There came in 1776 a document fundamental, even sacred to the American people which our Founding Fathers and its author, Thomas Jefferson, called:
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
That document was an expression of the pride and power of the American people, the revolutionary American people. In that great document, Jefferson and his peers declared the following:
“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent on the governed.”
In short, government of any kind has no power unless that power is given to and derived from:
THE PEOPLE.
We, the people.
Jefferson goes on to say 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.”
Destructive government. Government which destroys values, principles, ideals, laws, and especially the laws of nature and nature’s God. Destroying things constitutional, eroding or evading the great freedoms, The Bill of Rights. Aggrandizing, power grabbing, destroying economics, unduly and unfairly taxing, interfering with and preventing the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. When government of any kind engages in any such conduct, it is by The Declaration of Independence destructive and therefore it should, it must be abolished.
In that case, it is both the right and the duty of the people to:
“Institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them (the people) shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
So, governments of all kinds and types, keep us safe. That safety is provided by the Military, the National Armed Forces, the National Guard, state and local police, among others. Keep us safe, government, and do it right.
But also, government, see to our happiness, says Jefferson. Make certain that we are free, fully free. And especially free from the tyranny of government. See to our happiness as we pursue life. Allow us to grow and prosper. Allow us to do what we think is right and not you. Protect, cultivate, and nurture us as entrepreneurs, men and women pursuing economic gain and benefit. Protect us and our rights to live joyously and happily. Allow us, not you, to provide the right type and kind of education for our families. Allow us to speak freely. Protect us as we assemble and even protest. Encourage us to meet in town halls, in tea parties, and to protest loudly what we think is not right. Protect us as we worship and defend us against any who would prevent that. See to it that we can buy and bear arms to protect ourselves and our families. Prevent us from being unfairly tried for crimes, or tried a second time. In short, governments of all kinds, do your job in a simple, clear way and stay out of our way!
We made you, empowered you, and we control you. Not you us. We are independent, free so we have DECLARED. You must respect that or you, governments of all types and kinds, WILL BE ABOLISHED. If you become in any way authoritarian, if you infringe and encroach, if you become destructive, we will destroy you.
Twelve years later, in 1788, Thomas Jefferson wrote these words:
“It astonishes me to find that so many of our countrymen should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army.”
In but a short twelve years, government, the new Federal Government of the United States had begun to function in such a way as to begin to erode, qualify, and restrict the fundamental freedoms of mankind embodied in The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. Jefferson was shocked, ASTONISHED! Not, realist he was, with the encroachment of the Federal Government but that men and women, only twelve years removed from the greatest revolution in history, were:
CONTENTED
to live under a system which gave power to a Federal Government which had become in so many ways in twelve short years just like the old English government which once ruled the colonies. It took, in Jefferson’s opinion, only twelve years for the great revolutionary passion to dissipate, and resignation and indifference set in. Erosion and devaluation.
That led Jefferson to say:
“I would not have expected (such a degeneration) for at least four centuries!”
In other words, Jefferson would not have not expected anything like this to happen until at least:
2167!
Four centuries.
We live in a time and age only two centuries removed from that great revolution. We have before us a constitutional crisis, a crisis of freedom. We watch the mammoth and massive increase in size, scope, power, and intrusion of our Federal Government and we do little or nothing. We see governments of all types controlling, usurping, taxing, intruding, demanding, destroying our freedoms, eroding our fundamental constitutional securities, and preventing in so many ways the happiness and fulfillment all of which are the core, the essence of our revolutionary rights. Two centuries. Fifty percent of the time Jefferson and his peers thought. They, the Founding Fathers, would have been stunned, ASTONISHED to see where America is today. They and we will be astonished when we finally realize not only where America is, but what it has become and worse, what it will become.
IF, if we, the people do not arise, and protect and defend. It is time, as Jefferson said, for us to abolish so much of our government. We do that by voting out, getting rid of those who would control and advance the power of the governments over the rights and privileges of we, the people. It is time to vote so many of them OUT and to replace them with right thinking men and women, citizens, real Americans who love and respect the revolutionary principles which made our country great.
Get them out, vote them out now in November 2009 and be ready for the opportunity, my fellow Americans, to institute change, fundamental change, real change to America when there is the voting opportunity to replace the entire HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, all 435 of them, and 38 of the United States Senators, and governors of many key states, any or all of them who do more harm than good. You have the vote, my fellow citizens. Use it, and use it wisely.
Use it now, in 2009, and especially in 2010, or lose it, perhaps forever.