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On this 4th of July, if you have never read the Declaration of Independence, or if you have not read it since your youth, please take a few minutes to read the Declaration of Independence.  Please take the time to understand our founding and the promise of freedom to each and every individual in this nation.  The final line of the Declaration of Indpendence states, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  How many of you believe that divine Providence brought forth this nation? How many of you would be willing to pledge your “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to ensure the liberties and freedom of future generations?  Look in awe upon those who gave us everything, and look within to determine if you wish to preserve it.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

On the Duty of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed… –Thomas Jefferson “Declaration of Independence” 1776

What if the federal government passed a law stating that all Americans had a right to clothing?  In order to ensure compliance with the law, what if the government included a mandate that the individual would buy approved shirts, pants and shoes.  Furthermore, if you did not comply with the mandate, then you would be assessed a fine in the form of a tax collected by the Internal Revenue Service.  How long do you think it would take before there was an uprising against intrusions into your individual choices regarding your clothing?

Why do you then think that the “individual mandate” to purchase health care insurance approved by the government is any different?  Is there a moral imperative to provide health care insurance to all members of a civil society, but no such imperative for clothing?  If such a moral mandate exists, is it further argued that it is the government’s duty to legislate and compel the citizenry to adhere to the mandate?  These are the questions of our time, and yet so many review the questions in the artificial light of a possible moral obligation to society rather than in the natural sunshine of the individual rights of human beings.

The moral imperative before us is two-fold: 1) do we have a right to health care (or food, or clothing) and 2) if we do possess such a right, is it the government’s duty to provide for that right and ensure that society conforms to the moral imperative?  We could debate, probably until the end of time, whether or not number one above is true, but for the purposes of this discussion, we can choose to disagree on the merits and fallacies of the argument.  More important to our discussion is to determine whether or not number two above is a necessity of government especially with respect to our system of government.

When our nation was founded, our forefathers demanded their independence from oppressive and tyrannical rule.  As the Declaration of Independence begins:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Having understood that the Laws of Nature guarantee our birthright to equality and the pursuit of our individual lives, we were then empowered to make the most of our lives in contribution to our communities.  Thankfully, our Founders shed their blood so that we would only have to expend our energies in protecting our individual liberties and the system of government we inherited. 

When we limit our individual choices, we limit the community as a whole.  For if the government can dictate to you what health insurance, clothes and shoes you must buy, how far off is it before that same government begins dictating to you limited choices and finally for the sake of expediency one size fits all will suffice.  If, for example, the clothes are too big, then you can assert you are still clothed, but if the clothes are too small, is the government still in accordance with the supposed moral imperative?

How is health care different?  If the federal government can mandate that you purchase an approved health insurance plan, how long before it becomes expedient to reduce the number of plans to just a few choices or one size fits all health care?  Do you, the young adult, have the same health care needs as your grandparent or great-grandparent?  Most likely not, but when government meddles in the affairs of the individual, unintended consequences result.  The next thing you know you are wearing a t-shirt on a cold winter’s day and you realize your naval is showing.  But that’s OK because you realize that the government will provide you a coat to keep you warm.  You are grateful now, are you not, to have your benevolent government so concerned with your daily necessities?

Your loss of independence matters little to you because you have all your necessities taken care of, but what of your desires?  Do your desires have a place in your “brave new world?”  And who pays for it all?  Do you sit on your couch in your mandated home ever awaiting your next necessity to be fulfilled while your desires slowly expire?  Are you all consumed with ensuring that you get your fair share that you no longer remember what you dreamt of in your youth?

How could a single mandate of requiring everyone to purchase health care insurance have led to all of this?  The answer is simple:  when the rights of the individual are subverted and beholden to the collective and imposed by government, free will is lost and personal pursuits no longer matter.  Time and again, the collectivist theories of what’s best for society have been tested, and they have always resulted in failure.  Bound are collectivist thought to the oppressions and tyranny of a ruling class. 

The fundamental reason such collective impositions do not succeed is because government as an entity possesses no inherent morality.  Only individuals can truly be moral among nature’s creatures.  We may often fail in this pursuit, but because we have the capacity for morality, unlike governments, we at least possess a chance to succeed.  And it is that chance at ultimate liberty, the freedom of the individual, that allowed this nation to prosper for so many years, albeit with stumbles and travails along the way.  To forsake the ideal for so little a recompense (even the reward of guaranteed health care) should frighten every American.

It is the duty of human kind to understand its limitations, while also understanding that the only hope of bettering the society is to empower the individual.  We have a duty to accept and embrace our individuality and our commitment as individuals to make the society better.  No government can exceed the combined efforts of individuals, and no government ever has.

Our founders encountered a similar predicament although theirs was asserting their individuality against a government of ever mounting egregiously oppressive behavior; while our predicament is also against an oppressive government but one that has no legal authority to continue such acts.  Our Founders believed that their relation to the British government was in part bound by an “unwritten” Constitution that the British parliament was not upholding; while our cause is much clearer.  We know that our federal government is repeatedly acting in an un-Constitutional manner, but unlike our founders, we are not forced to separate from that government; rather, we only need reassert our rights and insist that they follow the Supreme Law of the land.  We have many venues to reassert our Constitutional rights; whereas, our Founders were left with only war and the giving of their blood and treasure, so that we today may only give of our time and energy to ensure what is rightfully ours.

To allow you to see some of the parallels of what the Founders were fighting in the late 1760’s and early 1770’s to what we are fighting today, I offer the following list that comprises the primary grievances and actions colonists had taken with respect to the British government:

• English merchants were enjoying a monopoly on raw materials and requiring importation of manufactured goods from Great Britain.

