Secession?

Since the re-election of President Obama, secession has been in the news frequently.  It started with a petition from an individual in Louisiana to be allowed to peacefully secede.  At last count similar petitions by all 50 states had been submitted to the White House's official website.  The number of electronic signatures to these petitions range from just over 4,000 to over 100,000 at the time of this writing.  I do question the wisdom of creating a personal account, including all your personal information to the website of this administration, in order to criticize them.  After all, they have shown a great deal of grace and tolerance of opposing viewpoints (sarcasm intended).  The media, with voices muffled because they are soooo far up the backside of, umm I mean because they are so deep in the pocket of the president, have been very vocal in their criticism of these petitions.  Most have focused on the legality of secession.  In fact, Supreme Court Justice Scalia has been quoted saying that secession is only legal with the permission of the United States government.  The scary part of that argument is that Scalia is one of the conservative justices.  If those quotes are actually reflective of his opinion, we are further lost than I had feared.  The basis of our Constitution and the foundation of our country is found in the Declaration of Independence.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.  They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...."  The government does not grant these rights.  We were endowed by our Creator with these rights.  The next, less quoted portion of the Declaration deals with the people "empowering" a government and the right given the people by "Nature, or Nature's god" to dissolve a government when it no longer serves the people.  Now, I'm no Supreme Court Justice, but that seems pretty clear.  Nature, Nature's god, or our Creator granted rights to the people.  The people grant the government power to govern.  That's the chain of command, so to speak.  The government is not at the top of the chain, but at the bottom.  We and our government need to remember, or in some cases, learn this basic fact.  While I don't think we have reached the point where states need to seriously consider the topic of secession, I definitely understand the feeling of a lack of representation of my views and beliefs in our federal government.  That being said, I have absolutely no doubt of the right of the people to secede from a union or government that no longer serves the interests of the people.  I have absolutely no doubt that right is granted by our Creator, not by our government, therefore the government cannot restrict that right.  

Below is the Declaration of Independence in its entirety.  I believe that all Americans need to familiarize themselves with the document and its meaning.  Before talk of secession becomes serious.  In my next posting, I will discuss the easiest remedy to these very serious issues.  Not surprisingly, the remedy is in our founding documents.  We have just strayed from those documents in the past 100 plus years.  

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured 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, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, 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 into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, 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 repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

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.

We Lost, but When?

I wrote over a year ago about how history is being changed.  Even as a kid, I realized it was happening with the history of Davy Crockett.  What many of us don't realize is how important our history is.  What we learn of our history basically provides the lens through which we see ourselves.  While so many of us were slow to realize the importance of history, others have known for years.  They planned to change history to fit their world view.  They haven't been very secretive in their plans, it's just that we don't pay attention, or don't take them seriously.  The Obama campaign in 2008 told us that they planned to change history.  Listen toMichelle Obama on the campaign trail, she doesn't speak of making history, she speaks of changing history.  That's not a mistake, that is exactly what they have planned.


So maybe the revision of the Davy Crockett story was a test run?  Just to see if we would buy it?  Well, our education system sure did.  Now, they are going big.  They are going after our founding fathers.  I have felt that Texas is one of our last hopes of regaining our country and our past.  But did you know that right now, today, the Boston Tea Party is being taught in Texas as an example of terrorism.  Now, reading the curriculum, it is possible that this lesson is being taught to teach students to reason, to read the information and see it from multiple angles.  From the British perspective at the time, the Boston Tea Party was terrorism.  Only through reading the causes of the revolution will a student learn that the American Revolution was justified.  But is it being taught that way?  Frankly I doubt it.  If it were, why are parents being denied access to the lessons?  The "Parent's Portal" to the online lesson plans offers information that differs greatly from the lesson plans being presented in class. If this is happening in Texas, what is happening in California?  In New York?  In Oregon?

