I wasn’t really planning on doing anything heavy today, but then I realized what day it is, and decided to make note of it. 222 years ago today, the best blueprint for a government ever devised by man was ratified on this day in 1787.After a long, hot summer of contentious debate, the delegates emerged from Independence Hall with a four page guideline for our federal government.

While it may be brief in length, that doesn’t mean it was an easy summer for any of the delegates in attendance. The sauna like temperatures and vicious biting horseflies of Philadelphia sparked the passions of the attending delegates, which often threatened to boil over. Rivalries erupted, as smaller states dismissed the plans favored by the larger states in favor of their own ideas. In the end though,  they emerged with the handwritten document that created a decentralized government,  and guaranteed the rights of the states. Two years later, the Bill of Rights is proposed, adding an extra set of protections for the rights of the individual.

Like any product of compromise, it is somewhat flawed, namely its original provision that slaves shall count as 5/8ths of a person. In spite of these shortcomings though, is a document that is simple and elegant in it’s construction. It has inspired freedom loving individuals around the world to rise up against their oppressors, and, more recently, inspired millions of Americans to stand up against theirs.

People are finally realizing the disparity between what is written in our founding document and what is happening around them. Undeclared wars on foreign soil, invasions of privacy in the name of security, and countless other violations are now the norm, not the exception. The expansion of government into our lives goes on unhindered regardless of what the Bill of Rights has to say. Justifications for this blatant disregard for the Constitution are made in the name of “security”, “the disadvantages”, or my favorite, “the children”. It’s been this way for generations now, and shows no sign of slowing down.

Until now.

Just as the land of the free and the home of the brave was about to disappear from the earth forever, Americans are finally taking a stand against big government. We are seeing more and more of  them shed their apathy, and take a stand at the town hall meetings. Rather than kowtow to the wishes of our modern day royalty, we see them exercise their rights to assemble and freely speak their minds at the tea parties around the country. They are villainized by the mainstream media, insulted by our politicians, and slandered by their political opponents, but yet they continue on with ever growing numbers. They realize this may be Liberty’s last chance, and they are not willing to surrender it without a fight.

Our Founding Fathers may not like the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, but they would be proud of these people nonetheless.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Last weekend, I took my cameras down to DC for the 9/12 March on Washington. I went down there not only to show my support for the movement, but to also capture the truth of what these people are so upset about. If you listen to the left, they’ve been labeled everything from racists to pawns of the insurance industry. Here’s my photographic answers to some of these myths in a blog that is about as unbiased as MSNBC.

Myth number 1: “Tea Party protesters lacking the ability to critically think due to extreme cognitive dissonance, inadequate education, and enslavement to corporate media. “(yes, this is a direct quote from a hatchet job someone posted to Facebook.)

Let’s take a look at the evidence.

The uneducated are always running around quoting Socrates.

She obviously must have read the picture book edition of Atlas Shrugged

I wonder if Keith Olberman even knows who ‘Mugabe’ is?

Myth number 2: The tea party movement is racist.

Myth number 3: Tea party protesters are nothing but Republican operatives, or right wing extremists.

Obviously these two didn’t get the memo from the Republican party.

Nothing says right wing Republican extremist like a Nader supporter.

I don’t think these guys would pass the drug test required for employment at the RNC.

Myth number 4: Tea party protesters are pawns of the insurance industry.

Care to tell that to either of these women?

Myth number 5: The tea party protesters are ANTI-AMERICAN.

This one is probably the most offensive of them all, as it couldn’t be further from the truth. These people aren’t burning American flags, they’re flying them with pride! They took time off from work and traveled away from their families to try and change a nation that they love, and whom many of them fought for.

But let’s say you you’ve seen all these images, and still believe that this is a movement that should be ignored, or maybe even stopped. They are spreading vicious lies about health care reform, and are trying to prevent President Obama from improving the lives of the American people. For you, I end with one last photo. Pay close attention to the background and you might learn something:

And so it begins again. the long abandoned website known as fervor.net experiences another rise from the ashes with me behind the keyboard. To tell you the truth, no one is more surprised than I am to find myself in this position. I mean, in the world of Facebook and Twitter, who really needs another blog anyways, especially one with a loose focus on Libertarian politics? It’s not like there’s a shortage of these things out there, and most of them are better written and more frequently updated than this one.

So why do it? Well, besides being sick of looking at those ugly freaking pictures from the last redesign, I have two simple reasons for bringing fervor.net back to life. The first reason is I need to write more. Writing, like any skill, is one you will lose if you don’t use it. Working in IT like I do, I haven’t had much of an opportunity to write for work in nearly four years, and it shows. I need to bang the rust off of my brain and get back to a steady routine of expressing my thoughts in more than 140 characters, and hopefully this blog will give me the opportunity to do so.

Besides that though, there’s a more important reason behind all of this as well. After eight years of a Republican administration ignoring the Constitution, implementing the Patriot Act, and growing the federal government in the name of ’security’, the Democrats are expanding government ‘for our own good’. They tell us all that we desperately need to reform health care through an even greater presence in the health care industry, and that the cap and trade bill is the only way we can save our planet from global warming. While the excuses used and the parties in power may have changed, the goal remains the same, and that’s a consolidation of power at our expense.

Like most Americans, I remained fairly silent during the Bush years. Yes, I was concerned, and even wrote some pieces very critical of what was going on at the time, but I never really got active. Now though, as the pace towards our demise increases, I find myself unable to ignore that growing pit in my stomach. I cannot sit by and watch as our Constitution is ignored anymore, or that the Bill of Rights is being trampled upon by a federal government that is out of control. The time to let my voice be heard is now. It’s what I should have been doing throughout the Bush Administration, and what I will be doing now and into the future.I may not be able to change anything, but at least I can say I didn’t go down without a fight.

This blog is the story of one man’s attempt at fighting the machine, with a healthy dose of the rest of my life thrown in for good measure. Some of it may be informative or funny, while some of it may just be full of shit. Its up to my readers to sort it all out for themselves.