Rebellion…..it’s happening

In just a few days we will be celebrating the 4th of July holiday.  To those who might not recall, especially the youth, it’s also known as “Independence Day” which commemorates our independence from England in 1776 after a long and bloody war.  A war by all odds the colonists should have lost. This usually festive holiday seems to have a pall hovering over it as concern for our republic continues to escalate.  Our country, once the greatest in the world, is staggering under terribly defective and divisive Federal bureaucracies.  Regularly there are increasing incidents which run contrary to our basic rights.

 
Fifty middle school students from N. Carolina visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York.  As a choir they began to sing our National Anthem to the delight of other visitors. Immediately a security guard stopped their beautiful performance. It was considered a public demonstration and therefore forbidden!

In Murfreesboro, Tennessee ten students between the ages of 6 & 10 were taken from the school in handcuffs because a video had shown them watching an off-campus scuffle between two other students. The ten were arrested because they didn’t step in and stop the fight!

A teacher was recently fired for using the word “renege”.  Black students were offended by its use.  Protesting to the school board the teacher read the definition of the word from a dictionary; “to default or fail to honor.” The teacher’s dismissal was upheld!

At UCLA a group of students were handing out free copies of the Constitution. Officials stepped in and halted them because they weren’t in a “free speech zone!”  They were lead to a “free speech zone” but were banned from the zone because they hadn’t applied for the privilege 24 hours in advance.  To add irony to this travesty, the reader should know this event happened on “Constitution Day.”  Did I miss the announcement when the “free speech zone” was changed from the area between the Atlantic and Pacific and the Canadian and Mexican borders to a patch of grass at UCLA?

Students are the future of our country and are being shielded from thoughts other than those permitted by their educators. Our schools and universities have leapt into the dangerous practice of protectionism and destruction of the first amendment. “Logic is dead, excellence is punished, mediocrity is rewarded and dependency is to be revered”.

Support for this atrocity may stem from an unlikely source; The Attorney General’s office of Loretta Lynch.  She announced proudly on TV that with the help of the FBI they are considering the option of arresting anyone who exhibits denial of global warming, an outright denial of the first amendment.  I would suggest they heed the words of Einstein when he warned, “When consensus is met, thinking stops.”

Our executive branch and Justice Department only acknowledges one concern of our educational institutions; The “pressing” issue of transgender toilets and shower rooms which affect less than 1% of students.

Eleven years after our independence the 13 colonies signed our Constitution. During those years only one small rebellion occurred.  It was Shays’ Rebellion, based primarily on ignorance but it prompted Jefferson to address the subject of rebellion in a letter to his friend, William Stephen Smith on Nov. 13 1778.

(Note: Jefferson used 11 years x 13 colonies as 1-1/2 centuries)

“What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take up arms.  The remedy is to set them straight as to facts, pardon and pacify them.  What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The Tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Jefferson’s words were to discourage increasing the power of the executive branch in the new government. His concern should not be lost on our citizens with today’s excessive power and overreach by our executive branch.

The tenth (10th) amendment of the Constitution “Limits” the powers of the President of the United States.  It is part of the “Bill of Rights” and emphasizes the “Federalism” principle; “The Federal Government posses only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution.  All remaining powers are reserved for the states or the people. “

In this column I’ve used the assault on our educational institutions only as an example of governmental overreach and abuse of the first and tenth amendments. Although important there are two additional means by which a president can operate outside of Congress.  The first are “Executive Orders” which up until the present total 228, most of which are routine such as appointments to federal positions.  Other orders however have not been routine, one of which was to provide amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants (Illegal aliens). It has been rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals and will be judged by the Supreme Court this summer.

The cavalier use of “Presidential Regulations” for this administration is out of control. An example of a routine regulation is that of changing individual parts of the Environmental Protection Association.  Examples are infinite and include such things as air quality standards, mileage of automobiles, volume limits on shower heads, lake levels, toilet flush standards, dams to name a few. This administration’s “Presidential Regulations” is at an all time high of 20,642 and counting.

Let us once again recall Jefferson’s words regarding a rebellion. “ And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”  Whether or not we all agree, we are in the midst of a rebellion masked as a presidential campaign. – Gary Mienert

READ THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE THIS JULY 4TH!  KEEP THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE ALIVE!

Two other articles to read this Independence Day:  A Tribute To America’s Patriot Pastors And Stalwart Statesmen , “Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor”

 

The Declaration of Independence

hen 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 harass 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 benefit 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 British 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.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton