This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”—Thomas Paine, December 1776
It’s time to declare your independence from tyranny, America.
For too long now, we have suffered the injustices of a government that has no regard for our rights or our humanity.
Too easily pacified and placated by the pomp and pageantry of manufactured spectacles (fireworks on the Fourth of July, military parades, ritualized elections, etc.) that are a poor substitute for a representative government that respects the rights of its people, the American people have opted, time and again, to overlook the government’s excesses, abuses and power grabs that fly in the face of every principle for which America’s founders risked their lives.
We have done this to ourselves.
Indeed, it is painfully fitting that mere days before the nation prepared to celebrate its freedoms on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the City Council for Charlottesville, Virginia—the home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration—voted to do away with a holiday to honor Jefferson’s birthday, because Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, owned slaves. City councilors have opted instead to celebrate “Liberation and Freedom Day” in honor of slaves who were emancipated after the Civil War.
This is what we have been reduced to: bureaucrats dithering over meaningless trivialities while the government goosesteps all over our freedoms.
Too often, we pay lip service to those freedoms, yet they did not come about by happenstance. They were hard-won through sheer determination, suffering, and sacrifice by thousands of patriotic Americans who not only believed in the cause of freedom but also had the intestinal fortitude to act on that belief. The success of the American Revolution owes much to these men and women.
In standing up to the British Empire and speaking out against an oppressive regime, they exemplified courage in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming foe.
Indeed, imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.
Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal.
Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind (or anything that resembled a firearm) while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.
If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain’s version of an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.
No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson.
A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all—“our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free.
Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.
Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.
The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that 243 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.
In fact, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers, extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.
The danger is real.
We could certainly use some of that revolutionary outrage today.
Certainly, we would do well to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of our ancestors and remember what drove them to such drastic measures in the first place.
Then again, perhaps what we need to do is declare our independence from the tyranny of the American police state.
It’s not a radical idea.
It has been done before.
The Declaration of Independence speaks volumes about the abuses suffered by early Americans at the hands of the British police state.
Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.
If you find the purple prose used by the Founders hard to decipher, here’s my translation of what the Declaration of Independence would look and sound like if it were written in the modern vernacular:
There comes a time when a populace must stand united and say “enough is enough” to the government’s abuses, even if it means getting rid of the political parties in power.
Believing that “we the people” have a natural and divine right to direct our own lives, here are truths about the power of the people and how we arrived at the decision to sever our ties to the government:
All people are created equal.
All people possess certain innate rights that no government or agency or individual can take away from them. Among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The government’s job is to protect the people’s innate rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The government’s power comes from the will of the people.
Whenever any government abuses its power, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish that government and replace it with a new government that will respect and protect the rights of the people.
It is not wise to get rid of a government for minor transgressions. In fact, as history has shown, people resist change and are inclined to suffer all manner of abuses to which they have become accustomed.
However, when the people have been subjected to repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the purpose of establishing a tyrannical government, people have a right and duty to do away with that tyrannical Government and to replace it with a new government that will protect and preserve their innate rights for their future wellbeing.
This is exactly the state of affairs we are under suffering under right now, which is why it is necessary that we change this imperial system of government.
The history of the present Imperial Government is a history of repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the intention of establishing absolute Tyranny over the country.
To prove this, consider the following:
The government has, through its own negligence and arrogance, refused to adopt urgent and necessary laws for the good of the people.
The government has threatened to hold up critical laws unless the people agree to relinquish their right to be fully represented in the Legislature.
In order to expand its power and bring about compliance with its dictates, the government has made it nearly impossible for the people to make their views and needs heard by their representatives.
The government has repeatedly suppressed protests arising in response to its actions.
The government has obstructed justice by refusing to appoint judges who respect the Constitution and has instead made the Courts march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
The government has allowed its agents to harass the people, steal from them, jail them and even execute them.
The government has directed militarized government agents—a.k.a., a standing army—to police domestic affairs in peacetime.
The government has turned the country into a militarized police state.
The government has conspired to undermine the rule of law and the constitution in order to expand its own powers.
The government has allowed its militarized police to invade our homes and inflict violence on homeowners.
