The Price of Liberty, Part 2: A Declaration of Dependence

Last week, I introduced a new series, titled: The Price of Liberty. In this series, I address the troubling changes occurring in our country, why they are happening, and what to do about them.

America, in her generosity and kindness, has always opened her doors to immigrants like me. I am most thankful and appreciative for that. I also want to assure you that many modern-day immigrants want the America envisioned by her Founding Fathers.

We want the America of which George Washington said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

We want the America of which Abraham Lincoln said, “The only assurance of our nation’s safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion.”

We want the America of the Founding Fathers who said, “When the importance of religion is diminished … so is the effectiveness of government.”

We want the America of which the Supreme Court in 1844 said, “The Bible, and especially the New Testament [should] be read and taught as divine revelation in the [schools, otherwise] … where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?”

We want the America of which New York Supreme Court Chief Justice Kent said in 1811, “We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those imposters [other religions].”

We want the America of which the Supreme Court of New York in 1811 also said, “Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of the civil government … because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order.”

We want the America of which Daniel Webster said, “The principles of all genuine liberty and of wise laws and administrations, are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man, therefore, who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be an accessory to all of the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.”

Webster’s words are all too prophetic. And many immigrants, myself included, want to see a return to the America Webster’s words described—an America that looks to the Bible for guidance and direction. Today, far from heeding the words of earlier courts, our present-day courts have been busily striking at the Christian foundation of our nation. Moreover, the education bureaucracy is busy rewriting American history.

Growing up in Egypt, I had a better grasp of American history and the Christian basis for its foundation than most students in American schools. Today, American children learn little about actual American history as a wide variety of grievance groups have conquered prime space in our children’s history textbooks.

Textbook content is often influenced by pressure groups that inflict their agendas on children, taking up valuable space for feminism, environmentalism, Islamic advocacy, and other special interests.

The most disturbing trend in textbooks is their treatment of Islam, where misinformation is used to portray it in the most favorable light. Islamic extremism is glossed over—even to the point of omitting the terrorists’ Islamic faith when covering the 9/11 attacks—and jihad is explained as simply an internal struggle to please God.

Such historical revisions should be repulsive to all Americans, but especially to Christians since they undermine the very principles on which America was founded.

Who is responsible for those actions—and what can we do to change the situation? A leading educator clarified the issue when he noted, “If a foreign government had done to the nation’s schools what we have done, we would have considered it an act of war.”

The media, too, does its best to make anyone who says positive things about the God of our Founding Fathers appear fanatic or stupid. People—especially the media—are careful not to say anything negative about Mohammad or Buddha or Krishna, but a person can blaspheme the name of the Lord continually, and no one will consider him politically incorrect. Such blasphemy is deemed part of a new era of enlightenment. In reality, it signals a return to the dark ages.

For a moment, let’s look back at history. On July 4, 1776, one of the most important documents in the history of the United States was signed. This document marked the birth of this great nation, which, under God, was destined for world leadership. Although this document was called the Declaration of Independence, it was really a Declaration of Dependence. While America’s forefathers sought independence from the British crown, they signed a declaration of dependence on Almighty God. Further, while they desired freedom from foreign domination, they chose to surrender to the Creator of the universe. Their intentions are clearly stated in the closing words of the Declaration of Independence:

“With firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The 56 courageous men who signed this important document knew their words represented far more than high-sounding rhetoric. They realized that if they succeeded, they would experience years of hardship and struggle to maintain this new democratic phenomenon. If they failed, they would face a hangman’s noose as traitors.

These men were willing to pay the ultimate price because they believed that this country was, as the Pledge of Allegiance states, “One nation under God.” They knew that to be born free is a privilege, and to die free is an awesome responsibility. In light of the dedication of these men, don’t we have the responsibility to uphold the standards they set in place?

The Christian morality our nation is based on, not our laws, is the glue that holds society together. Without that morality, government would have to assume tyrannical force in oour lives to fill the gap.

As an exercise, a few weeks ago, I rewrote the declaration of Independence using today’s issues - just to see what it would look like. I stayed as true to the original format and content as possible. This is what I came up with (I apologize for any butchered grammar or spelling - I did this in about 30 minutes):

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 Property.

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 States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Federal Government of the United States of America 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.
They have refused to Assent to State Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have forbidden our Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till a distant and remote court’s Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, it has utterly neglected to attend to them.

They have refused to defend other Laws for the accommodation of large numbers of people, unless those people would relinquish their Freedom of Religion, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

They have restricted the rights of several States under the guise of correcting historical prejudice but in truth for the sole purpose and effect denying their peoples equal representation in their government.

They have supported the cowardly interstate defection of State legislators in order to dissolve rightfully elected legislatures and disrupt the operation of State governments .

They have, under these guises, refused for a long time to allow many states to properly and lawfully apportion their legislative districts, further eroding the fair and just representation of their citizens by their own elected officials.

They have endeavoured to overwhelm the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing enforcement of reasonable Laws for Naturalization or Repatriation of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to stem the human tide threatening to overrun them.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Defend Laws rightfully passed by the legislature.

They have erected an unelected and unaccountable shadow government and appointed Judges blatantly complicit in the overthrow of the principals of liberty and justice central to the defense of every American’s freedom.

They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

They have broken into our homes and businesses and intimidated citizens on their own property under the guise of Education and Environmental protection.

They have committed us to war without proper legislative action, ceding all military action and authority subservient to an increasingly tyrannical and unaccountable Chief Executive.

They have conspired with other nation’s governments to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For granting unequal protection under the law based on skin color, racial origin, or gender:

For extracting tithes to foreign states under the guise of aid:

For cutting off our Trade with many parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For restricting the right to bear arms in defense of one’s own person or property:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free market and redistributing the hard earned property of the American people under the guise of fictitious scientific and economic theories which exist for the sole purpose separating wealth from the citizens who earned or created it:

For attacking our Beliefs, cynically declaring civilization’s most cherished and important Laws and Morals manifestations of hatred to be abolished:

For creating super-national courts and councils declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated Government here, by levying tyrannical mandates on the many stats under the rubric of fairness or compassion, but then compelling the states to fund the federal largess themselves.

They have plundered our resources, denied our own industry, seized great portions of our territories, and destroyed the livelihood of our people.

They have destroyed our banks by compelling them to lend indiscriminately to favored political classes effectively turning our lending institutions into charitable organizations and instruments of “social justice”.

They have created nameless bureaucracies for the purpose of taxation without representation by debasing our currency, stripping it of all measures of substantial value and simultaneously printing vast quantities of new Dollars for distribution as political largess.

They have taxed our children, grandchildren, and distant future generations who as yet have no voice in and now face a lifetime of indentured servitude to government by spending grotesque sums on credit, and have even now refused to produce federal budgets as part of the effort to hide the breadth and scope of the thievery.

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 Government, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define as Tyrannical, is unfit to govern a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Federal 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 constitutional contract between the federal government and the states that created it. 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 Free Republics 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 States, solemnly publish and declare, That these States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Republics; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the United States government, and that all political connection between them and the United States of America, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Republics, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Republics 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.

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