If you read this blog, you are familiar, at least on a passing level, of the text of the Declaration of Independence. You are also likely familiar with history as it progressed from that point until now. I have written about the God-given rights espoused in that inspired document (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness), but I elected at that time not to dive into the “injuries and usurpations” part of the Declaration for a variety of reasons. I have been forced to rethink my own rationale for not tackling that subject in the past. I find myself compelled to write about the need to live a Christlike life, and yet I shrink from this confrontation because of how murky it can get as we muddle away from unconditional truth into areas made much more murky by politics and the less-than-unbiased lens of personal opinion.
I have been pushed over the edge though. There comes a time when you have to call a spade a spade, point at the hypocrites and call them out on the mat, or label and define the usurpations and injuries. For example, modern-day examples of just such violations abound:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. (Refusal to enforce Congressionally-passed federal law).
He (and His administration) has obstructed the Administration of Justice (New Black Panther Party Voter Intimidation Case).
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. (Unconfirmed “Czars” under the Obama Administration: 33 of 38 appointed)
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent. (Illegal taxes being levied by Presidential directive)
Will enough eyes and minds be opened and realize these affronts to our founding? I do not know.
Will people recall that the underpinnings of our founding were not intrusions and oppressions foisted on the American people by a foreign power, but by those that they called their own countrymen? Our history is replete with people recalling the greater of those past abuses and examples of tyranny, but few recall that while the British people and ourselves are different now, back then, we were all British (or Englishmen as it we would have been labeled at the time).
What I do know is that the spirit of independence will not go out quietly… not everywhere. Darkness can drop on all of the world and yet the light of Truth will shine like a beacon in the darkness. The American spirit that binds us as countrymen, the one shared by patriots from Maine to California, from Minnesota to Texas, will not be extinguished by one man, ten men, or ten million men. Liberty will endure because it is from God, not men.
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.
It’s not that liberty is the easiest thing in the world to master. In fact, I would even assert that liberty itself directly opposes any attempt to impose a master, whether one man or a body of legislators and therein lies the deepest foundation of many of the political divisions that split our country.
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