Moving on to real history....
The real reason that those brave men signed the Declaration of Independence was that they were being taxed without being asked what should be taxed or what the tax money should be spent on. To be sure, the colonists were more than happy to pay taxes to the crown, they'd been doing it for 200 years. Without true representation though, they said that they weren't going to tolerate their money being taken from them anymore.
Let's look at the title of the document they signed 233 years ago. The Declaration of Independence. It wasn't a non-binding agreement sent from Congress to the President, it wasn't a UN resolution, it wasn't even a nice letter asking for some representation in the House of Commons (British Congress a.k.a. Parliament). These gentlemen didn't ask anyone for permission to be independent. They TOOK it. We STOLE our own country away from the hands of oppressors who were taking our money and spending it how they wanted without asking us what was proper.
We now find ourselves in a time when our government raises taxes without asking, spends taxes on programs no citizen votes on, and propogates a class of politician in which your only real choice is between a douchebag and a turd sandwich (thanks South Park). We must sign our own declaration in this day and age. We must DECLARE that we are tired of our government acting like our god and our politicians like our masters. We must declare that we are INDEPENDENT from our leaders and that we, as individuals, can make it or lose it on our own and that the only thing that government can do is get in our way. On this day we must remember what actually happened in Philadelphia in 1776: men put it all on the line because they believed the words that were uttered by Patrick Henry the year before, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
Here's another fine speech about independence.
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That's fine and well and good to say, as an ultra-libertarian who opposes taxation pointe blank. But, "taxation without representation" (a) is no longer a valid rallying cry, and (b) is not the singular, or even most important, reason "those guys" founded America. It had to do with religion much more than with taxes; and freedoms of press suppressed by the religious oligopoly. The whole Constitution is based in the belief that the press would be free and the people educated enough to vote and keep their government in check. (Read for more on each, a work of nonfiction by Al Gore entitled "The Assault on Reason," and a work of fiction by Neal Stephenson beginning with "Quicksilver" and ending with "The System of the World," based in the pre-Revolution era England and Massachusetts.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a really long comment. I didn't want to be shallow, as I accused the original author of so being. It rejected my comment because I can only use 4,096 characters. Good god, the title of my dissertation was 4,100 characters.
ReplyDeleteSo, let me swim in the shallow end.
Leviathan, we have representation. Like them or not, they're there. We don't vote on every issue, every expenditure. It's a representative democracy, and we don't all agree on all the votes. Get over it.
Ravenna, the article was about the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. Read the thing. It doesn't talk about religious prosecution, religious oligarchy, religious freedom, religious anything. That's the Bill of Rights, and that protects press AND religion, not press FROM religion. It also protects speech, so you can say whatever off-point thing you want. And don't forget assembly and right to petition, but that doesn't have anything to do with the Declaration of Independence either. Neither does libertarianism, but that's another article.
As for me, I will appreciate to my death the wisdom and struggle of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, et al., for giving me the ability to have a day off from work, have a brew or two, play croquet with family and friends, and watch pretty fireworks. In freedom.
Oh my Leviathan...the way you banter sometimes you'd think we were living in a 1950's Soviet Union. We have Representatives (House of Representatives?) and every tax we pay is outlined towards a goal, whether we like that goal or not. But we live in a system where we elect the leaders that represent said system. It's by a voting system. And anyone can run in it. Anyone. So why again is life so bad now?
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