February is a strange month. It comes in the middle of winter, but in Southern California we really don't have a winter.  February is a quiet month for business. It's just the beginning of the new year after taking a break in December and January. March gets us into Spring, which is a time for business and social renewal. We start thinking about things like marriage and summer vacation and business. This year is going to be an interesting change from the ordinary.

This year, we have begun a process of real change in our society functions and how our government will play its part in our future. We appear to have elected an illegal alien as our president, and no one seems to interested or concerned.

We have a new Secretary of State, who is technically unqualified to hold that office, but it appears that no one seems to care or have any concern.

The question isn't of personal capability or talent. The question is whether or not we have people holding the dreadful powers of government who will hold to the rules that we have established for their conduct.

For anyone who has forgotten or perhaps never knew the purpose of our government, let me take a moment to remind everyone of the purpose and function of government in this country. First, our government is unlike any other government in the world. The reason for that rather bold statement is that you and I, the citizens of our states, of our union of states provide both the purpose and the authority for the functions of our government. Our governments, federal and state, have no inherent powers and our representatives and officials are prohibited from expanding the powers we have delegated for the purpose of governing.

In 1776, we declared that we were free, that our rights are inherent in our existence and that if we were to create a government, that the purpose of that government would be to preserve our inherent and individual rights and to protect our liberty to freely exercise those rights. We also pointed out that if our government did not serve its intended purpose that we possessed the duty change it or end it or replace it as we might choose, when we might choose, not when the government, not when the people in government, not when our representatives or officials or armies might choose.

We have forgotten our purpose for government. We have allowed the people we entrust with the powers of government to turn our powers into a very effective machine which dominates every moment of our life and every facet of our daily conduct. We are no longer free. Our rights are suppressed. We are no longer self governed. Our authority has flown with our liberty, unguarded, unprotected and unnoticed.

Our prior federal administrations have set the course for our current journey into troubled waters. This new administration has embarked our ship of state with us chained as cargo. Our slavery today is fundamentally no different than black slavery prior to the Civil War in 1865. Now as then, every aspect of our slaving life, except for the most innocuous and valueless are controlled by people who have little respect for our right and liberty to conduct our lives as we please. Lip service is given to our traditional thoughts of rights and liberty. Yes, we may speak freely, but only among ourselves in private. To speak freely in public is to risk being set upon by thugs and goons and punished for saying the wrong things, in the wrong places, at the wrong times. To be armed in self-defense is a protected crime. We may only be armed if we have paid for the privilege and submitted to the embarrassments of obtaining permission.  We may travel by car, by bus, by train, by airplane only if we submit to asking for permission or in the company of someone who has asked for permission in our place.

Until now, these infringements of our rights and our liberty have been easy to accept. But 2009 begins a period of tightening of our chains and the incremental reduction of the cushions, which separate the harsh cold steel of authoritarian power from the warm and soft flesh and pain of our personal and fragile bodies. 2009 is the year in which we begin our travel from political indifference and administrative abuse to physical abuse, and perhaps political awakening. I hope for all of us that our political awakening precedes our physical abuse. But time is short and growing shorter.

It is a cold, and for some hungry winter. Spring will bring a transition. Summer will show our future and counsel our transition. Good luck.