Isn't that what we've been told all of our lives?
Heroic men stood up to the oppression of King George and threw off imperialistic tyranny to begin a new nation where people could be free. How wonderful!
But before you celebrate again this year, I'd like for you to consider a few things as a good American.
What we're really celebrating is a bloody secession from British rule, right?
Indeed, if most of today's flag-waving patriots were transported back to colonial America, they would be hard pressed to find a comfortable, lukewarm pew. Back then, folks who spoke of discontent with government rule lived out their convictions by actively resisting it.
Americans later became so enamored with his boldness that a uniquely American tradition bearing his name sprang up: when we ask people to sign a document, we say "Put your John Hancock here"!
How many of us rally to the defense of tax evaders? Do you even know the names of some outstanding Americans currently jailed by the IRS for resisting the illegal, unconstitutional income tax? If you do, have you written to encourage them and take up their cause? Or do you not want the IRS officials to see your name and address on incoming mail?
And be truthful. Most of us distance ourselves from those who do business in the underground economy. We don't see them as freedom fighters. They're radicals on the fringe who've gone too far, and association with them could raise suspicion with Big Brother.
However, these mavericks--not today's "paper patriots"--would fit right in with the founding fathers' idea of protecting one's God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Have you ever wondered what men like Hancock, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams and the great Jefferson would say if they visited the United States today?
The revolt that sparked their revolution was over 1-2% tariffs on goods. There was no such thing as an income tax.
Here's what we pay today:
Federal personal income tax 17%
State and local income tax 10.1% (average)
Sales tax 9.7% (average)
Social Security and Medicaid 7.6% (this is one half of total rate/employer pays other)
Federal corporate income tax share 3%
Property Tax 2.5% (average)
Fuel/gasoline tax .5% (average)
Other 5% includes estimated estate tax, fees, licenses, inflation losses, inheritance, deficit allowance, gift and others too numerous to mention
What would our founder thinks of Obamacare?
Would they stand in disbelief over our massive foreign aid, entangling alliances and perpetual wars?
Would these men express horror over the gargantuan, centralized government that early on usurped the Constitution and crippled states' rights, turning their entire vision for healthy governance upside down?
How would they address Congress concerning our welfare and entitlement glut?
And just what do you think the fathers would say to corporate bailouts, big banks, and the Federal Reserve?
More importantly, what do you think they would say to us...the people responsible for a vigilant watch over our republic? I doubt they would be impressed with our tea parties and rhetoric!
During the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall to learn what had been produced.
A Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin on his way out, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Have we kept it? No!
The men who pledged their lives and fortunes to carve out the concept of individual freedom would grieve over how we have confused nationalism with patriotism, turning July 4th into a day to celebrate government, rather than transcendent liberty.
I'm sure, based on how they lived and fought under lesser threats against liberty than we do today, that they would shake their heads at our gullibility and complacency.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776
What was then the hand of the British Crown has now become the teat of the American Nanny State. A populace of children back then have regressed into coddled babes at the breast who are afraid to be weaned from State favors and take responsibility for their own lives.
Sadly, even Christians have bought into the lie of perverse, nationalistic fervor, brain-washed into a modernistic interpretation of Scriptures that only on the surface appears to support the State.
Hitler, too, used Romans 13 to sway a undiscerning population to his side. So, let me ask a question:
How can you interpret Romans 13 as an endorsement to obey the State, and then go out in good conscience and celebrate Independence Day?*
Are these your heroes? If they truly are, then go ahead...fire up the BBQ pit. If not, don't be a hypocrite. Don't wave your flag and play patriot-for-a-day.
1. Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
2. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
3. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
4. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
1. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
2. Eleven were merchants,
3. Nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.
Still they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy and eventually sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
Thomas Nelson, Jr., lost his home to the British General Cornwallis for his headquarters. Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
"Would I sign such a document today?" ***
Your answer determines whether you should bother to invest in a round of fireworks or just keep quiet this July 4th.
*I will follow up in a few weeks with an article that examines the Romans 13 text and what I believe is a proper interpretation for Christians living in a secular state.
** Am I advocating an overthrow of the government of the United States? No; hear me carefully. Secession is a real possibility in light of a government gone rogue. Until then, patriots are awakening to the Tenth Amendment, and states are standing up and taking back their original rights.
Before a radical secession, states can stand up to centralized tyranny through a constitutional process called Nullification. Tom Woods has an excellent book on the subject.
Visit his blog for more information and lots of resources!