The government has failed to hold its agents accountable for wrongdoing and murder under the guise of “qualified immunity.”
The government has jeopardized our international trade agreements.
The government has overtaxed us without our permission.
The government has denied us due process and the right to a fair trial.
The government has engaged in extraordinary rendition.
The government has continued to expand its military empire in collusion with its corporate partners-in-crime and occupy foreign nations.
The government has eroded fundamental legal protections and destabilized the structure of government.
The government has not only declared its federal powers superior to those of the states but has also asserted its sovereign power over the rights of “we the people.”
The government has ceased to protect the people and instead waged domestic war against the people.
The government has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, and destroyed the lives of the people.
The government has employed private contractors and mercenaries to carry out acts of death, desolation and tyranny, totally unworthy of a civilized nation.
The government through its political propaganda has pitted its citizens against each other.
The government has stirred up civil unrest and laid the groundwork for martial law.
Repeatedly, we have asked the government to cease its abuses. Each time, the government has responded with more abuse.
An Imperial Ruler who acts like a tyrant is not fit to govern a free people.
We have repeatedly sounded the alarm to our fellow citizens about the government’s abuses. We have warned them about the government’s power grabs. We have appealed to their sense of justice. We have reminded them of our common bonds.
They have rejected our plea for justice and brotherhood. They are equally at fault for the injustices being carried out by the government.
Thus, for the reasons mentioned above, we the people of the United States of America declare ourselves free from the chains of an abusive government. Relying on God’s protection, we pledge to stand by this Declaration of Independence with our lives, our fortunes, and our honor.
That was 243 years ago.
In the years since early Americans first declared and eventually won their independence from Great Britain, we—the descendants of those revolutionary patriots—have through our inaction and complacency somehow managed to work ourselves right back under the tyrant’s thumb.
Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making: the American Police State.
The abuses meted out by an imperial government and endured by the American people have not ended. They have merely evolved.
“We the people” are still being robbed blind by a government of thieves.
We are still being taken advantage of by a government of scoundrels, idiots, and monsters.
We are still being locked up by a government of greedy jailers.
We are still being spied on by a government of Peeping Toms.
We are still being ravaged by a government of ruffians, rapists, and killers.
We are still being forced to surrender our freedoms—and those of our children—to a government of extortionists, money launderers and corporate pirates.
And we are still being held at gunpoint by a government of soldiers: a standing army in the form of a militarized police.
Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.
It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.
The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests and by American citizens who failed to heed James Madison’s warning to “take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.”
In so doing, we compromised our principles, negotiated away our rights, and allowed the rule of law to be rendered irrelevant.
There is no knowing how long it will take to undo the damage wrought by government corruption, corporate greed, militarization, and a nation of apathetic, gullible sheep.
The problems we are facing will not be fixed overnight: that is the grim reality with which we must contend.
That does not mean we should give up or give in or tune out.
Remember, there is always a price to be paid for remaining silent in the face of injustice.
That price is tyranny.
As Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century British statesman and author who supported the American colonists warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
The TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) version:
#OrangeManBad
Pick your date. April 9, 1865 perhaps? October 26, 2001? Mine was New Year’s Eve 2011 when Obama signed the Republicans’ NDAA. To me it was America’s death knell. With the stroke of a pen, our Bill of Rights was gutted, We the People became mere subjects. Not one shot was fired.
To this old coot that event was our generation’s Declaration of Independence. But patriots never showed up, not even here in arguably the heart of the Liberty Movement. The tree of liberty fell on our watch. Sad but true.
We sit and boast ad nauseum of guns and ammo. But we don’t hear much about “pledging to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The sad fact is that most dont want to upset their little lives, i am just as guilty, but realize also that the nail that sticks up the farthest gets smacked with the hammer.
But when? When will it be enough?
I watch what is going on with popcorn in hand and wonder if this time will be the kickoff,
But so far nothing,
We are not so much represented anymore as dictated to by these supposedly elected bureaucrats and their many appointed enforcers.
People keep voting this trash in because they vote party line or vote for free shit or vote for a familiar name in spite of not knowing what the so called rep is even all about.
