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. – from The Declaration of Independence
Two hundred and thirty-five years ago today the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, originally written by Thomas Jefferson and then modified by the assembled Congress into the form which was actually signed. It was the carefully-considered reaction to a long series of grievances which had been building for thirteen years, most prominently a dramatic increase in taxation and increasingly-harsh suppression of the civil rights of the American colonists. For almost a century (since the Glorious Revolution of 1688) the accepted view in England was that Parliament was supreme throughout the Empire; in other words, that anything Parliament did was ipso facto constitutional because there was no higher authority. But the American revolutionaries, inspired by the philosophy of John Locke, held that government is a social contract between the governor (king, parliament or whatever) and the governed, which granted the right of rule as long as the government upheld its end of the contract. And though the government has the right to establish laws and make other decisions as it sees fit, some rights are unalienable, that is they are inherent in all humans from Nature or God, and no government has the right to unduly restrict or abrogate those rights without just cause. Parliament was therefore not supreme but limited by its unwritten social contract with the people; the Declaration pronounced that Parliament and the King had violated that contract and enumerated the ways in which they had done so.
The words of the Declaration’s second paragraph (quoted above) set forth this philosophy with admirable clarity, and what reasonable and moral person could disagree? The rights of every person to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are, as the Declaration avers, self-evident, as is the right of a group of people to choose the government which works for them. This paragraph is followed by a long section describing the ways in which the Congressional representatives held that King George III had broken the social contract and thereby made the colonists’ rebellion not merely a right but a duty; here are a few important examples from this section:
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 affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power…
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 imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury…
In colonial times, laws were upheld by elected officials (sheriffs, constables and the like) employing deputies or the local militia when necessary; citizens largely protected themselves, and the only American city with a standing police force was Philadelphia (and it was quite small). By the time of the War Between the States only a handful of large cities had such forces, and like sheriff’s deputies they dressed in plain clothes and had no formal ranks. But in the latter half of the 19th century police forces grew far more numerous and assumed a paramilitary character, with uniforms and ranks but lacking the regimentation and strict discipline of a true military organization. The Social Purity movement spawned a vast proliferation of laws, and by the beginning of the 20th century police were routinely dispatched against citizens who only a few years before would have been considered completely law-abiding. Both the powers given police and the gap between them and other citizens continued to expand as the century wore on and the number and intrusiveness of laws proliferated, and at some point police began to routinely refer to non-cops as “civilians”…ignoring the fact that they, too, are civilians, as they answer to the civil authority. The last shift came with the inflation of the “War On Drugs” in the 1980s, and federal grants now allow police departments across the country to purchase automatic weapons, armored vehicles, grenades and other military hardware, which they then use against American citizens who have harmed no one. Police departments have become increasingly militarized, and have been granted unprecedented powers to invade homes, brutalize and murder citizens, steal their property and abrogate their rights in violation of the Constitution and every law of common sense and decency. The police have become, in short, a vast, decentralized, undisciplined army which is not subject to any law, nor are individual cops held responsible for any crimes they commit.
The federal government has in recent decades erected a multitude of new offices, and sent out swarms of officers to harass the people and eat out ever-increasing portions of the GDP.
The police army has been rendered independent of and superior to local, state and federal laws.
They are heavily armed and quartered among us in every neighborhood.
They are protected by mock trial from punishment for any murders or other crimes which they should commit on the inhabitants of the states.
Every year, new taxes, fees and unfunded mandates are imposed on us without our consent.
Many federal offenses are tried before a judge rather than a jury, or else juries are hand-picked and then kept ignorant of salient facts of the cases; or citizens are falsely accused of such heinous crimes, with such disproportionate penalties and necessitating such outrageously expensive defenses, that those accused of them simply plead guilty in return for a lesser sentence. Also, property stolen by the state under ever-expanding “asset forfeiture” laws is not returned even if its rightful owner is never charged with a crime. Each of these procedures essentially deprives its victim of the benefit of trial by jury.
Jefferson’s words are clear, and just as self-evident as they were in 1776: “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…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.”
Careful! Describing the true spirit of July 4th can get you in trouble in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Just go barbeque some hot dogs and salute the flag. Nothing to see here.
Here are a few other things Jefferson said:
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe”.
“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor”.
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them”.
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale”.
“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses”.
I seriously believe that, were he alive today, Jefferson would be in Guantanamo, Bagram, or some similar place.
I seriously believe that, were he alive today, Jefferson would be in Guantanamo, Bagram, or some similar place.
I think there are Jeffersons out there today, and that Maggie’s one of ’em. So far, the powers that be have taken the strategy of ignoring them, or, occasionally, ridiculing one as a warning to the others. When legal persecution ramps up, it will be a sign that fear is increasing because awareness among the populace is increasing, of the rotten state of government today. We seem to be on the cusp of that stage now, so your prediction may be just slightly ahead of history.