Regardless of what your state does or does not do, you retain the power of the vote...not only in the ballot box, but with your money and your feet. Move to a more freedom-friendly state with lower taxes.
Don't overlook the concept of personal secession, where an individual takes carefully considered steps to divest from statist control. For some, it is the radical choice of not paying taxes, not voting in federal elections, and economically living "off the grid".
All of us however, can distance ourselves from the state in terms of direct compliance. Purposed, passive non-participation can be just as powerful as active resistance.
For instance, there are legal ways to avoid paying more taxes rather than just handing it over without question every April 15th, but it requires diligent research on our part, and the government knows most Americans won't take that kind of charge over their own lives.
We can employ old-fashioned bartering and time banking, gift card giving, and other creative ways and means of exchange as substitution for the illegal, worthless Federal Reserve Notes that will soon plunge our country into its darkest days yet.
And how many of us really take our time to investigate a candidate's claims? Gone are the days of party loyalty. Look at Obama and Bush: both appeared to represent opposite ends of the political spectrum, but once in office, both men arrogantly violated the Constitution and ignored the will of the people!
Many patriots, feeling the electoral process at the top is corrupted beyond a restore point, prefer only to participate in some state and local elections where their voice is still heard and their vote is measurably viable.
"You know, comrades," says Stalin, "that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how."
If destiny does call for us to take up arms to defend our freedoms, those best prepared will be those who have already begun to untangle themselves from the state's tentacles.
*** Grievances against the government--1776 and today:
Then: He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good...
Today: Wiretapping/spying on US citizens, TSA rules, internet oversight, Obamacare, Patriot Act and so much more
Then: He has endeavored 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...
Today: misdirected Immigration Laws
Then: He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices...
Today: unchecked Supreme Court power to make new rules rather than interpret them constitutionally
Then: He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance...
Today: The appointment of "Czars" at taxpayers' expense, the formation of Homeland Security, and 1,500 new IRS employees to enforce Obamacare compliance, increased 'emergency' powers to FEMA
Then: He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power...
Today: Leading us into costly and deadly conflicts without a Congressional Declaration of War, deliberate cover-up of information and actions, false information, etc.
Then: 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...
Today: Obamacare, Welfare, Social Security, and other entitlements, plus a host of daily, encroaching restrictions
Then: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world...
Today: sanctions (that inevitably lead to armed conflicts) and steep tariffs
Then: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury...
Today: Military Tribunals for American citizens in a time when Congress has not declared war on any nation
Then: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses...
Today: Guantanamo and other secret bases around the world (Bagram)
Then: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring 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...
Today: forcing Americans to pay with their lives and our fortunes the nation-building and artificial democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan, secretly setting up regimes and taking them down around the world, meddling in a nation's internal affairs and the resulting blowback against the American people
Then: Taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments...
Today: Usurping the Constitution and trashing the fundamental concept found in the Declaration of Independence to one's inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and any governing power's restricted purpose to aid in the flourishing of those rights...not to hinder, cripple, or control such rights.
Then: He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete 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...
Today: Private contractors and black ops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and more to come..overseas and here on American soil as our government takes on the makings of an Orwellian nightmare with IRS enforcers, predator drones, satellite and internet surveillance on local and national levels, food police, public school propaganda, quality of life panels, government medicine, full body scans at airports, etc.
Then: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent...
Today: Do I have to explain this one?
For a history of taxation in America, the rise of the IRS and its abuses, visit my series on taxation linked on my main site on the side bar.
Discerning Americans are also troubled over the safeguarding of the Second Amendment, which does not just grant us the right to bear arms in personal self defense, but PRIMARILY against the government when necessary!
Therefore, the presence and use of standing armies inside America to "keep the peace" is a troubling situation (Interestingly, the Constitution forbids standing armies to exist unless a war has been declared; even then, such armies should be active for only two years!)
Read through the Declaration itself, and see if some of the coercive tactics being employed by the Executive and Legislative Branches of our government today are akin to those of King George...particularly in light of bailouts, deals behind closed doors, takeovers, and the handling of the BP spill and the control of oil funds to blighted areas.
The government now legislates and monitors every aspect of our lives from the cradle to the grave. We have to get permission to be viable (birth certificate), marry, register our children, and be buried properly.
The government educates our children, tells us what we can and cannot build, licenses our skills, taxes and oversees our businesses, our transportation, our travel, and all our consumptions--food, medicine, healthcare, and entertainment. Everything!
lives, fortunes and sacred honor?
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
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