The Post & E-Mail
by KJ Kaufman
The Battle of Charlestown (c/o The National Archives).
(Dec. 21, 2009) — Many of us were taught that the American fight for Independence began as a fight of no taxation without representation as the Colonists were being taxed by King George III when the Colonists had no representation in British Parliament. Although this characterization is certainly true, the ultimate decision to declare independence was much more than that. The colonists were developing a nation. Today, we would think of them as modern day entrepreneurs. At every turn they were being taxed so as to make their exports less attractive and imports exorbitantly expensive. Their commerce was obstructed and they were sent goods of lesser quality. American Independence truly began as a culmination of infringements of the colonists’ God given rights being usurped by a mad man in England and also by the British Parliament. I use the term mad man, not in hyperbole, but in earnest as King George III suffered throughout his life from mental illness.
As many of you know, Tea was taxed. In Boston, Patriots dumped tea (circa 1773) into the harbor in protest which sparked elevated tensions and resulted in the passage of the “Intolerable Acts” by the British Parliament, but there was trouble in Boston and elsewhere long before the dumping of tea. The Revolution began as the result of numerous punitive actions against American commerce as well as taxation. The Revolution began as the result of:
- English merchants enjoying a monopoly on raw materials and requiring importation of manufactured goods from Great Britain.
- Discriminatory trade practices where American exports were devalued and British imports were so highly valued that there was a never ending debt cycle for the American farmer and merchant.
- In 1765, seeking to alleviate their war debts, the British Parliament levied a Stamp Act tax which required all legal documents, newspapers and many other articles to have a Stamp placed upon them. The colonists had no representation in the British Parliament and maintained responsibility for levying their own taxes that they sent to the British Crown. This was the first tax against the colonists imposed by a government body in which they had no representation. The Stamp Act Tax was repealed by the British Parliament just one year after it had gone into effect.
- Even though the British Parliament had repealed the Stamp Act, during the same session, they asserted their supposed right to tax the colonists.
- The colonists retaliated by general agreement to not purchase English goods that had taxes attached.
- In Boston, the colonists were unruly, and the King sent British troops to occupy the city. By 1760, the occupation had so added to the tensions that a snowball fight between young boys in Boston against British soldiers culminated in the “Boston Massacre” where gathering Bostonians were gunned down by British soldiers. Five Americans were killed while many others were wounded.
- Tensions remained in Boston for the next three years. Even though the British Parliament repealed the Townshend Act which was the tax on tea, the British Parliament in response to the dumping of tea in the Boston harbor, passed the “Intolerable Acts” with its most restrictive measure being the closure of the port of Boston resulting in Massachusetts being under what can only be described as British martial law.
- By May of 1774 a grassroots movement began in the colonies against tyrannical rule. Many meetings throughout the colonies sprung up to reassert individual rights.
- In the summer of 1774, the “Fairfax Resolutions” were drawn up and stand today as one of the first influential documents regarding American political thought. The Fairfax Resolutions reiterated the limited powers of Parliament against the colonists and highlighted the rights of free men.
- The colonists began their Congresses later that year in 1774 holding the First Continental Congress in September of 1774.[i]
I have highlighted above the many events of the 1760’s and 1770’s to show the parallels to modern day America. The above illuminates egregious regulations of commerce, taxation and usurpation of individual rights. In American modern times, can the last century as well as the events thus far into the new millennium be characterized in different terms other than parallel to those described above? Is history repeating itself a mere two and a half centuries later?
The United States government under liberal and progressive plans has resulted in the promotion of the collective against the individual. There can be nothing more un-American than to subvert the rights and liberties of the individual in advancement of the collective. There was a time in America where we understood that to promote a Marxist ideology, an ideology that failed miserably during the 20th Century resulting in the death of tens of millions of human beings, was simply un-American. Today, our Democratic leaders readily accept this ideology in direct contrast to our founding and in direct violation of our Constitution. Let me share with you just a few statements from our Democratic Senators, uttered on the Senate floor in yesterday’s health care debate soliloquies.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) – Quoting Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Hofstetter, Senator Whitehouse charged: “a political environment in which the rational pursuit of our well being and safety would become impossible…Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets, strange fruit has hung from southern trees…”
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) – “And that’s really what we are trying to achieve here is to create that availability of a right. I don’t know of anyone that disagrees with the statement that health care in America ought to be a right…”
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) – “We are talking about a revolution in primary care here…Doctors, dentists, nurses and other medical professionals who agree to work in areas where there are limited medical services get help paying off their school loans.”
I led off with Senator Whitehouse’s comments because they are so offensive, they ought to be rendered moot just on their face, but unfortunately Senator Whitehouse’s attempt to use another’s words to push the deceit that if you are against health care reform with respect to this particular bill, then you are rolling fellow citizens to the guillotine or are a racist is outrageous and repulsive, utterly offensive, arrogant and self-serving. Senator Whitehouse, in our history, it has been those with opinions such as yours, that the individual and individual rights can be subverted by his fellow man through the ways and means of government, who are first to throw the rope over the branch of the tree of tyranny. You are a despicable excuse for a leader, and you are in direct violation of our Constitutional protections. Consider yourself on notice. Your tyranny will not prevail in a country of free persons.
Ascertained from the remaining quotes, it is duly noted that the Democratic Party continues to push the philosophical position and moral imperative that health care is a right. Nothing could be further from philosophical and moral fact. Health care is not a right as rights cannot be obtained through the subversion of another’s rights. Health care is not a right nor is it a privilege, rather, it is a good and service for which will all strive to procure. We all have a right to live and pursue our lives. In that pursuit, we may choose to take care of ourselves and avail ourselves of health care. However, nowhere contained within our rights can we require another to provide for our own care. We can readily accept the generosity freely given by our fellow men and women, but we cannot force them to make a contribution to ourselves.
Our Declaration of Independence assured us of our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution provided for us a bill of rights. Neither document grants health care as a right, and there is absolutely no government empowerment to legislate such. There is no philosophical moral imperative to the right of health care. There is a moral imperative to resist at every turn the encroachment on another’s rights.
The Democratic Party is simply lost. They no longer understand the American Founding nor the ideals and guarantees of our history. To willingly, unlawfully and without authority expand the powers of government so that they resemble a Politburo more than our own Constitutional Republic was once considered tyrannical rule in this Country. No more, today it is simply standard operating procedure for the Democratic Party.
Our commerce has been subjected to regulation where no enumerated power can be found for such encroachment into our free market system. Our citizenry has been taxed in ways and by means that have no Constitutional founding and are in direct violation of our rights to our own property. Our private businesses have been usurped through government infusions of money in total contradiction to its monetary powers contained in our Constitution. We have been subjected to legislative act after legislative act in direct violation of everything we once believed and knew to be the fact of our inheritance.
As you can see from the events quoted at the beginning of this article, there comes a time in a man’s or a woman’s heart where he or she can take no more. It is with this understanding that we know the time draws near when the masses will rise up to reassert their God given rights. A free people will never willingly be subjected to tyranny. It is only a matter of time before the citizens of these United States rise up as their forefathers did and declare that they have had enough. Whether this revolution results in violence or continues through peaceful protest and redress remains to be seen. What is certain is that the American People have only just begun to fight.
In an outrageous example of the abuse of near dictatorial power, the leader of the United States Senate, Harry Reid, forced a vote on nationalized health care. With total disregard for the will of the people and turning a blind eye to the United States Constitution, Reid sought passage for this bill by corrupting the legislative system.
Socialism is not the Answer 