Albert Camus suggested that it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.

What does this mean? Let's think about it.

First off, I will define "executioner" as not only the one who deprives someone of their life, but also deprives them of their property or liberty. I am not sure how Camus defined it, but that is how I define it.

During the American Revolution, why was there all of this talk about natural rights, rule of law, due process, and liberty and justice for all? It was because of the threat of injustice, the threat of total disregard for life, liberty and happiness, and the total assumption of power as judge, juror and executioner by certain people in power including the King of England. In truth, all mankind was in danger of some kind without the protection of the rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

However, even with these rights stated in our founding document, there have been times when even we as a country, as a people, have not followed them and have been on the side of the executioners. Do you believe that or do you believe that everything ever done in the name of America has been because it was the right thing to do?

One obvious time when we have been on the side of the executioner was the western expansion of our country. Although the 20th century saw the creation of the term genocide, it certainly was not the first time it occurred. Previously is was called the Manifest Destiny. Regardless of the romantic picture we have of the old west, it was a time of great atrocities on both sides resulting in the complete defeat of the Native American people. America and/or many of its citizens stole their lands, confiscated their property, killed literally hundreds of thousands of their people, and took the survivors from the forests and brought them to the western deserts.

You would have thought that it would have ended there - in a less civil time. It is also not my intent to judge our past by today's standards - only today's actions by today's understanding.

Such action however did not end in a time gone by and people today are not much different than they were before. Such is the case with all wars, with all crimes, with all aggression - trying to take that which is not ours - in times past, times present and times surely to come. We still want more and will still do almost anything to get what we want unless we are guided by principles and held in check by the great laws of our land.

It appears as though Barrick gold, now a multi-billion dollar speculator (as opposed to the small gold speculators of yester-year), wishes to continue the base behavior that was an injustice to so many millions from the preceding centuries and take away the land of the Shoshone people in a quest for gold today. This is a case of a multi-national company taking the land from a small Indian tribe for their own interest and the government supporting them in their action. This is not right. You can read more here:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2007/2007-12-06-01.asp

http://www.sacredland.org/endangered_sites_pages/mt_tenabo.html

http://www.foei.org/en/publications/pdfs/Barrick_final_sml.pdf

These are our brothers and sisters - we need them more than we need gold. What side should we be on? The side of the right - in all cases - and the right is not always in a suit and tie, in a robe sitting on a court bench, or an innocent person with a job. The right is that moral compass that always points true - within our hearts. The right is the golden rule which the Master uttered, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them."

Do we truly believe in liberty and Justice for all? I know I do. I hope you do as well. Please write your Representatives in Congress and inform them of this injustice. For a link to find your representative, click here.

Did you ever think that the maybe the Confederates & south, in the Civil War, weren't the rebels but that maybe the rebels were really in the North? I was sitting down tonight pondering over some excellent history that I had recently read as well as the moral groundlessness upon which slavery was built.

At the time of the Declaration of Independence, 25% of the Continental United States was made up of slaves. I do not have the figure, but there was also a large number of Indentured Servants in the colonies at that time. To be conservative, I will say it was only 8%. Combined, 0ne third of our country was in servitude to a master and had nearly no rights - even that basic right of protecting their own lives in many cases. Women were in a similar state with no right to hold property or to have a voice in their government. Out of this situation emerged for the first time a document, penned by a Representative of the People and assented to unanimously by the Continental Congress of the United States of America, alleging certain unalienable rights - those of Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness.

Sadly, those rights initially were only granted to land holding white men since not even a free black or Indian could enjoy those rights. For all of the rest, the world wasn't ready for the realization of what the enjoyment of those rights for all meant and thus it was written into law - even within our own constitution when it deemed all other non-free persons to be only three-fifths of a person. At that time, this notion of the master and the servant was deeply entrenched in our culture and stemmed all the way to Jamestown & the first colonists.

However, something changed - the North. They began to move away from this notion of servant and master, oppressor and oppressed. They heard the pleas of their fellow humans and organized the abolitionist movement as well as Women’s Suffrage. The people in the North began to rebel against the old order and to form a new one founded on the principles penned and ascribed to decades earlier. They began to rebel against the old order of States Rights and the Confederation under the old Articles. They began to truly form a more perfect Union.

This change, this rebellion against the old order & the way things were, finally encroached too much on the South who were determined not to change but to keep the status quo. When the Northern rebellion against the status quo became so powerful that America elected a president from the abolitionist Republican Party – it was time to fight back and to defend that which was their own – their history, their heritage, what they viewed to be their property and their way of life.

No, the south didn’t rebel and sadly that was the problem. The North did and thank God they did so that in very deed the blessings of our more perfect union and the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness could be more fully enjoyed by more of God’s children.

I believe in freedom and in its boundaries. When another person's freedom infringes on the freedom and rights of others, they have exercised their freedom in an unjust fashion. Such an exercise becomes a crime.

Regarding the boundaries of free exercise, I would like you to consider part of the original draft of the Bill of Rights for Pennsylvania's first Constitution. In that first draft it read:

"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."

Is that true? Does the holding of an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals create a danger and destroy the common happiness of mankind? This isn't a question you should answer with your knee jerk as you may be inclined to do.

As I look in my minds eye at the vast expanse of humanity around the world, and knowing that the majority of wealth is owned by a minority of the earth's population, and knowing that wars are generally waged over wealth (i.e., gold, land, resources) and to get more of it either because the poor don't have it or the rich want more of it, and whereas wars cause so much misery to the people involved, and knowing that the lack of opportunities afforded to so many around the world is a factor in crime, social ills, disease and death, I can see the danger and destruction that the incredibly disproportionate distribution of wealth can create.

Does therefore the endless accumulation of wealth infringe on the rights of others? It may. It may cause people to be pressed into war who have no true interest in it. It may push others into poverty. It may keep people from basic services. It may cause so many of the ills we see and hear around us and in our world.

The endless accumulation of wealth was never meant to be the American Dream as so many think it is. The American Dream was about Freedom, Liberty, Justice, & the protection of Natural Rights. Let us never forget what our country was and should be really about - Liberty & Justice for all. We as a Nation have never been perfect at that but we have gotten better as we have looked to our foundation - the principles the founders aspired to. That foundation has continued to transform the way we have built & changed our society since 1776.

May Liberty and Justice for all continue to form how we look at the true American Dream versus the fraud so that our American home, and therefore our world home, can be one of freedom, justice and protection of natural rights for all mankind. And may each one of us consider again the question "Does the holding of an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals create a danger and destroy the common happiness of mankind?" and then live and act accordingly.