A deliberate commission of sedition.

4. because experience proves the inefficiency of a bill of rights on those occasions when its controul is most needed. Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State. In Virginia I have seen the bill of h rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current. ... Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents. This is a truth of great importance, but not yet sufficiently attended to. ... Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful & interested party than by a powerful and interested prince. ... The difference so far as it relates to the point in question — the efficacy of a bill of rights in controuling abuses of power — lies in this: that in a monarchy the latent force of the nation is superior to that of the Sovereign, and a solemn charter of popular rights must have a great effect, as a standard for trying the validity of public acts, and a signal for rousing & uniting the superior force of the community; whereas in a popular Government, the political and physical power may be considered as vested in the same hands, that is in a majority of the people, and, consequently the tyrannical will of the Sovereign is not [to] be controuled by the dread of an appeal to any other force within the community.

-- James madison to Thomas Jefferson.

The reason for the preceding is as follows:

And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.

-- Sameul Adams
Title 18, part 1, chapter 115, § 2385. Advocating overthrow of Government

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

Heaven forfend that we should happen to talk about our origins and the reasons for the enumeratoin of our rights. It should obviously be, forever be, and without recourse be in the powers of government to do as they wish, obviously.

In spite of the quite contrary nature of their charter.

Ignoring the intent stated in the federalist 26:

The legislature of the United States will be OBLIGED, by this provision, once at least in every two years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on the point; and to declare their sense of the matter, by a formal vote in the face of their constituents. They are not AT LIBERTY to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence. As the spirit of party, in different degrees, must be expected to infect all political bodies, there will be, no doubt, persons in the national legislature willing enough to arraign the measures and criminate the views of the majority. The provision for the support of a military force will always be a favorable topic for declamation. As often as the question comes forward, the public attention will be roused and attracted to the subject, by the party in opposition; and if the majority should be really disposed to exceed the proper limits, the community will be warned of the danger, and will have an opportunity of taking measures to guard against it. Independent of parties in the national legislature itself, as often as the period of discussion arrived, the State legislatures, who will always be not only vigilant but suspicious and jealous guardians of the rights of the citizens against encroachments from the federal government, will constantly have their attention awake to the conduct of the national rulers, and will be ready enough, if any thing improper appears, to sound the alarm to the people, and not only to be the VOICE, but, if necessary, the ARM of their discontent.

Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community REQUIRE TIME to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose, not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series of time. Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all? Is it probable that it would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses? Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought at once to be an end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.

If such suppositions could even be reasonably made, still the concealment of the design, for any duration, would be impracticable. It would be announced, by the very circumstance of augmenting the army to so great an extent in time of profound peace. What colorable reason could be assigned, in a country so situated, for such vast augmentations of the military force? It is impossible that the people could be long deceived; and the destruction of the project, and of the projectors, would quickly follow the discovery.

Ignoring the intent stated in the Fedralist 78:

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

Ignoring the statements of the founders of that very intent:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights

Joseph Storey, Comments on the U.S. Constitution.

And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.

– Samuel Adams

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.

– Samuel Adams

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

– Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.

– Samuel Adams.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

– Patrick Henry

On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823)

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

— Abraham Lincoln

Let us remember, that 'if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers in the event.

— Samuel Adams

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."

— Thomas Jefferson

Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all?

-- Samuel Adams

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.

– Samuel Adams

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

Politicians would have us believe that our rights are not rights, that the government gives privileges to men that agree with it, and can take it away for any status that they choose. Those politicians would be wrong. There is no power granted to remove rights. There is no power granted to grant rights to a few, nor to deny them to an equal few, or even the whole. Rights are maintained inviolate, outside of the constitution, having existed and been recognized before it.

Ask yourselves, gentlemen, sirs, if this intent, this great work, comports with those very actions our congress and our president is taking today? If the purpose of the supreme court was to uphold the constitution with the intent with which it was passed, and that intent was the end of tyranny, in all its forms, then how can it uphold the aspects of tyranny themselves? How can it allow powers that were retained to the people, in opposition to that very tyranny, to stand?