Take a look at what is happening, and has been happening for over a decade with our knowledge of Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson did own slaves.  That is known.  It has been taught since the textbooks published in the 1880's.  What was taught before, but is no longer being taught is that he spent most of his life trying to abolish slavery.  The Virginia Constitution made it illegal for a slave owner to free his slaves.  After George Washington freed his slaves upon his death, Virginia even closed that loophole.  It was illegal for a citizen of Virginia to free his slaves.  Jefferson worked tirelessly to change that.  Unfortunately that was one of the few instances that Jefferson failed.  For a true view of Thomas Jefferson, through his own words and the words of people who actually knew him, who actually lived in Jefferson's time, read The Jefferson Lies, by David Barton.   Barton uses Jefferson's own words, the original documents to clear up the lies being told about him.  The interesting thing has been the response to the book.  David Barton has been attacked from every directions by scholars pointing out the "inaccuracies" in his book.  Their evidence of his inaccuracies comes from scholars writing more than 100 years after Jefferson's death.  These scholars use each other as references, completely ignoring the primary sources - Jefferson himself and his contemporaries.  One interesting chapter in Barton's book deals with Jefferson's supposed love child with his slave, Sally Hemings.  Remember in the late 1990's when a DNA test was done using genetic material from one of Hemings' known descendants that "proved" Jefferson's affair with his slave.  Interestingly enough this report came out just as the current president, William Jefferson Clinton was being impeached for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, making the point that infidelity in the White House was nothing new.  Coincidentally, a retraction was released a few weeks after the initial report that the DNA tests actually concluded that with a 97% certainty, Hemings' child was NOT Thomas Jefferson's.  The retraction did not receive the front page of Newsweek treatment that the original, erroneous report did.

Thanksgiving is a couple of days away.  While the Thanksgiving story that children from my generation were taught is a little simple and doesn't give the complete story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, students are more likely today to learn the perspective of MSNBC commentator, Melissa Harris Perry who says that "European settlers brought violence, disease, and land theft to the indigenous peoples who were already in this land before it was discovered."
 
So why is it important to the president's backers to smear the reputation of our country's founders?  Their view of the United States is that it was founded by rich white men who were only interested in making themselves more wealthy.  The system is set up to benefit the rich white men.  It is stacked against black Americans, immigrants(whether legal or illegal), women, Native Americans, against anyone not white and rich.  The president himself says that rugged individualism, self reliance, and small government is "part of our DNA" obviously in reference to our founding principles.  But then he goes on, "but it doesn't work, it has never worked" to the applause of his audience.


That is why it is so important, in the president's view,  to change history.  It has worked.  When applied as our founders intended and as they stated in our Constitution, it always works.

We did lose the election earlier this month.  But that defeat actually started when we lost the battle of truth about our history.  To get back, we have to make truth matter again, and make history matter again.

Tell Me, Who Are You?

Here's my daily football reference.  The featured band at this past year's Super Bowl was The Who.  Thanks to CSI on television, their most well-known song is Who Are You.  That's a question we should be hearing a lot between now and November's elections.  

I read a lot of news and opinions from sites as diverse as Big Government and The Huffington Post.  Even more informative than the articles themselves are the comments that follow.  On one site, you will see a lot of "Obama's the anti-christ" type comments.  Of course on the other, they claim that it's all Bush's fault, you racist!  Read enough of the comments, and you really start to worry about where our country is heading, and even more importantly, why our politicians are encouraging the division.  There is very little discussion of the topic.  Mainly a lot of name-calling.  Both sides of our national arguments strongly believe they are right, and that the other side is stupid, evil, or possibly just stupidly evil.

In the past four months or so, I have become a Glenn Beck fan.  The thing that first attracted me to his show was his level-headedness.  He would lay out the facts, tell his listeners to check them out for themselves, and then decide for themselves.  He has never, at least that I have heard, read, or seen, said that our president or his supporters were evil.  Beck has repeatedly said that they have an agenda for the transformation of America.  That happens to be a progressive/socialist agenda and they have been very upfront about their intentions, but only if you are listening.  The progressives truly believe that their plan is what is best for America.  Beck has also said that he believed that when he laid out the facts, the national media would take the story and run with it and the American public would wake up.  Well, the national media has not covered the story.  They seem to be part of the progressive/socialist movement.  So then Beck laid out the connections between the media (GE-owned NBC networks), the president, Al Gore, Fannie Mae, the economic collapse, the global warming hoax,  the cap and trade legislation, and the trillions of dollars the legislation would bring to each of them.  Still no public outrage.

