North Dakota

D i s t r i c t 0 8
E x e c u t i v e C o m m i t t e e

Governor Burgum,

The North Dakota District 8 Executive Committee, duly elected and each members in good
standing of the North Dakota Republican Party, do hereby petition the State of North Dakota as
follows:

To recall, rescind, and otherwise cease and desist payment of any State funding
allocated or appropriated in the current fiscal year to any political subdivision,
municipality, educational district, public or private institution who issues a masking or
inoculation mandate as a condition of entry, employment, education, or receipt of
services. Such funding is inclusive of direct transfer payments, Medicaid payments,
grants, tax abatements, and any other such monies derived from the collection of taxes
on the citizens of North Dakota.

The first two tenants of the North Dakota Republican Party Platform reflect our mutual values of
Individual Liberty and Personal Responsibility.

Specific to the first:

“The rights of American citizens proceed from The Creator, not from government.
Government authority proceeds only from the consent of the People. Individuals,
including the unborn, have the intrinsic right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Specific to the second:

“Individuals and families are responsible for their behavior. Public policy should
encourage and empower their efforts to provide for their own health, safety, education,
moral fortitude and personal wealth.”

While these concepts would appear to be at odds with one another in the public discourse of our
day, they ought not be incongruent. Rather, they are inseparable. “Liberty not only means that
the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must
bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. Liberty and
responsibility are inseparable.” (Friedrich Hayek).

In matters of liberty and responsibility, the individual must be both the repository of the former
and the purveyor of the latter. These cannot be mandated from an institutional level. The
Founders of our great country warned against this. They understood from historical study that
institutions inevitably become beholden unto themselves, and that to maintain and grow power--
to remain relevant--inevitably requires repression of the individual. Through government, this
has been done under the auspice of promoting or protecting the “public good”; a concept utterly
abused throughout the duration of the response to the COVID 19 pandemic.

The most effective way to subjugate the individual to the collective is to keep him/her in a state
of perpetual panic, as the person who fears for his or her life is more likely to surrender personal
sovereignty to a collective body that claims to be capable of providing security. “Even the
ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and
property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger,
will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions
which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length
 North Dakota
D i s t r i c t 0 8
E x e c u t i v e C o m m i t t e e

become willing to run the risk of being less free.” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers
No. 8). Where Hamilton understood the cause, Franklin understood the natural end point when
he posited, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

We find ourselves in grave danger of losing our republic. The institutions amongst us--be they
private or public--have become dependent upon an ever-increasing percentage of operating
revenue derived from the federal government. Public policy edicts and spending bills in
response to COVID-19 have flooded private and public institutions alike with federal money,
which inevitably comes with preconditions. This dilutes the voice of the local constituency.

We reject the centralization of government through stipulations tied to federal dollars flooding
state and local governments. It is antithetical to federalism and a free republic.

We reject the slow-creep nationalization of private industry through stipulations tied to federal
dollars flooding the marketplace. It is antithetical to free market capitalism.

We reject the premise a private institution remains private the moment its operations become
reliant on the receipt of public money. At this point of dependency, any institution--be it private
or public--is beholden to the government and, when acting upon the public as a condition of
receipt of this funding, has by proxy become a de-facto Agent of government. An Agent of
government has relinquished insulation from Constitutional restraints.

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong
to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good
intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They
promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” (Daniel Webster).

Duly submitted this 17th day of August, in the year of our Lord, 2021.