Only if it, itself has fallen away from the duties appointed it by the Constitution. The Marshall court was clear under Madison v. Monroe that the powers were placed to maintain that constitutional law, and to blunt the arbitrary will of the law.

Checks and balances were placed in government, and a further check and balance was placed against the whole of the government in the people themselves, the right to speak, to rabble-rouse, to petition, to assemble without any licenses or limitations, so long as the assembly was peaceable. There was neither authority nor power granted to the government to levy any law that did not affect themselves equally with the whole of society and the friends of the congress. There could be no advantage nor disadvantage in any legally mandated legislation created by Congress. No vagueness, no obscurity, no codicils allowing one man to do something while another could not.

This article is a knowing, and cognizant commission of sedition. HOwever, the constitution itself does not provide for sedition, in fact, it prohibits any such actions, any such powers, any such establishment of prohibitions upon speech or assembly. The only provision it makes is if the courts cease to be operable, due to rebellion, that habeas corpus may be suspended.

There is no authority to control a right via the commerce clause, nor to control people. No authority, power, or exercise thereof allowing people to legislate against other people for their own benefit, and a direct prohibition against such.

If I had to define what our government is doing today, it would have to be defined in the terms of the founding fathers, and that would be usurpation, treason, and war against the people from whom its powers are granted.

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.

– John Locke

We are the creators of government, and we are the owners of government, the employers of those senators and congressmen, and of the president himself. Should they cease to represent our interests in a constitutional manner, we have the right, the duty, and the obligation to force them to step down, and return to the constitutional mandate, that the nature of government be returned from a tyrannical exercise of power to the powers granted within that constitution.

If we do not... we are as guilty of treason as they.
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Reaching for freedom

We look around for freedom, but so very rarely does anyone reach for it. Part of this is because so very few understand what it is... Freedom is not the absence of laws, for the absence of laws creates tyranny by its very nature. Freedom is being free to exercise your full rights in ways that do not remove the rights of others. This is the nature of our constitutional republic's vision of a Republican form of government. (To be distinctly separated from the 'Republican Party').


Our nation is based upon the definition of a republican form of government, a form designed and instiuted not to preserve absolute liberty, but to gain freedom by reducing the potential of removing liberty itself. We, as a nation, are a fallen group, having fallen away long since from the visions of our forefathers, and the truths that were enshrined so long ago.

We, the people of our nation, are not the servants of the government, for that government was designed and implemented to serve us, not the other way around. We, the people are the owners of the government, and as such, any actions taken by that government against our liberty are null and void.

We look at the society around us and say 'someone ought to make a law'. Well, to tell the truth, someone already did. The problem is not the lack of a law, but the presence of laws outside of the constitutional authority. That constitution conferred no rights, established nothing but a government with limited powers, and gave that government specific prohibitions against the use fo those powers.

The powers of government are such that each and every action taken by that government had to be within the limited, expressed powers of that government, and further within the very limited scope allowed by article 1, section 9. The limitations were placed against attainder, a very poorly understood term at this time. Attainder was not merely the old writ of attainder, however, by which property was seized and the life was forfeit by the writ. The doctrines of the United States, included 'bills of pains and penalties' by which any property, or right was also protected against seizure. These protections from attainder were placed to prevent aspiring politicians from stirring up the people, one part against another, and against the politicians for creating advantages for themselves or disadvantages for their competitors.

Any targeted legislation that removes any right of the people (including the rights of life, liberty, property, or the ability to defend them) is in effect transferring, or 'alienating' the right from the property of the person, to becoming the property of the government. This is why those rights were written as to be 'inalienable', the property process of transfer and alienation could not occur by any means.

How then do we have so much fewer exercises of those rights today? Perhaps because we've gone along passively, allowing the rights to be alienated for others. For a felon, we remove the rights to vote, to keep and bear arms, to serve on juries and hold offices. We make laws making more and more felons, when the only means by which those rights could be removed at the beginning... was for capital crimes like murder.

We go along, saying 'there oughta be a law' and ignore the fact that there is already 'a law', and myriad laws... but neither the state, nor the federal government can limit the operation of a right that pre-existed the union.

To do so would be attainder... even if targeted against the entire class of the citizenry.

