Ah, the Fourth of July, a wondrous day that rekindles the scent of sparklers and firework fountains and picnics and some burnt barbecue burgers. Oh and the delectable tastes of corn on the cob, apple pie and hot dogs and beans. It's a day that rings in the glorious recollection of our forefathers who stood strong in the face of tyranny and chose to draft and stand behind a Declaration of Independence and later a Constitution, which would protect the American people from censorship, oppression, suppression, and - in a word - government.
- It's not just a date - July 4.
- It's not just a holiday - Independence Day.
- It's not just a celebration - With banners and fireworks.
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| The author taking a stand with some cardboard cutouts, circa 1776. |
Ironic that.
It was "hell" these pioneers escaped when recounting the atrocities of the King of Great Britain George III. It was also most likely "hell" taking a stand for another way of governing a nation. And now, on this 239th anniversary of some brave men grabbing sack and saying "fuck this" ... that hell is back. And it's a hell that is back in full force. Oh, it may be taking place with men (and women) wearing different sorts of facades and masks, and taking different types of stances, but in the end, it's all the same.
Once again we could "let facts be submitted to a candid world." The list could include:
- For searches and seizures without probable cause - as our police take liberty with our persons, cars and property, and our phone companies cave in to a government that must protect us all by suspecting us all.
- For spying on the American people.
- For forcing its own method of healthcare and vaccination without our self-determination.
- For limiting people's freedom of speech and the right to assemble peacefully.
- For allowing the Executive Branch to call for acts of war without declaration by a Congress.
- For threatening the people with laws to remove our ability to arm and protect ourselves from such tyranny.
- And in the words of the original document: "for imposing taxes on us without our consent" and "for depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury."
Is the United States presently as bad off as other countries with purely tyrannical and controlling governments? No, but that doesn't mean we aren't in danger of sliding fully into the darkness we once escaped so long ago.
What is the result of a collective that has one man (or a group of globalists) at the top as “king” while the people are not the ones in the power? What is the result when a nation has law enforcers with entitlement and special privileges above the public’s best interests? Where does equality and freedom go when laws are made to reward specific special interests? What happens when a REPUBLIC designed so all would live under one all-encompassing law – free and equal – becomes a nation that is ruled and controlled by an elite? What happens to a nation in which truth-tellers or whistle-blowers are shushed in ways we don’t even know, where a country not based on the objective standard of its time, a Constitution, experiences the effects of random rule?
Such diseases to the very fabric of a country can only lead to conflict, unrest and the death of a nation. That is the hell. So then, what is the heaven? What is the solution?
At the root of the heaven would be something called "natural law," a philosophical and legal belief that all humans are governed by basic innate laws, or laws of nature, which are separate and distinct from laws which are legislated. In Plato's Republic, the ideal community is "a city which would be established in accordance with nature." Philosophers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke expanded the Greeks theories of natural law, and these ideals found their way into Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence.
Here then, with natural law - adhering to basic human rights, inalienable, given by a higher power and not by men and their egos - we find the principles of fairness, self-determination, autonomy, freedom and equality. From the first days on the playground, a young soul understands when natural law is broken, as some boundary is completely busted by the bully overtaking a swing set or a sandbox. Whenever a boundary is crushed and torn asunder, there is a crime against a natural way of being. These come in the forms of physical abuse, thievery, murder, rape, trespassing. We all feel it on a visceral level; there is no denying the crime has taken place, no matter how a mind may legitimize the invasion.
And, so how do we maintain a law that is so very basic to all our needs, and one that may have been broken so many times we may not even notice any longer? Well, whenever a government does what it tends to do - overstep its bounds by controlling and taxing a populace - it is up to the people to once again stand up strong and reclaim a power that never should have been relinquished. As it says in that original document I keep bringing up: "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."
Not the newest idea. It's as old as, say, the boundaries guarding our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It's as American as fireworks, a barbecue, the taste of corn on the cob and apple pie. It's as necessary as a natural law that keeps the elitist egos at bay and keeps the power of the people at the forefront.
And ... it is something to truly celebrate, today, the fourth of July.
James Anthony Ellis is a writer and producer who - though not a historian - really knows natural law residing right there in his gut. He can be cited for treason at LegacyProductions.org.
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