1776: When Freedom From The State?

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Declare Your Independence From Tyranny, America

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/declare_your_independence_from_tyranny_america

Imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors
to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government
officials.

Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time,
and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and
frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re
doing something illegal.

Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind (or anything that
resembled a firearm) while in this country, it may get you arrested
and, in some circumstances, shot by police.

If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.

However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years
ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain’s version of
an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed
up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and
arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.

No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of
Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed
its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4,
1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all—“our
Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they believed in a
radical idea: that all people are created to be free.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime
punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them
their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate
price—their lives.

Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men
dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they
had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans
worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure
would remain secure for future generations.

The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to
discover that 246 years later, the government they had risked their
lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state
in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a
government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.

In fact, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it
would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in
them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for
surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially
arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled
enemy combatants.

Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the
list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling
resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands
of the American police state.

Here’s what the Declaration of Independence might look and sound like
if it were written in the modern vernacular:

    There comes a time when a populace must stand united and say
“enough is enough” to the government’s abuses, even if it means
getting rid of the political parties in power.

    Believing that “we the people” have a natural and divine right to
direct our own lives, here are truths about the power of the people
and how we arrived at the decision to sever our ties to the
government:

    All people are created equal.

    All people possess certain innate rights that no government or
agency or individual can take away from them. Among these are the
right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    The government’s job is to protect the people’s innate rights to
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The government’s power
comes from the will of the people.

    Whenever any government abuses its power, it is the right of the
people to alter or abolish that government and replace it with a new
government that will respect and protect the rights of the people.

    It is not wise to get rid of a government for minor
transgressions. In fact, as history has shown, people resist change
and are inclined to suffer all manner of abuses to which they have
become accustomed.

    However, when the people have been subjected to repeated abuses
and power grabs, carried out with the purpose of establishing a
tyrannical government, people have a right and duty to do away with
that tyrannical government and to replace it with a new government
that will protect and preserve their innate rights for their future
wellbeing.

    This is exactly the state of affairs we are under suffering under
right now, which is why it is necessary that we change this imperial
system of government.

    The history of the present Imperial Government is a history of
repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the intention of
establishing absolute tyranny over the country.

    To prove this, consider the following:

    The government has, through its own negligence and arrogance,
refused to adopt urgent and necessary laws for the good of the people.

    The government has threatened to hold up critical laws unless the
people agree to relinquish their right to be fully represented in the
Legislature.

    In order to expand its power and bring about compliance with its
dictates, the government has made it nearly impossible for the people
to make their views and needs heard by their representatives.

    The government has repeatedly suppressed protests arising in
response to its actions.

    The government has obstructed justice by refusing to appoint
judges who respect the Constitution and has instead made the courts
march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

    The government has allowed its agents to harass the people, steal
from them, jail them and even execute them.

    The government has directed militarized government agents—a.k.a.,
a standing army—to police domestic affairs in peacetime.

    The government has turned the country into a militarized police state.

    The government has conspired to undermine the rule of law and the
constitution in order to expand its own powers.

    The government has allowed its militarized police to invade our
homes and inflict violence on homeowners.

    The government has failed to hold its agents accountable for
wrongdoing and murder under the guise of “qualified immunity.”

    The government has jeopardized our international trade agreements.

    The government has overtaxed us without our permission.

    The government has denied us due process and the right to a fair trial.

    The government has engaged in extraordinary rendition.

    The government has continued to expand its military empire in
collusion with its corporate partners-in-crime and occupy foreign
nations.

    The government has eroded fundamental legal protections and
destabilized the structure of government.

    The government has not only declared its federal powers superior
to those of the states but has also asserted its sovereign power over
the rights of “we the people.”

    The government has ceased to protect the people and instead waged
domestic war against the people.

    The government has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, and
destroyed the lives of the people.

    The government has employed private contractors and mercenaries to
carry out acts of death, desolation and tyranny, totally unworthy of a
civilized nation.

    The government through its political propaganda has pitted its
citizens against each other.

    The government has stirred up civil unrest and laid the groundwork
for martial law.

    Repeatedly, we have asked the government to cease its abuses. Each
time, the government has responded with more abuse.

    An Imperial Ruler who acts like a tyrant is not fit to govern a free people.

    We have repeatedly sounded the alarm to our fellow citizens about
the government’s abuses. We have warned them about the government’s
power grabs. We have appealed to their sense of justice. We have
reminded them of our common bonds.

    They have rejected our plea for justice and brotherhood. They are
equally at fault for the injustices being carried out by the
government.

    Thus, for the reasons mentioned above, we the people of the united
States of America declare ourselves free from the chains of an abusive
government. Relying on God’s protection, we pledge to stand by this
Declaration of Independence with our lives, our fortunes and our
honor.

In the 246 years since early Americans first declared and eventually
won their independence from Great Britain, “we the people” have
managed to work ourselves right back under the tyrant’s thumb.

Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making: the American Police State.

The abuses meted out by an imperial government and endured by the
American people have not ended. They have merely evolved.

“We the people” are still being robbed blind by a government of thieves.

We are still being taken advantage of by a government of scoundrels,
idiots and monsters.

We are still being locked up by a government of greedy jailers.

We are still being spied on by a government of Peeping Toms.

We are still being ravaged by a government of ruffians, rapists and killers.

We are still being forced to surrender our freedoms—and those of our
children—to a government of extortionists, money launderers and
corporate pirates.

And we are still being held at gunpoint by a government of soldiers: a
standing army in the form of a militarized police.

Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken
very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did
not happen overnight.

It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national
security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration,
political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other
official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power
at the expense of individual freedoms.

The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a
foretaste of - police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven
prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state,
pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines,
militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless
wars, etc. - were put in place by government officials we trusted to
look out for our best interests.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the
American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair
Diaries, the problems we are facing will not be fixed overnight: that
is the grim reality with which we must contend.

Yet that does not mean we should give up or give in or tune out. What
we need to do is declare our independence from the tyranny of the
American police state.