It sucks, some of us gave up a long time ago, buried under the realization that alone actions are an excercise in futility and perhaps even a death sentence.
But all bills come due one day, and we may well get to see that day.
Look toward this next election cycle to be a literal explosion, the unhinged left has yet to accept DJT, when he gets re elected it will become a total shit show, make no mistake, its the media fanning flames and an obnoxious mini minority spotlighted by the leftist media, things will get sporty
yep
2020 will be brutal
Nailbanger , agreed about 2020. The Left has been spreading the rumor that DJT is going to fix the election and call on ” Fascist Militias” to declare himself ” President for Life”. So if you are some Antifa nutjob like they are, sure as hell you’ll be ready for violent rebellion.
You are correct. Though it was discussed on various sites, the NDAA is mostly forgotten, now. It probably is the most dangerous Act in existence. Just imagine it in the hands of any of the demo. clowns on that debate stage. The scope we know about is enough; what about that which we do not know?
I have discussed with my wife the ramifications of it, and my decisions regarding the actions which will be taken. The response is, “They’ll just be doing their job.” The Nuremberg defense doesn’t work, and “they” will have to figure that.
“If we don’t hang together, we most certainly will hang separately.”
Many men never learn to responsibly manage the boundaries of their own authority. Once they go beyond their own personal realm, and if they find success in doing so, it is difficult to justify socially reasonable limits. So it is the man who continues to ignore negative effects in his own actions who climbs to power. If he continues in this he will find that limits will be imposed upon him. This is where he usually stops, and his decline then begins. So it seems to me a man’s legitimate authority applies only to himself, and that the problem is in recognizing where this begins and ends.
rub123, I agree. The days of self-rule using natural law seem distant.
Americans enjoyed their greatest liberty before the creation of the US Constitution, federal government, and political parties. All three need to go.
Tax Is Robbery! By Larken Rose
h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPKg-3KxJ00
The functions of govt, which you so dislike, are technically found in the Constitution.
Republicans say they are in favor of small, local govt, when the republic, itself, is technically the fed govt. You are federalists.
The Federalist Papers promoted the ratification of the Constitution.
“Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government with regional governments in a *single political system.*”
Why must you join under some label, or die — like the old war poster said — and carry all the extra baggage, which comes with partisanship.
Wouldn’t freedom look like savages, in a globalist no-go-zone?
Globalism has existed under many past empires. The outliers would have been barbarians, ungovernable.
I Am so sick and tired and disgusted with what this country has become. The US Gov’t is enemy #1!! And we the citizens sit back in our comfy chairs & sofas and do nothing while our Declaration of Independence & Bill of Rights are gutted. People, you better get off of your ultra lazy a$$es and read the writing on the wall. My God, WTF is wrong with you people??
Many of us know what is going on but when people continue to elect the same morons that created these problems nothing will change. The biggest mistake the framers of the constitution made was not putting term limits on congress. That wouldn’t fix the brainwashing going on in our schools, the general ignorance of the populace, and many other problems. But it would prevent power hungry, corrupt and evil politicians from being able to exercise their reign of terror for 20 – 30 years or more.
Keep them feed and fat watching their propaganda tv media with free Obama’s cell phones and free housing
All the while we slowly take away over generations basic rights that they didn’t even know about
In 50 years kids will not even know they had a right to bear arms
In 100 year they will know nothing of free speech or religion
Distract the masses long enough and they have no basic rights or want them “
Thanks to big gov giving them all of their basic essentials and keeping them safe
John Whitehead is a good and intelligent man but the time for what he suggests is long past. From today’s headlines – this is what happens to people who “declare their independence”.
ht tps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/07/atf-most-wanted-fugitive-arrested-after-nearly-8-years-run/1669442001/
America we grew up with is over. It isn’t coming back. The best we can do is provide for our families and lead good lives.
Yep,
And as Ole Remus says
“Stay away from crowds!”
I look forward to my weekly Remus – and I gets me an edumacate on art for free. I’m gwine be a sofisticated gentleman.
Stuart, all anyone can do now is go to their BOL and hunker down. I’m headed for mine next month if not sooner and it could become permanent.
