The Declaration of Independence in 2023
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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
I was inspired a couple weeks back, with the approach of Independence Day, to reflect upon the sacrifices made by several of our founding fathers. That simple idea blew up into a small novella.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, dependent upon perspective), there is a limited amount of space available for an opinion column. As I write this piece, Independence Day is still a week away, and as I try to close this out, I am forced to omit the remaining bios that I had prepared, so as to focus this upon how the intent of the Declaration of Independence is now ignored completely by our contemporary federal government.
Our founding document was profoundly Libertarian in nature. Thomas Jefferson; in collaboration with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston (together known as The Committee of Five); declared the liberation of our American colonies from the authoritarian rule and mismanagement of Great Britain.
With sentiments that still ring true to this day, the preamble of our declaration stated that “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 …” In short, it read: We the People are NOT happy, you’re out, and here’s why.
The declaration attacked oppressive regulation and taxation, pointing out that the king had “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” If you haven’t yet noticed, 247 years later, Democrats AND Republicans BOTH equally use the power of government to regularly infringe upon our unalienable and natural-born rights. (I won’t even go into their innumerable infringements upon the 2nd Amendment, as I have already addressed those points in prior columns.)
Since 9-11 alone, the U.S.A. has become the police-state that East Germany once was, back when I was growing up during the Cold War. Your every phone call, email, text message, and any digital communication is now scanned and stored for later use against you. Additionally, our federal government has authorized unaccountable bureaucrats at the federal, state and local level to micromanage what we are allowed to do with our own property. They have engaged us in wasteful spending, while saddling our children, and their children, with trillions upon trillions in national debt.
In 1788, James Madison, who wrote our U.S. Constitution, wrote Federalist No. 62, that “the internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood: if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes, that no man who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.”
Harvard Law Professor Harvey Silverglate wrote in “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent” (2009) that the United States has created such a deep and tangled regulatory morass that most people commit multiple felony crimes every day without any intent or knowledge of having committed a crime. This then provides a pretext for government officials to harass almost anybody whenever they may wish.
The Declaration of Independence complained that the king had “kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” For the last 81 years, BOTH Republicans AND Democrats have kept standing armies in place.
The last actual Declaration of War from our Congress was in 1942, when they declared war against Axis-allied Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, because President Franklin Roosevelt rightfully considered it improper to engage in hostilities against any country without us having made a formal declaration of war.
From World War Two, to Korea, to Vietnam, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Syria, and now National Guard troops on the Mexican border and our troops in Europe in support of the defense of Ukraine against Russia, the “Military Industrial Complex” that U.S. President Eisenhower warned us of in his farewell speech, has kept our nation in an almost continual state of warfare.
In 1776, our declaration accused the king of “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world…” Today, the trade wars that are supported by BOTH Democrats AND Republicans alike, are moving us rapidly backwards, protecting a few privileged U.S. manufacturers at an expense to U.S. consumers and exporters.
Of the many objections to British rule outlined in our Declaration of Independence, one was the restriction of immigration. It noted that the king had “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 …” Yet here we are today, with BOTH Republicans AND Democrats succumbing to the cries of those who suggest that we should discourage and prevent immigration.
In contrast, the economic evidence is clear that immigration expands our economy and brings new wealth and innovation. The problem we have with illegal immigration today is the direct result of interference by our government that made legal immigration both difficult and expensive!
Possibly the most libertarian idea within our Declaration of Independence is its insistence that we have no obligation to submit to our own oppression: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
In opposition to the two large political parties that have driven this once great nation to the precipice of ruin, the sole intent of the Libertarian Party is to re-secure for every American, ALL of our “unalienable rights,” most notably those of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
It is my hope that our nation will be able to continue for many generations yet to come, but if “We the People” continue to allow our government to control us, instead of us controlling our government, I can only weep for the future of our children.
