Sheep.

By in large, people are sheep. You’re reminded of a scene from the 1967 film version of Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy’s brilliant novel. On a high pasture bluff overlooking the sea, a crazed sheepdog drives his master’s flock toward the edge of a cliff. The bellwether ram blindly gallops for all he’s worth until he leaves solid ground, taking his fatal leap. Behind him, every last one of his extended family follows suit — every last one dashed on the jagged rocks, hundreds of feet below. Not one of them hesitated. Not one flinched. Not one ewe. Not one lamb. Not one wether. Not one bullock. Not one asked Speedy McDuff where in blazes he was going, or why. Not one turned to her cousin and shrieked, “Bleat . . .baa . . .maa . . . bleat . . . ” (Translation — “Blimey, Matilda, where’s the bloody fire?”). Staring pointblank at eternity, they behaved exactly like — well — like sheep. Yes, you will say these are creatures without cognitive skills. You can’t judge them anymore than you can judge a toddler who plays with matches. But, given centuries of historical evidence, you do have ample reason to judge adult human sheep. These are people, human beings who march with the mob. Intoxicated, the German sheep followed the demonic tirades of a certified Nazi psychopath. Millions of German, Polish and Czech sheep  shuffled submissively onto boxcars and into death camps. Under the boots of kings and emperors, generations of peasants and slaves dutifully accepted their subservient station in life and obediently bowed to the bidding of their privileged betters. If history has proven only one thing, it is that genocide and sheep were made for each other. Thankfully, by the grace of God, in the mid-to-late 18th century, a handful of men decided to be, in the words of Peter Finch (aka, Howard Beale), “mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” A handful of men decided that the days of acting as sheep were over. Against all odds, they not only sent King George packing, but also gave future generations a Gift for The Ages — an immaculate political doctrine dedicated to the utterly preposterous idea of Individual Freedom. With the Declaration of independence as a belief code, they set about crafting a Charter between Governments and the People. Strip away all the “whereof’s” and “whereafter’s” and what you have left is a set of rules that have a single, all-powerful purpose — to limit the centralized “Federal” Government to a very narrow authority and jurisdiction — and to give utmost sovereignty to the States. But it so happened these gents were truly educated — in the ways of the world, in history, and in the Nature of Man. They didn’t trust in future lawmakers’ fealty to The Constitution. These Founders — in fact — predicted that the Federal Government would gradually overstep its jurisdiction and would creep into outright tyranny — if left unchecked. And the people — the sheep — would sit comfortably on the sidelines to observe their freedoms erode like the ever shifting banks of an ancient river. Welcome to the United States of America, circa 2017. The sheep are indeed milling about. You see the danger. You whine about it. You sit in groups, state the obvious, chew your cud and wait for the next election. But nothing changes. The Fed grows larger. The dependent States grow weaker. The Founders predicted it — but they gave you — the sheep — the remedy to stop the runaway Federal train. In their genius, they created Article V of the Constitution — that gives the States the supreme, inviolable power to not only stop the train, but also to detach most of its cars. You must ask why every State in the Union has not already called for A Convention of States. Why? You must ask why any thinking person — any average person, any official lawmaker — would oppose this exceptional remedy to end the Federal corruption and madness, and restore the balances of power. You ask the “why” question, knowing all along that you don’t want to hear the answer. You have to face it. You have an unstoppable Federal train because the people either want to ride that train or they just don’t care. You see, by in large, sad to say, the people are sheep.

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