental impact, most don’t take the time to build the required base knowledge to keep their gadgets in working order. This is why companies have technical support and why reset buttons exist.

The irony in this is that it is an excellent analogy for our country; the same principle applies to our country, to American society itself. The founders created a new Union, one in which liberty was paramount with a new form of government intended to protect that liberty, to protect our rights. As with technology, however, people don’t read the manual or follow the instructions, and things go awry.

According to the Declaration of Independence, what we could consider the quick-start Guide to America, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Apparently, these truths are not as evident to people today as they were to those who established this country. To our founding fathers, the people possess three primary rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights do not come from government - they come from God (our “Creator”). Many prefer to refer to these as “natural rights” because, unlike our forefathers they do not wish to recognize a Supreme Being; however, as says the Declaration, our rights are God-given.

Notice that after life itself, the next most important right we are granted is liberty. Liberty is the foundation of a free society. It is through the exercise of this liberty that we the people grant the government powers - yes, their powers belong to us, not to them; we have simply delegated authority to government. We are the authority over them, not they over us. Failure to read the manual (or, as many abbreviate, RTFM) has led people to believe the government wields that power of their own accord and that we are bound to blind obeisance. This could not be further from the truth. Those in government represent us - they do not rule us. Yet it is this mistaken perspective that has America in free-fall.

The Declaration also provides guidance on when and how to use the reset button:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Declaration of Independence - emphasis mine

There is clear correlation between these words and the current state of the country. We have been suffering evils for quite some time, and those perpetrating the evils certainly have designs for despotism. There have been a long train of abuses and usurpations:

• The federal government has taken for itself powers not granted by the people nor our founding documents

• The federal government has and continues to relieve us of rights specifically outlined by the founders as unalienable

• The federal government continues daily finding new ways trample our liberty

• The federal government has utterly eviscerated the legal justice system

• The federal government has found ways to tax us for which the founders would have thrown a tea party on steroids

• The federal government has for decades abdicated its duty to protect our borders

• The federal government has and continues to put the welfare of foreign states and citizens over those it is sworn to serve

• Those in federal government are getting rich through corruption while watching those they were elected to represent grow poor

• The federal government has grown far beyond its intended scope, purpose, and power based on a proper reading of our founding documents

The list could go on, and that says nothing of the authoritarianism enacted at times by state-level tin-pot tyrants. It is long past time for citizens to press the reset button.

Much like with electronics, a reset does not need to involve rebuilding the wheel. It doesn’t require redesigning the device; it can simply take the shape of wiping the settings and going back to the original, pristine, out-of-the-box state. Wipe out the bureaucracy and repeal all the bureaucratic regulations. Jettison the judiciary. Clean house in Congress. Repeal the majority of laws currently on the books, most of which are unnecessary and/or unconstitutional.

In 1830, during a senatorial campaign speech, Governor Stephen Miller of South Carolina made an oft-cited statement regarding how states can overcome what they perceived to be overstepping or unconstitutional laws authored by the Congress of the U.S. Government - in other words, how to press the reset button. This statement has been passed down, modified, and attributed to others over time (including Frederick Douglas), but the original still stands true:

There are three and only three ways, to reform our congressional legislation. The representative, judicial and belligerent principle alone can be relied on; or as they are more familiarly called, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartouch box. The two first are constitutional, the last revolutionary.

https://ia802301.us.archive.org/28/items/sim_niles-national-register_1830-10-09_39_995/sim_niles-national-register_1830-10-09_39_995.pdf

His premise was that, to overcome illegitimate federal initiatives, the first form of reset is found at the ballot box. Vote out those who ratified the rogue rules. Of course, one must first recognize what laws violate the Constitution and agree that they are misbegotten and that the responsible representatives should be replaced. Unfortunately, far too few know or understand the Constitution well enough to make such an assessment, and most are focused more on what they want from government rather than what is the actual responsibility of government. Thus, garnering enough votes for real change is quite difficult, assuming people believe we are still capable of honest elections.

Next is the jury box. At the time of Miller’s speech, South Carolina was embroiled in a battle with the federal government over tariffs. Miller believed other than at the ballot box, the people could overcome unconstitutional federal legislation through nullification, that the citizens of South Carolina could, by virtue of the sovereignty of the State, legally override the federal government and prevent such veto from being appealed to federal courts, unless the federal legislation was codified in a constitutional amendment. This was the essence of the South Carolina legislature’s “Ordinance of Nullification,” which declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void and unenforceable in the state. Unfortunately, President Andrew Jackson saw things otherwise (despite the clear verbiage of the tenth amendment), believing in the supremacy of the federal government, and considering South Carolina’s ordinance a threat to the Union, he submitted a bill to Congress that would authorize the use of military force to collect tariffs. There is more that followed, and we are all aware of the results of several states attempting to secede from the Union. So much for the jury box.

The last resort, Miller postulated, was the “cartouch box.” Cartouch, or more commonly, cartouche, is a gun cartridge. In other words, Miller was saying, the third and final option for ending federal tyranny lie in a box of ammunition, that it was incumbent upon the people to take up arms in order to overcome domestic despotism. Though it sounds a lot like insurrection, it is precisely that which the founders did in order to break free of bondage to Britain. The federal government perpetually seeks to strip us of this option. So important was the potential for this that the framers of the Declaration saw it not only as a right, but a duty to end a government that refused to remain rightfully submitted to the people.

We are definitely in need of a Great Reset - one that would revert America to its founding principles. I would far rather see the country return to its proper course via the first two options put forth by Miller. The men and women of this Union have seen enough bloodshed in the wars fought on domestic soil. The last thing anyone needs or wants is another civil or revolutionary war. Unfortunately, if the tide doesn’t soon turn, the only reset button left for us may be in the shape of a trigger.