Oh, I forgot one of the most important:
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first”.
Well … this is a very depressing, but spot-on entry Maggie.
I think Jefferson would “flip out” if he woke up alive today.
I suppose the “good news” may lie in the fact that, even after all of the taxes – the nation is flat broke and simply staving off complete economic collapse by borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar. That’s only keep the plane airborne for a wee bit longer before the final crash – you cannot spend more than you make for very long before the bills come due.
Once those bills come due – I really don’t see how we can continue to spend the money we do now … and we’ll have to prioritize – and STOP some of the stupid infringements on liberty that are so prevalent today.
That’s my hope anyway. But, you know – money equals power – and no matter what party is in charge in Washington, DC – they both like power. Which means there will always be an incentive for them to take our money and do stupid things with it.
The big weakness in Jefferson’s remark about “the chains of the Constitution” is that a piece of paper – as important political figures have lately taken to calling it – does not have any actual chains. It has no more power than people give it, by obeying the rules it lays down. In short, if the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary all decide to ignore the Constitution, it is a dead letter. That shows distinct signs of happening recently.
Yes, the enemy is the government, so I’d rather be ruled by corporations like the good, obedient libertarian that I am.
After all, nothing must interfere with business, not even an oil spill.
Susan, I hardly think that’s fair; I would say the percentage of self-proclaimed “libertarians” who believe that is roughly equivalent to the percentage of self-proclaimed “liberals” who believe in government redistribution of all wealth. Most libertarians (and I count myself among them) oppose any powerful entity, be it a government or a powerful corporation, from inflicting its will on the individual; after all, any corporation powerful enough to do that is a de facto government anyway.
Susan, it is the government that ncourages such behavioe from businesses. The pass laws writeen by corperate lobyists with out bothering to fully vet them, they try to pass tort reform to keep them from being sued. They go and work for these businesses after passing laws favorable to them.
Yeah Susan. Considering that the government has been the string-dangled dummies of the corporations in the first place for a .very. long time, you wouldn’t know the difference anyway.
Susan, take a gander at this
http://raniakhalek.com/2011/06/23/5-wikileaks-revelations-exposing-the-rapidly-growing-corporatism-dominating-american-diplomacy-abroad/
Your little snide remarks about businesses betrays that you have zero idea that our politicians sold out a long time ago.
I seem to have touched a nerve, but that was my intention.
When I go to many libertarian sites, I notice that they are even more efficient than leftists when it comes to government malfeasance, but they over-look or even defend corporate malfeasance. Example:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/feel-sorry-for-bp144.html
My answer to this is that, no, I don’t feel sorry for BP. If it hadn’t been for public pressure, they would never have plugged the hole in the ocean floor, because it wouldn’t have been cost effective for them to do so, and the leak would’ve continued to flow until some other entity managed to plug it. In fact, they spent more time, energy, and money doing damage control than they did plugging the leak. As if their “image” was more important than the massive environmental destruction they were causing. And they still haven’t fully paid the 20 billion dollars they promised to the Gulf residents whose businesses were affected by the spill.
And President Obama is still covering their ass by not forcing BP to pay what they owe.
So much for “government interference”. This is one instance where the government should interfere.
The only legitimate purpose for government is to stop the strong from preying on the weak, and it doesn’t get much stronger than a multi-billion dollar corporation. Real libertarians do NOT support entities, whether individual, corporate or governmental, screwing up other people’s property and getting away with it. People who support corporate malfeasance and call themselves “libertarians” are no different from people who support a massive nanny-state and call themselves “liberals” or those who support a theocracy and call themselves “conservatives”. A control freak is a control freak is a control freak, and anyone who is in favor of the strong (whether that be wealthy individuals, powerful companies, governments, mobs, democratic majorities or armed cops) being given free reign to trample on the rights of others is the exact opposite of a libertarian.
Please note that the author, Lew Rockwell, states clearly that BP should be liable for any damage they did. He DOES say that government involvement clouds the issue, which should be one of straight-forward liability. And he states that the spill generated a lot of hysteria about supposed damage that never came to pass, which is also true.
Lew Rockwell is one of the good guys, I think. Definitely NOT a corporatist.
The one thing I don’t see buried in this post is evidence to legitimize your claim that Maggie is preaching we throw off our government shackles to embrace our corporate overlords.*
You seem to be self-congratulating yourself for touching nerves. It probably becomes less flattering when you realize that there’s a law on the internet predicting people who claim that taking offense proves the validity of their argument.
* A lie. There are many things I don’t see in this post, including links to good rock music, pictures of pretty men or a reference to My Balls. Of relevant things, though, there’s just the one thing missing.
“The one thing I don’t see buried in this post is evidence to legitimize your claim that Maggie is preaching we throw off our government shackles to embrace our corporate overlords.”
