OPINION:
Small business owners Theslet Benoir and Clemene Bastien just learned from court documents that the Parksley, Virginia, town officials who closed down their food truck did so in large part because the couple spoke to the media in negative terms about the local government ordinance that prohibited their food service operation.
Yet another example of government officials run amok on arrogance, pride and power.
The more Americans have to ask their elected leaders for permissions, the more Americans are ceding their liberties, even their rights, to elected leaders. It’s getting so Americans aren’t even sure what’s a right versus privilege; what’s rightful and proper for the government to control versus what never should be in the hands of government to decide at all.
This is the fuzzy area where government grows — not just in power, but in hubris.
From Institute for Justice, about the lawsuit Benoir and Bastien are now waging: “In the [court] documents — which were released after town officials mistakenly waived attorney-client privilege — [the town officials] admit that the only reason Theslet and Clemene’s food truck is not currently open is because the town was upset that they spoke with media and that their attorneys at the Institute for Justice helped them gain more media attention. The town attorney also admits in the documents that the town’s old food truck ban was ‘unconstitutional.’”
Step out of line, and politicians will punish.
How is this service to the people?
Not only do citizens pay the salaries of those they elect to serve. But also, the very foundations of America’s government require the elected to serve, not rule. It comes down to this: either the government recognizes God-given liberties and freedoms, or the government does not. And if government does not, then the entire system of God-given — as put forth in the Declaration of Independence, in the part where “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” that humans “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” — that whole system falls apart, and what’s left standing is a concept of government-granted; government-granted rights; government-granted liberties. Government decides who gets to do what; citizens nod and smile and say thank you for the rights and privileges they are granted by their government overlords.
This is what happens in a country where political leaders are not constrained by an awareness of a higher power. They move to become that higher power. They believe they are that higher power. And they then act as if they are due some sort of worship from those they are supposedly, and in actuality, in office to represent and serve.
“American’s Founding Fathers, all of whom had studied the Bible as an essential part of the classical education, believed that moral and spiritual virtues were necessary for good men to establish good government. They believe that the government should be entrusted with limited powers, with these powers determined by the people through their elected representatives, rather than with unelected governors who used force to obtain security for the people, but at the expense of the people’s liberty. And they believed that government existed to secure the rights of the people rather than to ensure the long-term viability of the state,” Constituting America wrote.
A body of government, whether federal, state or local, that does not recognize the right of the individual over the right of the state is not governing in a manner consistent with American principles. And politicians who think they have the right to punish citizens for disobedience for actions other than crimes are not politicking in a manner consistent with biblical values.
Theslet Benoir and Clemene Bastien may not know it, but they’re not just fighting for the right to run their food truck operation. They’re fighting on behalf of all Americans to be free from overburdening and over-the-top arrogant governing officials. They’re fighting for God-given liberties and rights for the individual.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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