• Discriminatory trade practices where American exports were devalued and British imports were so highly valued that there was a never ending debt cycle for the American farmer and merchant.

• In 1765, seeking to alleviate their war debts, the British Parliament levied a Stamp Act tax in the Colonies which required all legal documents, newspapers and many other articles to have a Stamp placed upon them. The colonists had no representation in the British Parliament and maintained responsibility for levying their own taxes that they sent to the British Crown.  This was the first tax against the colonists imposed by a government body in which the colonists had no representation.  The Stamp Act Tax was repealed by the British Parliament just one year after it had gone into effect.

• Even though the British Parliament had repealed the Stamp Act, during the same session, they asserted their supposed right to tax the colonists.

• The colonists retaliated by general agreement to not purchase English goods that had taxes attached.

• In Boston, the colonists were unruly, and the King sent British troops to occupy the city.  By 1770, the occupation had so added to the tensions that a snowball fight between young boys in Boston against British soldiers culminated in the “Boston Massacre” where gathering Bostonians were gunned down by British soldiers.  Five Americans were killed while many others were wounded.

• Tensions remained in Boston for the next three years.  Even though the British Parliament repealed the Townshend Act which was the tax on tea, the British Parliament in response to the dumping of tea in the Boston harbor, passed the “Intolerable Acts” with its most restrictive measure being the closure of the port of Boston resulting in Massachusetts being under what can only be described as British martial law.

• By May of 1774 a grassroots movement began in the colonies against tyrannical rule.  Many meetings throughout the colonies sprung up to reassert individual rights.

• In the summer of 1774, the “Fairfax Resolves” were drawn up and stand today as one of the first influential documents regarding American political thought.  The Fairfax Resolves reiterated the limited powers of Parliament against the colonists and highlighted the rights of free men.

• The colonists began their Congresses later that year in 1774 holding the First Continental Congress in September of 1774.[1]

You might ask, what has any of that have to do with America today?  I make the list to show you that there were numerous unjust acts by the British government that led to the American Revolution, just as there are many unjust acts perpetrated against the American people in total contradiction and without the Constitutional authority to advance said acts.  Let me provide a brief list of the acts and legislation taken by our government in just the last two years that lacked any Constitutional authority:

• The federal bailout of privately held companies in 2008 under President Bush, i.e., Lehman Brothers and AIG.

• The TARP program or Toxic Asset Relief Program under President Bush and passed by the Congress in the fall of 2008.  The program funded private banks (even banks that attempted to refuse the money but were not allowed refusal by the Federal Government).

• Under the Obama Administration, in late winter and early spring of 2009, interference in the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler in which shareholders lost priority positions to reimbursement of unions and private dealerships were shuttered in contradiction to testimony in the Bankruptcy Courts.

• The health care legislation S.B 3590 passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives requiring an individual mandate to purchase health insurance representing an unprecedented tax on citizens to purchase a good or service whether they desire that good or service or not.  The legislation also includes numerous provisions against the uniformity clause of the Constitution in relation to the States.

The grievances against our Founders resulted in war, but we are fortunate in that the grievances against us need only result in a reassertion of our Constitutional protections, such as has already begun with the lawsuit against Chrysler regarding the bankruptcy proceedings and the many lawsuits State officials are arming themselves with against the health care legislation.

Our Founders finally prevailed in their efforts, but the war took them eight long years of untold loss of human life and personal fortunes.  Are we so impatient that we cannot spend our own time with the same patience and fervor to preserve that which was guaranteed to us through Natural Law and procured for us through Providence?

It is your time to stand up and reassert your independence and individuality.  It is your duty to rely on yourself, to stand on your own merit and to make this nation once again exceptional.  Will you answer the call as our Founders did, or will you allow the failed governments of the past to intrude within our borders and forever remake our nation, i.e., “fundamentally transform America?”  Will you answer the duty you have to humanity to assert your independence?

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[1] Summaries of Chapters 8 and 9, Jay A. Parry and Andrew M. Allison, The Real George Washington, (National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1991, 2008, sixth printing 2009)

Copyright © 2010 Dr. Kate’s View and Constitutional Government. All Rights Reserved. Permission must be obtained from the authors to reproduce any part of this paper.

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, SENATE TAKES FIRST VOTE TO RETURN TO TYRANNY

Editorial by KJ Kaufman  

(Dec. 21, 2009)  —  Many of us were taught that the American fight for Independence began as a fight of no taxation without representation as the Colonists were being taxed by King George III when the Colonists had no representation in British Parliament.  Although this characterization is certainly true, the ultimate decision to declare independence was much more than that.  The colonists were developing a nation.  Today, we would think of them as modern day entrepreneurs.  At every turn they were being taxed so as to make their exports less attractive and imports exorbitantly expensive.  Their commerce was obstructed and they were sent goods of lesser quality.  American Independence truly began as a culmination of infringements of the colonists’ God given rights being usurped by a mad man in England and also by the British Parliament.  I use the term mad man, not in hyperbole, but in earnest as King George III suffered throughout his life from mental illness.

As many of you know, Tea was taxed.  In Boston, Patriots dumped tea (circa 1773) into the harbor in protest which sparked elevated tensions and resulted in the passage of the “Intolerable Acts” by the British Parliament, but there was trouble in Boston and elsewhere long before the dumping of tea.  The Revolution began as the result of numerous punitive actions against American commerce as well as taxation.  The Revolution began as the result of: