I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day. Yesterday I went to the Amish market to pick up some spare ribs. I just St. Louis cut them and put them on the smoker. The tips I cook on the lower rack of the smoker. I’ll pick all the inedibles out of the tips, and then find some creative way way to use them.
But let’s not forget what the holiday is really about, especially as polls show that Americans are losing pride in their country. I have to admit that these days, I’m not really feeling it either. It’s worthwhile to take a look at the injuries and usurpations and see how many our current federal leviathan and it’s current White House occupant is guilty of:
- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. [Obama doesn’t have much of a veto record, actually]
- 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. [Check] [Check]
- 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. [Not really relevant in our current federal system]
- 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. [Fatiguing us into compliance? Never!]
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. [Our system doesn’t allow this.]
- 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. [Again, our system doesn’t allow this.]
- 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. [Not really relevant in the modern context]
- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. [The constitution does this in our system.]
- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. [Nope. Our current Supreme Court has self-immolated.]
- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. [Check, check, oh hell yes check]
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. [Check, but every President since FDRÂ has done this.]
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [Not yet, thank God.] - 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: [Do these assholes count?]
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: [Check. Just ask the people at Waco, or the Terry family.]
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: [Nope]
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: [Obamacare, It’s a tax!]
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: [Check]
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [Check]
- 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: [Pretty specific to the time.]
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: [Fundamentally transformed]
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. [Fortunately, no]
- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [No]
- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. [No, at least not literally]
- 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. [Nope]
- 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. [Impressment isn’t happening today]
- 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. [Not literally, but I could rewrite this to apply to today’s context:
He has excited domestic strife among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our flyover states, the merciless Chicago political savages, whose known rule of politics, is an undistinguished destruction of all all competing ideas and conditions.]
So really, we’re not in as bad a shape as we’d like to think most days of the week, if you go by the standards of our founders. The only one Obama is really clearly guilty of is “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” But I’d argue Bush was just as guilty of that as well. The federal government is pretty clearly guilty of unaccountability for bureaucrats who make mistakes, but it’s been that way for a while. The other thing is, if we really decide we don’t like it, we can change it without a revolution. But an unfortunate fact is that too many Americans like big government.
If we were to write a declaration today and include a bill of indictment against our own government, what would it look like? I created this subreddit as a place to collect ideas.
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
This is the oath I took 11 years ago standing in front of the flag in that auditorium in Philadelphia 11 years ago. And I am as proud of being an american today as I was back then. I do not confuse this country and it’s people and heritage with any abhorrent political body that is transient in nature and whose influence will be washed away with time and resolve.
And it’s hard to put into words, but I still feel a shiver run through my soul and my heart squeezing a little every time I see the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze. I suspect this feeling is something all liberals will never have, and I feel sad for them.
I love my Country! It’s the bastards running roughshod over the Govt that I despise…..
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
Since the NSA (Hi Jimmy!) and CIA count as military, and they do their best to hide as much as possible from the bodies that are tasked to provide oversight, I think every administration since Eisenhower is guilty.
“He has refused his Assent to Laws”
Can’t rightly comment on his veto record without noting that he has ensured bills he doesn’t like don’t reach his desk in the first place. The “supermajority vote” has become the standard bar for Congressional vote-taking: if he doesn’t like it and the vote is not assured veto-proof, the vote isn’t even taken.