Posted by
Patrick Henry on Thursday, May 06, 2010 6:23:10 AM
Yesterday I was perusing a really old document written by some guys who sounded
like real rabble rousers. They lived in some country that apparently wasn't getting a
fair shake, and they were real mad about it. They used strong rhetoric that some would
call "over the top."
Among the things they accused the head of their government of were: (1) refusing to
agree to established laws; (2) forbidding government officials to enforce laws; (3) calling
together legislators in places unusual, uncomfortable and distant for the sole purpose
of fatiguing them into compliance; (4) exposing people at large to the dangers of invasion
from without and convulsions within; (5) making judges dependent on his will alone;
(6) erecting a multitude of new offices and sending "hither swarms of officers to harass
people and eat out their substance;" (6) combining with others to "subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution;" (7) imposing taxes "without our consent;" (8) abolishing our
most valuable laws and altering the fundamental form of our government; and
(9) abdicating government by "declaring us out of his protection." There's more, but you
get the drift.
Now why, I wondered, would these guys level such incendiary accusations? Interested,
I looked at the introduction to the piece for some clue. All I saw there was some blather
about self-evident truths, and all people being created equal and with inalienable rights and governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. What shocking
notions! It all sounded really seditionist to me.
And I saw fireworks coming when they got to the part that said that whenever any form
of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it and institute new government. Wow, I thought. If the guy in the White House
thinks today's political rhetoric is over the top he'd wet his pants if he read this.
But, of course, I jest! The document is the American Declaration of Independence that
was published on July 4, 1776, and the tyrant government John Hancock and the other
signees were talking about was Great Britain under King George. I could not help but
wonder as I read what Hancock, Jefferson, the Adamses and Ben Franklin would think
about the government of Barack Obama and how they would categorize him and his
policies. Further, I wonder what they would have counseled an increasingly resentful,
angry and oppressed populace to do. History is crystal clear about what they did!
The successor document, the United States Constitution, speaks of a government "of
the people, by the people and for the people." I wonder what it's framers would have
thought about an American government that listens only to itself, acts only to magnify
itself and refuses to listen to the people? Hmmm. Maybe the liberal modern educators
are right in suggesting that we should stop studying about these old guys and what they
thought. I know it messes with my mind. We wouldn't want to shape modern minds by
time-honored principles, or confuse political prejudices with historical facts. After all,
these old guys sound like Che Guevara. Are the values they (and we) espouse really
worth mutually pledging to each other our fortunes, and our sacred honor? Well, are
they?