Is It Time to Call for a Second Declaration of Independence?

July 4th 2012 By Jerry Bowyer

Signing of the Declaration of Independence Lets start with a shocking, but true premise: If you are a patriotic American, you believe that there 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 United States of America, which first appeared in print 236 years ago today, is entirely dependent on the 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 with another and that such times may require the first group of people to mutually pledge to each other their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor. And that having dissolved those political bands with another people, the newly liberated people (and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War) may, among other things, protect themselves from a tyrannical power which engages in a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object which evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism This is the argument presented to the world by Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin. It was adopted and 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 the Declaration of Independence itself, but also in the Constitution. That last truth has been denied both by legal positivists on the left and by paleo-conservatives on the right, both intending to sever the Constitution from its roots in natural law, but for differing reasons. The legal positivists want to liberate the courts from the shackles of natural law, so that they might reinvent the American Republic. The Old Right wanted to sever the Constitution from the impetus of natural law which they believed would be used to create new rights which would be imposed by judicial tyranny. I debated Robert Bork on this question several years ago and he was very strong in his insistence that the Constitution did not 1

acknowledge the Declaration. The problem with that assertion is that it is contradicted by the concluding section of the Constitution itself, which states that it was Done in Convention by 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 of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names. In other words the Constitution was signed in the fall of 1787, which was during the 12th year of the United States, which places the event which initiated the Republic sometime before September 1776. Is there any other event, save the Declaration, which would fit the historical bill? Of course not. And just in case any would argue, as Bork tried to in our debate, that this is simply a matter of a date to which no significance can be attributed, I would point out that the 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 the Roman numerals for the year 1776. In short, the Declaration and the principles on which it is based are the foundational ideas of our Republic. One can deny their truth, but one cannot deny their legal authority. This implies something very important: No governmental official can deny the right of the people to dissolve the political bands which tie them to a tyrannical government without at the same time denying the Declaration and, by extension, the Constitution on which his own power is based. If he says, The Declaration no longer applies; you must obey my authority no matter what. We can rightly reply, If the Declaration no longer applies, then the government of which you are a part no longer possesses legitimacy; which means you have no authority in 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 break from a central political authority one must first get into the head space of the founders. Their way of thinking, though alien to modern political philosophy (and so much the worse for modern political philosophy), is clear and cogent: There are certain ideas which are self-evidently true. One of those ideas is that we are created without legal primacy or inferiority with regard to one another. Another idea, which is just obviously true to people whose rational faculties are operating properly, is that the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of a prosperous life (which is what the word happiness meant in 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 it is further required to protect those rights. And in fact, the protecting of those rights is the only reason that government should exist in the first place! And not only is it necessary for government to protect these rights, but its use of power to do so is still only just if it also involves 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 those rights to injuring those rights, the people are allowed to erase the authority of the government. So, are we there yet? That question is in the air, although I dont think Ive heard it put so explicitly in terms of the context of the Fourth of July 1776. Pop culture blockbusters such as the Batman franchise are preoccupied with the question of legal legitimacy. The Tea Party movement, as is obvious just by the name, suggests that we are bumping up against the limits of legitimacy. The Occupy movement by its rhetoric and its actions at least denies the legitimacy of the property rights of the individuals on whose land it squats, and the legitimacy 2

of the powers of the police who order it to disperse. A slew of soured grapes outbursts after the 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 government is now called for. Much of what Ive read from grassroots conservatives in the wake of last weeks Supreme Court decision to uphold the individual mandate portion of Obamacare suggests 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 not ban the conversation from occurring; it just bans polite conversationalists from adding their influence to the debate. The greatest beneficiaries of this approach are groups at the fringe who live to incite people to violence. No amount of banning or inciting can change the facts that 236 years ago the principles of the Declaration found that the central government had lost the right to rule and called on the people to withdraw allegiance to it. Is that the case now? Even the most ardent believer in the American experiment (and I am a very ardent one) has to acknowledge that the verdict of history is that no state remains committed to liberty forever, which means that such a time will come again. The question is whether we are there now. Tell me what you think, and then Ill tell you what I think.

The Gadsden Flag

According to the Declaration of Independence it May Be Time to Abolish Our Current Form of Government
July 4th 2012 By Da Tagliare

Over two hundred and thirty years ago, the American colonists were fed up with the tyranny of the British crown. As a result, representatives from the thirteen colonies gathered in Philadelphia to draft one of the most important documents in our history, The Declaration of Independence. 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 they were 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 so today. As you read it, consider the words written by Thomas Jefferson about the form of government that is acceptable and what is not. Note his strong words evoking the right of the people to throw off a corrupt and tyrannical government and think about America today under the corrupt and tyrannical rule of Barack Obama. 4

Listen to our nations founding document when it says: 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 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 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. Where it says the present King of Great Britain, substitute Barack Obamas name and ask yourself if Jefferson would have written the same words today to describe Obamas presidency. The last three and half years under Obamas rule, there has been a long train of abuses 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) future security. Maybe, just maybe, its time for Americans to start reading The Declaration of Independence and live up to the truths, rights and obligations that it gives us. The most effective way we can throw off the abusive and tyrannical government is at the polls this November where we can wipe the slate clean and usher in a new government that will follow the U.S. Constitution as it was originally written and not how a band of robed judges want it to be.