It is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such government

When celebrating the Fourth of July this Monday, most Americans will fondly assume that we are a free people. After all, we swapped the monarchy that once ruled us for “government of, by, and for the people.” Today’s politicians may be corrupt and nauseatingly repugnant, but at least they’re better than King George III. According to the Declaration of Independence, that mean old tyrant was guilty of everything from “taking away our Charters” to “abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province…” Obscure offenses, but still pretty bad, no doubt.

And yet, when we analyze the Declaration’s allegations against George, his despotism pales to insignificance beside modern American governments’. We languish under exponentially worse dictatorship than the British administration ever dreamed of inflicting on its colonists. Indeed, the Revolutionary generation would scorn us as the most wretched and ignorant of slaves, not only controlled by our political masters, but delighted with our chains.

The Declaration imputes to George 27 “abuses and usurpations” (strictly speaking, the document devotes 27 paragraphs to His Majesty’s offenses, but several of those mention numerous “abuses.”). Yet “all of the charges … contain a substantial amount of strategic ambiguity,” as one scholar put it. “While they have a certain specificity in that they refer to actual historical events, they do not identify names, dates, or places. This magnified the seriousness of the grievances by making it seem as if each charge referred not to a particular piece of legislation or to an isolated act in a single colony, but to a violation … repeated on many occasions…”

The first “abuse” illustrates this point: “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Sounds as if His Majesty habitually played hooky from legislating, doesn’t it? But this indictment refers specifically to settlers’ “want[ing] permission … to expand further west and expand laws governing a more complicated society.” Not only was the royal “refusal” limited to one issue, it affected mostly those folks hoping to live on the frontiers.

Contrast that with just one of the billion injuries our rulers deal us: universal surveillance. Governments at every level — local, state and federal — spy on all Americans, all the time, via multiple bureaucracies. Police departments, the NSA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the IRS and even less obvious agencies, such as the EPA and the DEA, constantly monitor us. Nor do these bureaucrats confine themselves to eavesdropping on only some of the population or investigating genuine lawlessness alone.

Similarly, the TSA irradiates all passengers and sexually molests many in its unconstitutional and warrantless searches. Far from restricting these assaults to aviation, the TSA constantly seeks to extend its power to other forms of transportation — and even to other areas of our lives. (That Americans not only tolerate the TSA’s groping, but believe it somehow protects them, would absolutely boggle the founding generation. Indeed, a gentleman then would have horsewhipped — or worse — any lowlife so assailing him, his wife or his children.)

Further down, the list accuses George of “erect[ing] a multitude of New Offices, and sen[ding] hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” Astoundingly, “The ‘swarms of Officers’ that were purportedly eating out the substance of the colonies’ three million people numbered about fifty in the entire continent.” Fifty! Can you imagine? Our ancestors preferred war to tolerating one bureaucrat for every 60,000 Americans.

How tragic the comparison with our time! Millions of sponges now fatten on our taxes at the municipal, state and federal levels — 21 million, in fact. (Worse, that staggering figure “exclud[es] military, subcontractors, and consultants who also work for federal government” because even the Congressional Budget Office can’t count that high). Twenty-one million bloodsuckers lording it over a population of 323 million yields the incredibly depressing ratio of one for every 15 serfs. And who knows how much lower we could drive that correlation — one for every dozen? one for every 10? — if “military, subcontractors and consultants” were included.

Immediately after discussing those “swarms of Officers,” the Declaration cites the “Standing Armies” His Majesty “has kept among us, in times of peace …” Again, a single instance inspired this complaint: following “the Seven Year [sic] War, King George III stationed 10,000 British troops across the Thirteen Colonies...”

Our forefathers damned as intolerable the British government’s unleashing one enforcer on every 300 civilians. Imagine their fury at modern New York City’s quota of a cop for every 248 citizens (“The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated New York City’s population at 8,550,405,” while “the NYPD’s current uniformed strength is approximately 34,500”).

Yet “New York’s finest” are merely the tip of the blue iceberg. More cops lurk in such outposts as the New York City Marshal’s Office. And we finance another battalion at government’s next level, too, consisting of New York State Police (i.e., “troopers”), the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, etc.

Ditto for each locality in every state nationwide. Finally, we must add federal police to the mix (DEA, FBI, TSA, etc). No one knows the precise proportion of all enforcers per citizen, but it certainly dwarfs that of the 1770s.

Crucially, none of those 10,000 soldiers aspired to disarm civilians. Indeed, the British government’s only such attempt sparked the Revolution: when Redcoats tried to confiscate a cache of weapons rebels had dedicated to defiance at Concord, Massachusetts, Americans protected those public armaments with their personal guns and knives.

What a divergence from current policing! With a few notable exceptions, cops lust to neutralize us. And that when their own firepower is ever more militarized while the IRS and the Department of Veterans Affairs, inter alia, arm their pencil-pushers against us.

Steeped in libertarian philosophy, Revolutionary Americans understood that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild [sic], and government to gain ground.“ They didn’t wait for 50 officers to mushroom to 21 million or for unjust law to worsen before rebelling.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
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 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

The older I get, the more attention I pay to a LOT of things I never paid attention to before.

A case in point are the statements made in this essay, to wit:

"And yet, when we analyze the Declaration’s allegations against George, his despotism pales to insignificance beside modern American governments’. We languish under exponentially worse dictatorship than the British administration ever dreamed of inflicting on its colonists."

And

"The first “abuse” illustrates this point: “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Sounds as if His Majesty habitually played hooky from legislating, doesn’t it? But this indictment refers specifically to settlers’ “want[ing] permission … to expand further west and expand laws governing a more complicated society.” Not only was the royal “refusal” limited to one issue, it affected mostly those folks hoping to live on the frontiers."

and

"Contrast that with just one of the billion injuries our rulers deal us: universal surveillance. Governments at every level — local, state and federal — spy on all Americans, all the time, via multiple bureaucracies."

The author cites obvious (NOW, to me) literary licenses taken in the wording, not necessarily wrong nor fabricated, but penned as (stated in the essay) a hidden assumption that the "abuses" were all ways at all times.

This doesn't in any way lessen the import of the words, rather, points out the desire for revolution at the slightest provocation.

More importantly, the author compares and contrasts our present day servitude to a dictatorial government present today.

I, for one, am very grateful for this essay today.

(printed out and included in my library [bathroom] .. )

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