So, for the sake of comparison, say you see flames bursting out of the upstairs window of a crowded theater.  You run inside yelling "fire!!!"  Only a few patrons glance your direction.  So you yell louder.  Still no response.  You run outside, take a picture with your handy dandy cell phone camera.  Run back inside, waving the photo over your head, while still screaming "fire" at the top of your lungs.  When only a couple of patrons follow you outside, you get mad.  Now, instead of trying to inform the movie-goers of the danger they are in, you start name-calling.  "Moron" comes to mind.  How can they not see the peril.  They just must be stupid.  Maybe in reality, they are very cold-natured.  Burning the theater for warmth is the best idea they have.  They truly believe you are a conspiracy theory loving idiot; they are not trying to kill everyone.  A really big fire is the best way to get warm.

Ok, it's a stretch.  But that's where we are as a nation.  While Beck and others are yelling "socialism, you idiots," Obama, Ayers, Van Jones, and NBC are yelling, "we know, you idiots!"  We've got stop the name-calling and birth certificate checking and educate ourselves and those great masses of uninformed about what is really at stake.  Progressive sounds good.  We all like progress, right?  Well, kind of like the change we were promised, we'd better find out what we are progressing toward.  History does not paint a very pretty picture of past socialist movements.  

And history is what we all need to learn.  A big part of the country is waking up to the fact that the progressive movement began to change our history almost a century ago.  The changes to the Texas curriculum could be a start in the change back to the truth.  David Barton was part of the board that made the changes.  Check out his book, Original Intent for the real history of our founders, especially their belief that they were led by God.  As Barton says repeatedly, the founders were Christians.  Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.  The founders did not believe in government sponsoring a religion, but neither was religion banned from government.  

Another extremely hot topic is race.  So, take a look at Barton's American History in Black and White.  It tells the true roles of black Americans in the formation of our country, starting with patriots who were instrumental in the winning of the revolution.  The 3/5 compromise (slaves only counted as 3/5 a citizen in deciding representation in Congress) was a powerful anti-slavery provision.  That's not Barton's opinion, Glenn Beck's, or mine.  That's the opinion of Frederick Douglas.  Just in case you went to public school between 1980 and today, Douglas was a former slave and abolitionist leader who became great friends with Abraham Lincoln.  At first glance, it looks like the founders believed that blacks should not count as a whole person.  Then think logically.  When counting population to determine representation, southern slave states wanted slaves counted.  Northern states said, they count when freed.  Southern states threatened not to sign the Constitution, so a 3/5 compromise was reached.  Founders such as Jefferson, Franklin, and John and Samuel Adams believed that slaves would be eventually freed in response to the free market and in order to increase southern states' representation.  But counting slaves for representation would only tilt the congress toward making slavery permanent.  When was the civil rights bill first passed?  How about during the Grant (R) administration.  Some was overthrown by courts, then the rest repealed by the Wilson (D) administration.  Who re-introduced it?  Eisenhower (R) re-introduced it.  It never made it out of a Democratic senate.  Kennedy(D) and Johnson(D) both voted against it.  The vast majority of Americans believe that Republicans have consistently fought against rights for minorities and that Democrats have been leaders in the fight for equality.  At least since President Lincoln (R) got it all started.  But we all know that he would be a Democrat today!

Those are just some of the things that were taught at one time.  We need to learn why the texts were changed and make sure all Americans know true American history.  Americans need to make informed decisions at the next election.  We need to know who we are and where we want to go.  We can't again vote for change without asking "change to what?"  Obama's idea of what America is, is not my idea of what America is.

Glenn Beck is very good at distilling issues to their core.  On his television show today, he said Americans need to look to the summer of 1969.  Are we the Americans that went to the moon?  Or are we the Americans who, three weeks after the moon landing, rolled in the mud smoking pot at Woodstock?  As Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey of The Who (they played at Woodstock by the way) asked, "Who are you?"