After all, if it is a natural right to keep and bear arms, reserved to the people themselves, and not the states, to maintain, keep, and bear arms against tyranny of all sources.. then how can the most likely source of tyranny be allowed to establish statuses for which the right to protect oneself from tyranny is alienated to the government?

If the government removes that right, does it not follow that they take upon themselves the duty to protect those who can no longer protect themselves?

But they do not.

"Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect
individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty
is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection
of the general public." (Lynch v. NC Dept. Justice)

". . . a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen."--Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)

If there is no right to self-protect, and no right to be protected, we have created a class of victims.

To illustrate the attitude of the constitution prior to 1913, the Idaho State Constitution, ratified by the State, and part and parcel of its introduction to the Union.

Section 1.Inalienable rights of man. All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; pursuing happiness and securing safety.

I don't know about you, but it would seem clear that 'enjoying and defending life and liberty' being an inalienable right would seem to indicate that even the government itself cannot limit it.

That's a good thing to ponder when you say 'there ought to be a law'.

The Texas constitution:

Sec. 1. FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY OF STATE. Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.

Sec. 2. INHERENT POLITICAL POWER; REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.

Sec. 23. RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.
(amended by Texas's congress in the 1950s from Sec. 23. RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State.)

Sec. 29. PROVISIONS OF BILL OF RIGHTS EXCEPTED FROM POWERS OF GOVERNMENT; TO FOREVER REMAIN INVIOLATE. To guard against transgressions of the high powers herein delegated, we declare that everything in this "Bill of Rights" is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate, and all laws contrary thereto, or to the following provisions, shall be void.

I'd say that section invalidates the amendment, does it not?

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For the greater good part 2

Greetings once again, friends. I don't write oft, and this writing perhaps is more difficult than most. I would not demean the honorable gentlemen of the congress or senate, or those who have been there, in service to our country with rhetoric designed to leave them at odds with the people.

Impugning their honesty would be a crime, and thus, I choose to lavish praise upon them instead. After all, have they not made us safer than we were? Didn't they create myriad laws guarding our children from the most dangerous of deviants? Certainly, that 6% of offenders who reoffend are dangerous, and reason enough for the communual punishment of all the rest. After all, human rights laws would never apply to sex offenders, nor should any civil rights law. This does not diminish your rights in any means, after all, legislation targeted at classes never expands.

Their statements that sex offenders are dangerous, after all, is not to distract you from their actions, nor to place themselves in a better light. It is for your safety that they institute upon the offenders all things which their counselors and treatment providers insist increases the chance for recidivism. After all, if they are homeless, they don't have the materials or means to offend, and instituting registries that punish employers for their employ certainly increases their likelihood for getting a job. And should honest citizens complain about their lack of a job, certainly those offenders could be castigated for their lack of effort in seeking.

After all, our legislators insist that the best way to treat them is to place them in prison, without any further recourse, for treatment only has a 50-70% decrease in incidents, taking it to between 1 and 1.5% of actual reoffense. It's far more economically feasable for them to warehouse them in prisons, at costs twenty to thirty times higher to the state per day, as a month on probation.

After all, reason these honorable senators and congressmen, these are the worst of the worst, and sacrifices must be made to protect the children. If a congressman should be caught in the same problems, it would be obvious that such an honorable congressman would not be like the scum of the streets, and therefore, it must be alcoholism, childhood abuse, and stress that caused it, therefore, it must be acceptable.

We have their assurances, after all, that the Boys Town scandal was no big deal, and that there was no male child prostitution in the congress and white house, regardless of what the then-children may have said.

For these honorable men are here to protect us, to keep us comforted in the night, and guard us in all things, just as they guarded and guided Enron, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. Certainly cost overruns and fraud are the fault of the managers over whom they have had too little regulatory control? After all, there could be no effect from Barney Frank sleeping with Frank Moses, of Fannie Mae.

