The principle of self-government is not confined to its practice in our republic(s), wherein we as citizens delegate specific areas of authority to our fellow citizens.

No, self-government involves much more, not the least of which is the government of self. In our infinite environs, we direct, we influence and regulate, and even control and restrain both ourselves and those around us. We guide ourselves by an endless variety of written or traditional or self-evident systems of fundamental principles and beliefs, and by our conscience. As we parent and grandparent, as we minister, as we employ and administer, as we barter, as we coach and mentor, as we live we self-govern.

An embodiment of the blessings of liberty, we are an inestimable array of self-governments. We are the conductors of our own symphonies, even as we play in the band.

Government, as it is known, is a necessary but particular extension of our natural right to self-government, an unambiguous device. Whatever function it assumes beyond its particulars is nothing more than a pretentious man, inhabiting our homes, hovering over our places of worship, or implanting our fields of commerce, solely purposed with subjugating our will for his own, substituting self-government for an other-government, his arbitrary design.

We govern ourselves, or cease to be ourselves. We consent to our various governments, or we submit to them, and as we tolerate encroachments on any other, we invite it on ourselves.

~ my God is the governor of my soul, my soul then governs my heart, which feeds the mind that governs my industry. this, is the start. ~tdv

updated 01.27