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Guardian?

Guardian?

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Imagine a family inside their home.A mother.A father.Their children.Their property.Their privacy.The walls of that home mark a boundary.Inside that boundary, the family has a right to be secure.Now imagine a stranger comes to the door and says:“I am coming inside.”The father asks:“Why?”The stranger says:“Because I have authority.”Would that answer be enough?Of course not.The next questions would be immediate:Who gave you that authority?What exactly does it allow you to do?Does it apply to this house?Does it apply to this family?What limits are placed upon it?That is how people naturally understand boundaries.Now expand that home.Expand it until the walls become the boundaries of a county.Inside that county are thousands of homes.Thousands of families.Businesses.Farms.Churches.Property.Livelihoods.And people whose liberty, privacy, and property can be taken or restricted.Now consider two different kinds of loss.A burglar breaks into a home and steals property.Everybody understands what happened.Someone crossed a boundary and took something without lawful authority.The sheriff investigates.But suppose the loss happens another way.A man’s property is seized.A woman’s business is closed.A family’s land is restricted.A home is searched.Money is taken.A citizen is detained.This time, the person causing the loss carries a government credential.And suddenly the response changes.“That’s the government.”“Comply now.”“Challenge it later.”“Hire an attorney.”“Take it to court.”Maybe years later someone will determine whether the government actually had the authority to do what it did.But by then, the property may be gone.The business may be destroyed.The money may be spent.The damage may be permanent.That is the distinction we need to understand.When a burglar enters a home, we ask immediately:What gives you the right to be here?When government enters the life of a citizen, too often we presume:They must have the right because they are government.That is backwards.Government has boundaries too.The Constitution establishes them.Law establishes them.Due process establishes them.Every office and every agency possesses only the authority law gives it.And that brings us to the sheriff.The sheriff is not the father of the people.The people are not children.The sheriff is not a king.He is not above the courts.He is not above state law.He is not above federal law.He is under the Constitution just like every other public official.But someone inside the county should be willing to ask questions when coercive governmental power is brought against the people.Not automatically oppose it.Not automatically approve it.Examine it.Who is acting?What are they proposing to do?What authority permits it?Does that authority apply to this person and this property?What process has been followed?What constitutional limitation controls the action?That is not opposition to law.That is insistence upon law.If the authority exists, show it.If jurisdiction exists, establish it.If the citizen has an obligation, identify it.If the process is lawful, demonstrate it.Then proceed according to law.But why should a citizen be required to surrender his property or liberty first and ask those questions years later?Return to the home.A stranger stands at the door and says:“I am taking your property.”The homeowner asks:“Under what authority?”And someone tells him:“Do not interfere. Let him take it. You can sue him later.”That would sound absurd in our homes.Yet that is often how governmental loss is treated.Suffer the loss first.Challenge the authority later.There is a tremendous difference between stopping an unlawful deprivation and attempting to repair one after it has already happened.That is why the sheriff matters.There should be someone in the county willing to ask the questions before the loss becomes irreversible.Before the property is taken.Before the business is destroyed.Before the citizen spends years fighting government alone.The sheriff does not need unlimited power to do that.He needs something far more important:The willingness to ask questions.The courage to demand answers.And the discipline to hold government to the same law government demands everyone else obey.Because the issue is not:Who has the biggest badge?It is not:Which government is more powerful?And it is not:Who claims authority?The question is:Does the authority actually exist?Every home has a boundary.Every county has a boundary.And every county should have a sheriff willing to look any public official—local, state, or federal—in the eye and ask:Who are you?What are you doing?What is your authority?Does it apply here?And are you staying within the law?Because if nobody is willing to ask those questions before the loss occurs, then the constitutional boundary exists only on paper.And a boundary that exists only on paper is no boundary at all. Get full access to YesToHellWith at yestohellwith.substack.com/subscribe
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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.