If the gentlemen of the House and Senate had naught else that they've accomplished, look what they've done for your streets! You've no right to protection by the police, and thus you are so much safer from criminals now that they are working on taking away the right to protect yourselves. After all, muggings and murders dropped so much in Washington D.C. and Chicago and New York after the ban on firearms, didn't they? England is so much safer from hoodlums and ne'er-do-wells after the banning of arms on the island. That skyrocketing murder rate is just because of economic unrest!

No, no man could argue that the government has your best interests at heart. After all, they'd never use the power for arrest without trial, torture, or transport you without trial to a prison far away from your defense or witnesses.

It's all for your own good!
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The great injustice.

A great injustice has been started in our nation, perhaps one of the worst it has seen. In these times of economic uncertainty and fear, injustice has fertile ground in which to grow, and has been lovingly germinated by falsehood, fear, and political acumen that has less to do with truth than with the accumulation of power.

We've had our injustices in the past, but never have we walked into them so willingly with eyes open, and with hands outstretched to mete out our hatred. Abraham Lincoln spoke glowingly of the necessity that all men be treated equally under the law, and we fought a war to see to it that it be so. We desegregated the schools, and stood out against injustices in the past, from the internment camps for the Japanese Americans, to the lynchings and cross burnings of the KKK.

But we fear to speak against this injustice. We complain when the rule of law in other countries denies people their rights, their liberties, and grinds them into the dust under the uncaring heel of a law... but in this state of powerlessness over the economy, over our own lives, we fail to recognize what we, ourselves are doing, and doing not to other nations, but to ourselves.

We, as a nation, are a whole, and any injury to the parts injures the whole. It matters not if it is a toe that is gangrenous, or a sucking wound of the lung, both can be fatal if untreated. Just so, the festering wounds of injustice are left untreated in this country.

Our country was founded on the simple, and infinitely brilliant thought that all humans must be equal under the law, that the rule of law must levy no heavier upon one person than another, nor could the rule of law single out any person for additional punishment, nor could that rule of law by writ seize any property, from real property such as land, to intangible property such as rights.

We fought a war for this, losing tens of thousands upon our own bloodied fields, and many brothers fought against brother for the cause, so no men would remain slaves, and so the union could remain strong and true in the face of adversity.

It was considered the strongest measure of a republic that the law must apply equally to all, and that even the people had not the right, nor the power to levy the law against any group without equally having it affect themselves, and that even so, they had not the power to become a slave.

But we do have a class of persons whom have no rights, and not just one class. We have a class of persons pushed to the margins of our nation, by deceit, by misleading information, and outright fraud. We talk of liberty, and how it must be for all men, but nobody will speak for those whom they suspect might be guilty of a sex crime.

We refuse to face that we have colonies of persons forced to live under bridges in hurricane zones, where malaria stands as only one of the dangers possible, by the rule of law forced into homelessness and danger. They are held up in the false light of the registry, placed under the microscope, denied work, housing, and opportunity, not entirely for things they have done, but also for things they fear that these persons might do.

We must ask ourselves as a nation, if we can punish, if we can incarcerate, not for crimes, but for the possibility of crimes, if we can make people weak and destroy them not for what they commit, but what they may commit, and arbitrarily change the punishments for things done in the past... what can be done to us today? If we control the lives of others, their protection, their property, are we not their owners? If we indulge in the bitter cup of slavery, are we not turning our back on all that this country stands for? Are we not reverting to barbarism and the rule of the mob enforced by the rule of law?

If we do not come out against this fiercely, and with forthrightness, and bring the light of truth back into the law, we bind ourselves and our children into the same unhappy slavery, where any politician when needing political boosts may change any law, any past offense in a 'regulatory' measure, that of course they snicker behind their hands claiming it is not punitive, even as it limits the activities of everyday life, their avocations and callings, their ability to speak and learn and live.

Should we not hold our nation to a higher standard? Should we not ensure that our politicians are telling us the truth, reading their bills and understanding them, and holding their own group to the truth? Perhaps that is a goal for another, forgotten age... but if it were so, then I pray that this nation awakes from the darkness it has bound itself in, before the shackles are bound more fully onto the people the government itself is supposed to serve.

What can be done to any, can be done to all, and injustice and tyranny anywhere, is a threat to justice and liberty everywhere.

…Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced

and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife

and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

-- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
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