What each of us can do today.
1) Join the tax protest. Stop paying taxation without representation.
2) Find 2 other like minded people and form a 3 man militia.
3) Cancel your cable news network.
4) Become more self sustainable.
5) Do not comply with the census if a Citizenship question is not on it.
6) Talk to a leftist, so you understand what your fighting for.
Great article Mr. Whitehead. Addressing the following quote from the article, “Imagine the shock & outrage . . .” , the Founders anticipated a mentally lazy population that did not understand their “rights”. Ben Franklin famously answered “it’s a republic – if you can keep it.” The CITIZENS of the country must be informed (not mentally lazy like Demonrats & some others) & vigilant.
Thank you John Whitehead for another great article. Stuart, I’ll agree that the only solution now is the cartridge box. There’s no ‘legal remedies’ available for our overall situation.
Yet people still buy the two party divide BS not taking into account that they represent a single mindset that does not vary. A quite remarkable distancing from reality.
What else can we do Al? Not voting is the same as surrender.
Perhaps the greatest gift from Mr. Trump is that he proved an outsider can win. That in itself would be huge.
The author glosses over the fact that in the days of the revolution they were fighting non-elected tyrants.
Today a significant part of our population votes for our modern day tyrants. Hard to start a “revolution” against that fact.
Our best bet is to have someone damage the Grid so bad it stays down for a year or so. Perhaps the Norks or Iranians will nuke some of our large cities.
I regret to say that the death of millions of Democrats, would not move me to seek revenge or justice for their deaths. It would set us free. These events I mention are unlikely to happen, as our enemies recognize we are dying from an internal cancer of Democrat and RINO infections, our outside enemies don’t have to do anything to kill us. So as Stuart says, lay low, take care of your family, and live a good life. I intend to do as Nail says “watch what is going on with popcorn in hand”.
Aloha.
You know bro. the attacks we have seen on transformers and telecom infrastructure on the Left coast over the past couple of years seem an awfully lot like test runs don’t they. Way too sophisticated and precise to be the random acts of some kids.
Somebody has take Edward Abbey to heart perhaps.
As I’ve posted before, they hit the major Airports, blow up major bridges on the interstates, remove rails, and traffic pretty much stops. Sink a barge or two in the Mississippi river. Yes hit the grid, maybe launch an EMP from Cuba or Venezuela. Take Miami, Houston, New Orleans airports and start landing troops from outside the U.S. (Cuba is only 20+ miles from Miami) .
Hezbollah has 40,000 terror agents world wide, sure as heck some are in the country. Consider what 19 determined guys did on 9/11/01?
Tell me that some of the Blue/Left coast states would not join in a Antifa led rebellion/coup against Trump.
Trump beats Booker or Kamala in the election and the cities are set on fire by Black Lives Matter.
In a heart beat.
Sir Wind,
I don’t think they will have to go to near that much trouble and I certainly don’t think anyone is going to be landing troops. This is about internal collapse so the new “social order” can seize power with the public clamoring for it.
The muslims on the other hand just want us dead.
“Cuba is only 20+ miles from Miami.” Correction SW: Cuba is 90 miles from KEY WEST so it’s around 250 miles from Miami. I lived in that region for 7 years.
I grew up I Broward, you are correct, my mistake, Key West is around 100 miles from Havana . Still a short flight.
Plus we already have enemy troops here in the U.S. , Nation of Islam, MS-13, the Panthers, the American Communist Party, and many of the millions of Illegals here are young men of military age. Most cities have youth gangs who are armed, i.e. Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc.
Over 10 years ago the BTAF caught the Chinese bringing in a whole boat of AK’s into the port of Los Angeles for that City’s gangs. This is why you don’t see Chinese guns for sale anymore.
19 determined guys?!? How about the mossad with the willing help of the cia. wake up and smell the pizza guy.
Rellik, I wouldn’t give up on the Dems paying the ultimate price for all their BS. Their day of reckoning is still coming. I’ll sit back with the popcorn at hand and loaded weapons within reach. Once the shooting starts all bets are off.
