Is It Time to Call for a Second Declaration of Independence.doc

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Is It Time to Call for a Second Declaration ofIndependence?

July 4th 2012By Jerry Bowyer

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

Lets start with a shocking, but true premise: If you are a patriotic American, you believe thatthere are circumstances under which it is right to take up arms against your own government.

But the fact remains that the rationale for the existence of the nation known as the UnitedStates of America, which first appeared in print 236 years ago today, is entirely dependent onthe premise that there are indeed times when in the Course of human events, it becomes

necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them withanother and that such times may require the first group of people to mutually pledge toeach other their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor. And that having dissolvedthose political bands with another people, the newly liberated people (and that as Free andIndependent States, they have full Power to levy War) may, among other things, protectthemselves from a tyrannical power which engages in a long train of abuses andusurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object which evinces a design to reduce themunder absolute Despotism

This is the argument presented to the world by Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin. It was adoptedand approved by the Continental Congress. It has been graphically represented in the Great

Seal of the United States and it is treated as the origin of the American Republic not just in theDeclaration of Independence itself, but also in the Constitution.

That last truth has been denied both by legal positivists on the left and by paleo-conservativeson the right, both intending to sever the Constitution from its roots in natural law, but fordiffering reasons. The legal positivists want to liberate the courts from the shackles of naturallaw, so that they might reinvent the American Republic. The Old Right wanted to sever theConstitution from the impetus of natural law which they believed would be used to create newrights which would be imposed by judicial tyranny. I debated Robert Bork on this questionseveral years ago and he was very strong in his insistence that the Constitution did not

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acknowledge the Declaration. The problem with that assertion is that it is contradicted by theconcluding section of the Constitution itself, which states that it was Done in Conventionby the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the

Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence ofthe United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribedour Names.

In other words the Constitution was signed in the fall of 1787, which was during the 12th yearof the United States, which places the event which initiated the Republic sometime beforeSeptember 1776. Is there any other event, save the Declaration, which would fit the historicalbill? Of course not. And just in case any would argue, as Bork tried to in our debate, that thisis simply a matter of a date to which no significance can be attributed, I would point out thatthe Great Seal of the United States, which was the result of several years of deliberation,labels the foundation (it is a literal architectural foundation at the base of a pyramid) with theRoman numerals for the year 1776. In short, the Declaration and the principles on which it isbased are the foundational ideas of our Republic. One can deny their truth, but one cannotdeny their legal authority.

This implies something very important: No governmental official can deny the right of thepeople to dissolve the political bands which tie them to a tyrannical government without at thesame time denying the Declaration and, by extension, the Constitution on which his ownpower is based.If he says, The Declaration no longer applies; you must obey my authority nomatter what. We can rightly reply, If the Declaration no longer applies, then the governmentof which you are a part no longer possesses legitimacy; which means you have no authorityin the first place and therefore have no right to demand that we obey.

To determine whether the framers and their principles would cause us once again to breakfrom a central political authority one must first get into the head space of the founders. Theirway of thinking, though alien to modern political philosophy (and so much the worse formodern political philosophy), is clear and cogent:

There are certain ideas which are self-evidently true. One of those ideas is that we are createdwithout legal primacy or inferiority with regard to one another. Another idea, which is justobviously true to people whose rational faculties are operating properly, is that the rights tolife and liberty and the pursuit of a prosperous life (which is what the word happiness meantin 1776) are not alienable, that is they cannot have a lien placed on them by any other persons,not even representatives of the state.

Not only is government denied the authority to put a lien on and repossess those rights, but itis further required to protect those rights. And in fact, the protecting of those rights is the onlyreason that government should exist in the first place! And not only is it necessary forgovernment to protect these rights, but its use of power to do so is still only just if it alsoinvolves the consent of the people whose freedom and property are being protected.Further

(and this is shocking, even to modern ears), when governments move from protecting thoserights to injuring those rights, the people are allowed to erase the authority of the governmentSo, are we there yet? That question is in the air, although I dont think Ive heard it put soexplicitly in terms of the context of the Fourth of July 1776. Pop culture blockbusters such asthe Batman franchise are preoccupied with the question of legal legitimacy. The Tea Partymovement, as is obvious just by the name, suggests that we are bumping up against the limitsof legitimacy. The Occupy movement by its rhetoric and its actions at least denies thelegitimacy of the property rights of the individuals on whose land it squats, and the legitimacy

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of the powers of the police who order it to disperse. A slew of soured grapes outbursts afterthe failure of the union-led Wisconsin recall vote suggested that democracy had died.Even occasional wingnut outbursts on MSNBC suggest that a forceful change of governmentis now called for. Much of what Ive read from grassroots conservatives in the wake of lastweeks Supreme Court decision to uphold the individual mandate portion of Obamacaresuggests that the government is straining to and perhaps beyond its tolerable limits.

Some people want to banish this conversation from polite company, but doing so does notban the conversation from occurring; it just bans polite conversationalists from adding theirinfluence to the debate. The greatest beneficiaries of this approach are groups at the fringewho live to incite people to violence.

No amount of banning or inciting can change the facts that 236 years ago the principles of theDeclaration found that the central government had lost the right to rule and called on thepeople to withdraw allegiance to it. Is that the case now? Even the most ardent believer in theAmerican experiment (and I am a very ardent one) has to acknowledge that the verdict ofhistory is that no state remains committed to liberty forever, which means that such a time willcome again. The question is whether we are there now. Tell me what you think, and then Illtell you what I think.

The Gadsden Flag

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According to the Declaration of Independence itMay Be Time to Abolish Our Current Form of

GovernmentJuly 4th 2012

By Da Tagliare

Over two hundred and thirty years ago, the American colonists were fed up with the tyranny ofthe British crown. As a result, representatives from the thirteen colonies gathered inPhiladelphia to draft one of the most important documents in our history, The Declaration ofIndependence.

The document, signed on this day two hundred and thirty-six years ago, informed King

George III that the American colonies were overthrowing his right to rule them and that theywere going to establish their own independent country.

If you havent read The Declaration of Independence lately or at all, I highly urge you to do sotoday. As you read it, consider the words written by Thomas Jefferson about the form ofgovernment that is acceptable and what is not. Note his strong words evoking the right of thepeople to throw off a corrupt and tyrannical government and think about America today underthe corrupt and tyrannical rule of Barack Obama.

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Listen to our nations founding document when it says:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right ofthe People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation onsuch principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely toeffect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments longestablished should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly allexperience hath shown, 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 along train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design toreduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off suchGovernment, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patientsufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to altertheir former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is ahistory of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of anabsolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Where it says the present King of Great Britain, substitute Barack Obamas name and askyourself if Jefferson would have written the same words today to describe Obamaspresidency. The last three and half years under Obamas rule, there has been a long train ofabuses and usurpations. According to the rest of that line, it is their (our) right, it is their(our) duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their (our) futuresecurity.

Maybe, just maybe, its time for Americans to start reading The Declaration of Independenceand live up to the truths, rights and obligations that it gives us. The most effective way wecan throw off the abusive and tyrannical government is at the polls this November where wecan wipe the slate clean and usher in a new government that will follow the U.S. Constitutionas it was originally written and not how a band of robed judges want it to be.

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Is It Time to Call for a Second Declaration of Independence.doc