By William Hurst
On the 4th of July every year we celebrate our independence once again. While reading our declaration, it brings to question whether or not we still have the liberties, accurate representation, and fair and just laws that were hard fought to attain. It brings to mind that we may need to seek our independence once again. Not to separate ourselves from a tyrannical dictator, but to free ourselves from a government that has long since for-gotten what liberty is.
We celebrate, every year, the day we declared that our nation shall be free and independent of an empire that sought to control us without adequate representation and the fight for this freedom would take another seven bloody years to attain after this declaration.
Our forefathers stated in their Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and are endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that government should be derived from the consent of the governed. They set fourth to make each independent colony a state (or country) of it’s own with independent local governments to better handle their own people and for each state to reflect the will of their people through lo-cal representation, unlike the detached control Brittan had.
In the midst of rebellion for our independence, we formed the Articles of Confederation. An agreement between these thirteen independent states to help preserve ea-ch other’s independence and fully legitimize congress to vote on common laws for each state government to abide by. By 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed and our in-dependence was attained.
A mere six years later in 1789 we revised the Articles and “in order to form a more perfect union” the constitution was signed. This has been the state of our union and the basis of our operating principles since.
It is with this history in mind that I am sad to see that we have forgotten our fight for liberty and the mechanisms that caused us to seek independence two-hundred and forty three years ago are coming to pass again.
Let facts be submitted to a candid world:
Government has refused approval of laws, the mo-st wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Government has prevented passing laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspend-ed in their operation till federal consent should be obtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them.
Government has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people by gerrymandering, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature by vote, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
Government has called together voters at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them in-to compliance with its measures.
Government has dissolved or intentionally hindered representative parties repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness its invasions on the rights of the people.
Government has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, where-by the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have turned to the police for their exercise; the people remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of their laws.
Government has endeavored to pr-event the population of these States; for the purpose obstructing t-he laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions to procure private lands for a wall in this endeavor.
Government has obstructed the administration of justice by refu-sing to permit laws establishing a jury of peers for all cases where judgment may restrict the rights of a person, incur imprisonment, or otherwise incur a large debt to be owed.
Government has made judges dependent on its political will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries, with due reliance on contributions by jurisdictional lawyers who seek in-kind rulings to subvert justice itself.
Government has erected a multitude of new prisons, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass the people for citations or imprisonment with victimless crimes; to, with-out warrant, search the property of the people and confiscate their sub-stance by way of civil as-set forfeiture.
Government has affected to render the military in-dependent of and superior to the Civil Power and has forced conscription of the people into this service against their will.
Government has combined with companies to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving its permission to their acts of pretended legislation:
For protecting them, by a mock trial from punishment for any murders or unjust acts which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States;
For imposing Taxes on us with-out our consent;
For depriving people in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury;
For transporting people beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;
For abolishing many systems of foreign laws in global provinces, 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 of democracy on other lands;
For ignoring the Bill of Rights, abolishing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the natural freedoms inherent to each of these rights;
For suspending the people’s ability to act independently for their own needs, with full domain and consent for their own bodies and declaring itself invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
Government has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, poisoned the water of our towns, made a crime of owning plants, and with this, has destroyed the lives of our people.
Government is at this time trans-porting armies to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unbecoming of a civilized nation.
Government has constrained our fellow citizens to bear arms against their family, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
Government has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to extremitize the inhabitants of other nations, the merciless terrorists 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 silence and a POTUS, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, unfit to be the leader of a free people.
We cannot let our freedom become forgotten in river of time. Slowly eroded year after year until the immovable boulder that was once our constitution has become a pebble in the hands of a tyrant.
William Hurst is a libertarian activist and former candidate for the Libertarian Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