TPTB know they cannot remake societies and populations for their purposes overnight, it takes more than 1 generation. Their insidious plans have been in progress for at least 30 years. To achieve this they also cannot use open force to change the country. Therefore, a number of more subtle but powerful methods are being used including; the dumbing-down of public education, propagandizing the public (especially using the MSM), establishing the myth of hate crimes and more recently the myth of white privilege, using “civil rights” organizations to marginalize large segments of society (especially straight white Southern Christian males, we are the most hated, reviled, and attacked group in the country), the use of secrecy and intimidation at all levels of law enforcement, NGOs secretly funded by gov’t and quasi-secret organizations, flooding the US with 3rd world populations unaccustomed to civil rights and freedoms, the on-going effort by officialdom to curtail and eliminate our natural rights, and carrying out false-flag operations. These are only a few of the more obvious ways.
Here are some quotes to help you see the situation as it really is; Nietzsche – Everything the gov’t says is a lie, everything it has it has stolen.
Pres. Reagan’s intelligence director Casey – The government’s disinformation programs are successful when everything the American public believes is false.
von Goethe- None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
TPTB see citizens as nothing more than captive managed disposable resources. But more than that, they viscerally despise us, a little research will show statements made by various powerful individuals will show that.
ALL sources and types of information have been compromised, whether on the internet, TV/cable, published/printed materials, and “educational” materials to various degrees. ALL are used to deliver that which TPTB want you to believe, and to shape public opinion.
As hard as it is for some to believe, to keep from being dragged down to the point where your loved ones are consigned to a permanent condition of serfdom, the best and most effective thing to do is for all states that still have majority of freedom lovers is to secede, even if we have to wrench ourselves free.
Adding to Independence from tyranny a article from veteranstoday titled Intel Drop: The FBI and VT, the Children of a Strange Marriage. George Bush Sr. made a statement to a reporter that ” the American people would run us out of town with pitch forks if they know what we did.” This ties Netanyahu, Epstein and other national figures past and present into the tyranny.
The Declaration of Independence does not need to be TRANSLATED in to modern Text It is a AMERICAN Document For a Moral People . The First statement that One People need to Dissolve the POOLITICAL BANDS speaks for itself .the Poolitical bands have re created every single EVIL of the Declaration and this TRUTH is clear to be seen and heard by Americans with Common Sense . The Infamous THEY are now in the light of day easy to see and THEY are now in the last stages of their TREASON and as soon as the Large ARMIES OF FOREIGN MERCENARIES are transported thru out the Republic The Lights Will Go Out and the contest will began. We The People are few now many hoped that their vote For Potus Trump would lock the Evil Hyphenated americans up ,i also hope Trump would bring this Evil to Justice for here IN Commiefornia I walk my hood ,worked the ground level for a Peaceful Transfer of power only to see and hear The Communist prove without a Shadow of any Doubt THEY can and will Opening Corrupt the vote thru Harvesting lies and fake humans and there is now nothing short of a FULL CIVIL WAR To Stop Them Here in The Republic of California. I am born and raised here as a AMERICAN and the Front Lines Of This Uncivil War will be fought here soon for as I write a Large Armies of FOREIGN MERCENARIES have been brought into my state and soon the lights will Go Out And all Hell will be upon my family and Friends and than as of old these will be the times that try Americans souls . I have taken the oath at the end of the Declaration, and I have invested in and can hold my ground here for a While Commiefornia and have a Firm Believe That Divine Providence will prove once again to EVIL thru Me what a Man Who Fears only GOD is capable of Achieving thru His Glory. Americans in a great battle of WW2 were Surrounded in a small town known as Bastogne asked to surrender a American sent them a one word response NUTS , o how that time will come again I feel .
The anarchist/socialist/communists/democrats are following Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” as a playbook. Overwhelm the government system and collapse it. Mayhem and revolution will follow. Will there be enough patriots to save the Republic? Only time will tell.
After the next election, it will only take a few short years before full blown communism is implemented and living in America will become a living hell.
If a commie zombie kills a popcorn eater whilst eating popcorn in front of their television does it make a sound? (Are we headed for Night of the Living Dead movie?)