Never claimed Maggie was embracing corporate overlords, and she clearly isn’t.
Your impressive leap of logic implies different.
If I gave the impression that Maggie is a corporate stooge, then I apologize. That was not my intention. Maggie isn’t anyone’s stooge.
That’s for sure! It looks like the lack of voice-tones and body language created a misunderstanding between a number of my regular readers here, and since we’re all on the same side I’d like everyone to cool off about it now, OK? Or even better, get yourself even MORE upset but fling the anger at American Airlines instead of each other! 🙂
“Touching nerves” doesn’t mean that my argument is right. My intention was to present a contrary view to libertarian thought. Gee, my bad.
Anybody who says that we should “feel sorry for BP” like Lew Rockwell is clearly favoring corporate power over individual liberty and well-being. I double-dog dare Mr. Rockwell to go down to New Orleans and tell the out-of-work fishermen there that they should feel sorry for BP. I doubt he would get out NOLA alive.
In other words, the fishermen would give libertarianism far more of a BEAT-DOWN than I’m giving it here on Maggie’s board.
Yes, I’m sure the libertarians tremble in fear of your wrath.
You seem to be unable to get past the title, which is meant to be provocative, and clearly succeeds far beyond LR’s intent here. Forgive me for asking, but did you read the column? Your reaction suggests you never got past the horror you felt over what you imagined the headline implied.
I am a regular reader of Rockwell’s site, and can’t recall a single column that stated or implied that corporations should be able to get away with anything. Many writers, in fact, believe that corporations should be abolished, because the way they limit liability is fundamentally unfair.
It is NOT the case that one must embrace either the government or corporations. Please try to take that thought away from these discussions.
“You seem to be unable to get past the title,”
Why should anyone get past the title? The title says it all. We gotta feel sorry for BP.
Nice try.
Remarkable! You can glean the entire contents of a work from its title. And anyone who says there might be more that is worth reading gets a condescending “Nice try”.
You seem to have the idea that BP executives chortled with glee after their rig blew up. Rockwell shows otherwise, but then, you’d have to read the article, and that would never do for a person like YOU, who can magically tell everything from a title, would it?
No, they weren’t “chortling with glee”, they were crying over their “public-relations disaster” and spending more money on that than they were on fixing the ACTUAL disaster. Because if they’d put their money into plugging up the pipe in the ocean floor, it would have been done in days rather than in three months.
No, I won’t “feel sorry” for BP, as Rockwell is suggesting.
As for the rest of the article, I see it as Rockwell not wanting to admit that the environmentalists were right all along (which they were, and still are), ii.e. that that there really is such a thing as an *ecosystem*.
The fact that there is an *ecosystem* is anathema to him because it smacks of collectivism, and therefore Rockwell is a afraid to admit there is such a thing. But *interdependence* and *collectivism* are NOT the same.
I’m happy to see that people remember My Balls. But please, don’t let the folks up on Capitol Hill see My Balls, because they’ll probably think that the whole country has to be protected from My Balls.
I’m not going to get into the whole argument here, at least not right now, but I will say that I don’t want any corporation to tell me what to do with My Balls than I want the government telling me what to do with My Balls.
Yes, Susan, the blowout in the Gulf was part of BP’s business plan; in fact, you could find it in the report to shareholders issued in …….
I’ve not seen this report, but I’ll do a search on it.
Ask for unintentional hilarity, and ye shall receive.
Let us know how that search is going, Susan. *thumbs up*
I did the search, AD, and found that BP decided not to provide safety measures which could have prevented the blowout. So yes, the oil spill was part of BP’s business plan.
That outta give Emily something to laugh about.
I’m sorry, I was busy bathing in the blood of children. What did I miss?
(Sporfling At Failure to Get It, and Why This Is Exactly Like Catastrophic Environment Rape, by Susan. Coming to a bookstore near you soon.)
Wow! Talk about not having anything meaningful to add to the discussion, Emily.
Save your ridicule for neo-fems and the like. I’m on your side.
Correction: We’re on the same side.
If this is your notion of meaningful intellectual discourse, then you’re doing it wrong.
That “we’re all whores here, therefore you should support my idiocy BAAAAAW” isn’t having much of an impact on my cold black heart.
Dear Susan, I learned this same thing from an alternative news program.
Maggie,
As always your timing is brilliant. Aside from hitting the Fourth*which I had honestly forgotten in my insulated little maritime world), this came right in the middle of a research paper I am writing regarding just this issue.
One of my favorite quotes has always been:
“A man that gives up a little freedom for a little security, deserves neither and will lose both.”
Thank you, Ravaught! I planned the one, though of course the other is pure coincidence. 🙂
I think Jefferson’s vision was of a new nation composed mainly of farmers supported by as few, and as small, towns as possible. When people make their living by direct work, and when they know (and are known to) their neighbours, honesty is the natural state of affairs.
