Column for July 5, 2012

This week we celebrate the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  I am going to quote what I wrote as an introduction to the Town of Selma’s ceremonial reading of the Declaration.  Hopefully, some of you got to hear it and the Declaration read Wednesday night.

“The American Revolution against Great Britain began in 1775.  On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a resolution to declare colonial independence in the Second Continental Congress.  The vote on that resolution was delayed for several weeks.  On June 11, 1776, the congress appointed a committee of five to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain.  One June 28th, a draft of that declaration was presented to Congress.  On July 2nd, Lee’s Resolution was partially passed by Congress,  declaring,  “Resolved, 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.”   The declaration document was debated and revised, and on July 4th, the Second Continental Congress approved the final draft of the American Declaration of Independence”.

I consider July 2nd to be our actual Independence Day, not July 4th.  This is not just because July 2nd is my birthday, but because the actual vote for American independence came on that day.  John Adams thought much the same way.  He wrote to his wife on July 3rd, 1776, “The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”.

The Second Continental Congress voted for independence to escape the tyranny they had been experiencing, which was enumerated in the Declaration, point by point.  Tyranny can come in various forms.  The Founding Fathers were keenly aware of this.  Samuel Adams, cousin to John Adams (and not just one of my favorite beers), said “How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words.”  Never has this quote been as poignant as it is today.

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue has vetoed the state budget so that she can look magnanimous in her stance for increased funding for public schools.  This is nothing more than a ploy to build her legacy as someone who allegedly cares about children and education.  However, discerning people realize that it’s nothing more than political showboating.  The plain meaning of adequate funding is being perverted.

The recent decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States on both the State of Arizona’s immigration law (SB1070) and on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) show that the quote by Samuel Adams to be glaring accurate.  To declare that states no longer have the ability to control immigration to their respective sovereign jurisdictions (as originally intended) is federal tyranny over states.  The Arizona decision along with the Obama administration’s refusal to enforce immigration laws cause states to shoulder the burden of educating illegal immigrant children, requiring large state education budgets.  The fact that Obamacare was ruled as constitutional as a form of taxation has forced the single largest tax increase in American history.  It takes away your freedom of choice over whether or not to carry health care coverage, and requires you to participate in commerce, whether you choose to do so or not.  That, my friends, is a form or tyranny.

The Supreme Court decision on Obamacare was a surprise to me, since I figured that even a high school civics student could have figured out that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was highly unconstitutional.  Sure, there were some provisions I liked in the bill, but they were small ones.  Sure, the health care laws could use revision, but this gigantic bureaucracy was not the way to go, nor is it the American way of doing things.  If the law is an exercise in tyranny, limits freedom, and is a major financial burden, then the parts I like are irrelevant and not worth the government’s interference and tyrannical power.

In the first paragraph, I quoted the brief narrative on the Declaration of Independence for a reason.  Folks, we started a revolution for far less than we are putting up with now.  When will we have had enough?