Federalist #63 (Madison): “So there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.”
Harms of Federal highways are at least:
- Rebuilding 3 known Paths to War
- Taxation without Representation
- Illicit Energy
- Transferring wealth from the Many to the Few
- Creating a very high risk to 2 Civilization Killers
- Climate Change
- Oil Famine
Taxation without Representation
Taxation without Representation built the path to the Revolutionary War.
Debt is the tax on future labor. Debt beyond 19-years repayment is a tax on the future labor of children imposed without consent.
A majority of us voted for the men who govern to mortgage the future labor of children so we can have $33 trillion more in benefits than we were willing to pay in taxes. Oct 16, 2023, each child born in America today has a burden of $99,952 on their future labor. The only difference between selling a man’s labor into slavery because of skin color and mortgaging the future labor of children because of age, is the use of government debt to delay and confuse accountability. Debt is the tax on future labor. As Jefferson noted in his letter The Earth Belongs to the Living, “
"Then no man can by _natural right_ oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment [sic] of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct [to use for profit without harm] of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle.”
National debt increased in tandem with oil imports and funding oil-wars since US Peak Oil in 1970.
Transferring wealth from the Many to the Few
Transferring wealth from the Many to the Few built the path to the French Revolution. As governments print money and spend borrowed money they transfer wealth from the many to the few. The wealthy, those holding assets, see property values increase with inflation.
The young and the poor, those who must trade their labor to buy assets, see the value of their labor debased.
Illicit Energy
Illicit Energy built the path to the Civil War.
Illicit Energy is dependence on energy outside self-reliance. Liberty is sacrificed as we fail to exercise the self-discipline to be energy self-reliant. Our “SUBSISTENCE “ is controlled by others.
Following US Peak Oil in 1970, as US oil production decreased, national debt increased in tandem. Oil-wars and oil-dollar funded terrorism became perpetual since 1991.
10 of the last 10 Presidents documented that foreign oil addiction mandated by Federal highways is a direct threat to national security:
President Nixon, 1974, “At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need. We will hold our future in our hands alone.”
President Ford, 1975, “First, we must reduce oil imports by 1 million barrels per day by the end of this year and by 2 million barrels per day by the end of 1977. Second, we must end vulnerability to economic disruption by foreign suppliers by 1985.”
President Carter, 1979, “This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our Nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.”
President Reagan, 1981, “While conservation is worthy in itself, the best answer is to try to make us independent of outside sources to the greatest extent possible for our energy.”
President Bush, 1992, “There is no security for the United States in further dependence on foreign oil.”
President Clinton, 1995, “The nation’s growing reliance on imports of oil … threatens the nation’s security … [we] will continue efforts to … enhance domestic energy production.”
President W. Bush, 2006, “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.”
President Obama, 2010, “For decades we have known that the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered….”
President Trump, 2017, “We will become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.”
President Biden, 2022, “Second, this crisis is a stark reminder: To protect our economy over the long term, we need to become energy independent. I’ve had numerous conversations over the last three months with our European friends of how they have to wean themselves off of Russia — Russian oil. It’s just not — it’s just not tenable. It should motivate us to accelerate the transition to clean energy.”
I recommend reading The Fiery Trial to see how Illicit Energy from slavery built the path to the Civil War.
Federal highways laws expanding foreign oil addiction mirror Federal laws expanding the addiction to slave labor in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Missouri Compromises, Fugitive Slave Law, and Dred Scott.
Skirmish wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are similar to Bleeding Kansas. Steps building the path to general war. Slavery sacrificed liberty based on race. Foreign oil addiction sacrifices the liberty of Posterity, children.
Diversity of state economies pushed back against Federal expansion of slavery into the western territories. Conflicting “ambitions” between “free-labor” and “slave-labor” states forced a crisis. At the cost of 600,000 American soldiers, the Preambles mandate the Federal government “secure the Blessings of Liberty” was enforced.
American soldiers have been buying time with blood in oil-wars since 1991 so America can exercise the self-discipline to be energy self-reliant.
The dollar cost of oil-wars so far is $8 trillion.
We the People, State, and local governments can enforce the Constitutions Divided Sovereignty against the Federal government. The “general welfare” is the sovereignty of We the People. Taxing for welfare is limited to State and local governments. Cities and states allowing alternative transportation networks to Federal urban highways will convert traffic costs into value. Enclosed in this booklet is the 5X5 Standard.
Oil Famine
Life require energy. Less energy, less life. Peak Oil is the first of two Civilization Killers children face.
Knowing that US Peak Oil would be in 14 years, yet catering to a Tyranny of the Majority, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 built infrastructure to be powered by oil while ignoring the Constitution. Survival of Posterity was bound to a known, depleting, un-renewable resource. “Hubris born of success, the undisciplined pursuit of more (link).”
John Quincy Adams (1814): "Democracy has no forefathers, it looks to no posterity ; it is swallowed up in the present, and thinks of nothing but itself."
Climate Change
Only a fool pees in his children’s only well.
If you borrow your neighbors lawnmower, would you return it empty and broken? It would be a usufruct violation to do so.
Profligate burning of oil moving 2-tons to move a person is depleting oil resources need by our children and tilting the balance of nature into unknowable consequences of Climate Change. Usufruct violations of the liberty and survival of children.
NASA: “Road Transportation Emerges as Key Driver of Warming” (link, EPA, DOT).
Burning energy to move 2-tons to move a person is the Climate Change Root Cause. This is 188 times more wasteful than railroads. The 140,000 miles of freight railroads in the US average about 470 ton-mpg.