When people are “piled upon one another in large cities”, on the other hand, it is much easier to pile up huge profits quickly – because the people you are cheating are not personal friends or acquaintances. It’s also easier for government and big corporations to grow out of control, becoming cancerous in their selfish lust for expansion.
Last but not least, the big government and the big corporations tend to cosy up to one another, and why not? The government has power, and the corporations have money, and money plus power is even better than just one of them. Presently the corporations go abroad, seeking new worlds to exploit, and of course the government has to go along with them to protect them, and make sure anyone who resists them is bombed into oblivion.
Big government in bed with big corporations, of course, is the classic definition of fascism. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
“…some rights are unalienable, that is they are inherent in all humans from Nature or God, and no government has the right to unduly restrict or abrogate those rights without just cause…”
I have never found it possible to accept this in any shape or form. The key phrase is “…from Nature or God…” If you happen to be an atheist, agnostic, or anyone else who doesn’t presume to read the mind of God, then that source is ruled out. As for Nature, that is a meaningless abstraction that cuts no ice. There is no such thing, and well we know it. It’s just a convenient shorthand for “the way things are”.
So there is actually no verifiable basis at all for natural rights. The only interpretation that makes any sense to me is this: if I have a right, that means everyone else has agreed to let me do something, give me something, or whatever. A right to food is meaningless if there isn’t any food. It’s also meaningless if there is food, but it is owned by people with guns when I am unarmed – unless they decide to share their food with me.
That is, in essence, what Jeremy Bentham meant by his celebrated (and witty) remark that “Right is the child of law; from real laws come real rights, but from imaginary law, from ‘laws of nature’, come imaginary rights… Natural rights is simple nonsense, natural and imprescriptable rights… nonsense upon stilts”.
The only meaningful rights are those that people enshrine in law. The law does not reflect or embody some mystical “natural right” that always existed; instead, the law IS the right.
The problem with such a reductionistic view, Tom, is that it’s inherently nihilistic. If there are no intrinsic rights there is no morals, either, in which case the one who espouses such a philosophy has no room to complain about “might makes right”. An atheist might define a “natural right” as one recognized by every rational individual who recognizes that the only way to secure his own right to self-determination is to allow it to others.
I beg to disagree, Maggie. My view is not reductionist – it merely avoids speculative metaphysics. (I have actually heard advocates of natural rights claim that they are as intrinsic to human beings as their arms and legs. Oddly, they never say whether chimps or dogs have similar natural rights).
And my view is most certainly not nihilistic. I believe in morals as much as anyone; it’s just that I don’t invoke any supernatural beings or invisible and unverifiable principles. Morality has two main sources: instinct, and rational cooperation. The role of instinct is greatly underestimated; recently researchers keep turning up examples of “lower animals” that exhibit what used to be deemed peculiarly human moral behaviour.
I very nearly agree with your proposal that a rational person will recognize that “the only way to secure his own right to self-determination is to allow it to others”. Trouble is, that doesn’t quite work. You can treat other people well as much as you like, and most of them will appreciate it and reciprocate; but some will take advantage systematically. This can all be explained by simple game theory: cooperation is good for everyone, but when cooperation is taken for granted, a niche opens up for parasites and freeloaders (criminals).
So, rather than just doing as you would be done by, one needs to reinforce the rules by enshrining them in law. That way you can punish wrongdoers, and discourage too many people from trying to freeload.
Every community will evolve its own laws, but these will often differ quite noticeably between communities. Unfortunately, in our increasingly globalized world, certain beliefs and values (mostly American) are spreading everywhere and killing off indigenous ones. That, in turn, nourishes the belief that human rights are somehow independent of any particular group of people.
I agree that protections of individual rights need to be enshrined as law; where you and I must agree to disagree is on the notion that those rights derive from laws in the first place.
I notice I left out something very important; that often comes of writing in haste. Where I wrote “law”, I really meant “law and/or custom”. It’s a very important addition, as law that goes against custom tends to be ignored. A binding rule doesn’t always need to be inscribed in a fancy book by a man in a wig.
Thank you for posting this. It’s far too easy to think of modern examples for each of Jefferson’s complaints against the king.
You’re very welcome, Ellimist.
The Revolutionary war wasn’t all good.The Revolutionaries wanted to have 13 colonies Caribbean Islands and also Canada.Canada broke away Peacefully and Received Independence.
Apparently, my country wasn’t my country even before I was born.
and Susan, it’s not a cvhoice between business (bad) and government (good).
it’s a choice between private government (bad) and public government (bad).
Choose the least evil of both and watch them like hawks. No government with power can ever be blindly trusted.
It’s like the attitude towards the Soviets and disarmament:
Trust. But verify.