Twelve score and 10 years ago, the biggest political message on the streets was:
“No taxation without representation!”
The British colonists were growing tired of King George’s ever increasing taxes while receiving no representation in the British Parliament.
Taxes imposed on the colonists were considered unconstitutional and violated their rights under the Magna Carta (a cornerstone of British doctrine which also laid out many of the same civil rights we are allotted today such as habeas corpus – which basically amounts to due process).
Over time, the colonists had enough and bunch of tea was thrown into Boston Harbor as a protest against yet another insane tax. A short time later, people started shooting at things, the Minute Men were formed, and we all know what happened next…
A little over a year later the Declaration of Independence, a formal separation from the tyranny of King George, was signed and passed unanimously in the Continental Congress.
Everyone is familiar with the preamble portion of the Declaration of Independence; all men are created equal, our unalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, etc. But people often usually gloss over the most important part of the document…the “List of Grievances” against the Mad King George!
I’m going to list a few of them here because it’s very important to understand how much of what is happening today is the same sort of things we are experiencing over 250 years ago when we had our last “King” problem.
G1. “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
G7. “He has endeavored 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.”
G8. “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.”
G10. “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
G11. “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.”
G12. “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.”
G13. “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:”
G15. “For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:”
G16. “For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”.
G17. “For imposing taxes on us without our consent:”
G18. “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury Trial:”
G22: “For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever”.
G23: “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.”
G24: “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”
All of this is a little too close for comfort isn’t it? Well the reality is that today we find ourselves in a similar situation.
It is told that back between 1781-1783 when the dust had settled, the victorious Colonists, soon to be Americans, having not quite learned the lessons they had taught the world themselves, asked George Washington, the Commander of the Continental Army, if he would consider being the new King of America to contain the potential anarchy that would arise from having no powerful leader to guide us and that sort of nonsense. To wit, he told them to fuck off and they decided that an elected position would be the best course for a formal government.
A Democratic Republic (If you can keep it ma’am – Ben Franklin) was born. Our first and only unanimously elected President was George Washington, who did not fancy himself a King, didn’t want to take a salary, and he didn’t want titles to be used such as “His Majesty” or “His Highness the President”; Mr. President will do.
Proceeding his first extremely popular term as president, he really didn’t want another go at it as he was in poor health and was still very much against the idea of a Monarchy. Only after being urged by pretty much everyone did he decide to do it again and in 1793 the Electoral College unanimously re-elected George Washington.
When his 2nd term was up he wanted to ensure that a truly contested election be held, and that this American experiment could actually work! He was adamant that he would not seek a third term. This absolutely amazing act of humility, set a soft precedent of a 2 term presidency; which held for over a century until FDR won 4 terms of office.
Even though he was a very popular president, after FDR’s death, Congress created the 22nd Amendment, ratified by 41/48 states in 1951. Ensuring without question and based on over a hundred years of tradition, and accepted by most of the entire country, that we did not want a ruler to occupy the office for very long, ever again!
The experiment for the most part held true. Until very recently every single president in our countries history has graciously abdicated the presidency to his elected successor.
Another quick note about George Washington before shifting gears, is that he was very much against the power of political parties controlling the government and feared it would lead to what it has pretty much become reality today; a domination of one party against the other at the cost of the founding principles, freedoms and ideas, destroying all that otherwise makes this country great.
So here we are at the precipice of absolute uncertainty. We have no idea what to expect for the future of our government, our country, our livelihoods, or even our population. Even the two party system which I very much despise and ridicule often has broken down so far that reality has left the building completely.
We aren’t even a two party nation anymore who debate around the rough edges but fundamentally believe in the same things. We are now a country where a massive amount of radicalized people are very much engrossed into the idea of controlling everyone else who disagrees with them and trying to fundamentally revert the nation into some non existent false nostalgic world of a better existence, for some..
A world where big tough macho (but not gay) White men control everything!
A world where women cannot vote, only exist to capitulate to man’s every whim, stay home, and make babies!
A world where we rule with an iron fist and tell the world what to do, when to do it, and to otherwise shut the fuck up and give me your land!
A world where we can magically create all of the goods and services we want right here at home without the need of foreign labor, isolated by the rest of the world, but still somehow dominate the worlds economy with massive tariff’s on our own citizens and awesome power of American Sunshine blasting through the Universe like the white light from GOD striking down all those poor, undesirable brown people, who are truly the scum of the Earth hell bent on destroying our greatness, and should be thankful that we even allow them to exist at all!
Another radicalized part of our country wants everyone to sit around holding hands singing Kumbaya, sticking roses up each others asses, and to freely accept everyone and everything for it’s mere existence regardless of contribution to society, and somehow we will magically all co exist within one happy community of rainbows, and ponies, and butterflies, and everything will magically create itself while we do nothing, and complain about everything all day, creating absolute drama, 24/7, even when there’s often nothing substantial to complain about on a specific topic.
These same people talk about how horrible it is that people are poor and oppressed and starving and homeless…from multiple mini mansions, making millions of dollars that also feed the “Evil Giant Corporations” they love to complain about, mostly on tiny computers that fit in our pockets, that cost more than a years wages in most countries, that we pay them almost nothing to break their backs to create for us, and complain about an energy crisis while simultaneously burning more energy than in anytime in human existence and pretend that it’s somehow sustainable, when doing so actually destroys the very environment they are pretending to care so much about.
Governments have constantly bent knee to both of these groups for decades championing solutions that only seem to be making things worse for everyone except the very rich people in charge who largely will be unaffected by most of the insane policies that they keep creating “for the betterment of humanity”.
Surprisingly both radical extremes have been blurring the lines that used to separate them and they are starting to form a largely conspiracy based and very bizarre other world reality of insanity.
Then there is the rest of us…
Most of us want a little bit of government intervention when things get out of hand and need to be taken care of, within reason. Nothing extreme, just sort of step in to guide us to a better place when we really need help and then let us finish the job.
Mainly, we want to live our lives, make our businesses and be left alone.
We believe that the government serves to provide us with the freedom to forge our own destiny, and to allow more people the freedoms and opportunities given to those generations previous.
We want to be able to do business were we want in a manor of our choosing, to whomever will be willing to buy what we are selling at whatever price we can get for it.
The Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” is not providing anything for the people currently.
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!” Was a nice platitude. The reality is that the government wants our money, our privacy, our freedom, our livelihoods, and demands our loyalty; in return we get nothing back but oppression, tyranny, humiliation, and disdain, while the people running the show make themselves fat and rich while disgustingly abusing all of the power awarded to it and even taking for more than we have ever offered.
The Constitution as we know it is dead. Every single relevant amendment and article has been completely ignored and only serves as a defense when it’s convenient to pull it out and shove it in someones face when arguing about something that both people will often forget about 5 minutes later.
When the government of a Democratic Republic, entirely ignores all of the founding documents, it is no longer a Democratic Republic.
When that Government rules entirely by executive fiat and threatens term limits and other constraints to its sustainability of power, and starts to make major systemic adjustments and replacements of key bodies, openly suggesting that it’s family name will forever be the future of the country, we have become a monarchy, not only in name but in actuality.
Now more than ever it is fundamentally important for us all to remember the most defining thing about the entire American experiment…
America does not Suffer Kings!
Feel free to post any “No Kings” related stuff, articles, and clips, to the comments section below.
