A Declaration of Independence

Happy Birthday America!  Today we celebrate our independence from a British monarch.  Two hundred and thirty seven years ago a small group of men came together and signed a document that declared our independence, and more importantly, explained why.  That remarkable document, which fits nicely on one side of a single sheet of paper, told the world what we were doing and why, and what we intended our nation to be.

We should also note that declaring independence did not make it so.  There was a lot of work ahead, not the least of which was a war with Britain.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence did not hate the British people, but were fed up with the King.  Make no mistake, the Revolutionary War was not a foregone conclusion.  It could have gone either way and perhaps it was a miracle that the colonists prevailed.

The war would have had no chance of success, and the Declaration of Independence would not even have been written, had a small group of men not had the courage and wisdom to realize they did not have to accept the way things were.  War is hell and it is easy, much easier, to be complacent and just accept things and not fight them.  It is easy to look back with hindsight at the founders and say “of course”.  Had they lost, their actions would have been but a footnote in history and the Declaration they signed likely forgotten.

But they did win the war.  They won their independence from Britain.  And they established a new country.  And what they established was pretty much a massive failure.  It seems defiance of British rule and winning a war are vastly different challenges than setting up a functioning government.  We replaced British rule with The Articles of Confederation.  We were so afraid of a powerful central government that we gave our new one no power at all and it could not function. 

The US Constitution that replaced the Articles of Confederation was ratified Sept 17, 1787, over 11 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  The Constitution went into effect March 4, 1789, and the first 10 amendments went into effect Dec 15^th, 1791.  We did not perfect this wonderful Republic overnight.  It took years of discussion and debate and arguments and serious thinking. 

Keep in mind, not everyone objected to the King or to British rule.  The founders had bitter disagreements about the size and role of government.  They were not of one mind and had to compromise and convince one another.  The process was messy and contentious.  We had to balance the many fears left over from authoritarian British rule with harsh realities such as the federal government having no money to get anything done.

In the end they figured out that we needed a balanced approach.  They limited the powers of government by enumerating them in the Constitution.  They established a series of checks and balances.  They utilized Separation of Powers to make sure the power was spread around and not concentrated.  They relied on representative democracy and bicameral legislature to ensure the voice of the people would be heard.  And they made it very hard to change things.  Yes, they feared a concentration of power in any one area of government.

With all of this in mind I watched with great interest the events in Egypt these past few days.  As a country Egypt is obviously among the oldest peoples on the planet, but as a democracy they are brand new.  In the spring of 2011 the Egyptian people removed Hosni Mubarak, and for the first time in their history shook off authoritarian rule.  And then less than a year later they had drafted their first constitution and held their first democratic elections.  They elected Mohamed Morsi and his party, The Muslim Brotherhood.  Massive Fail.  Almost immediately Morsi and his party began taking steps to convert Egypt to an Islamic totalitarian state.

I must say I parted ways with the conservatives on Fox News who were yelling that allowing Mubarek to be overthrown was a massive failure of the Obama administration.  They felt very vindicated when Egyptians elected Morsi and The Muslim Brotherhood, saying “see, I told you so”.  While I must say I recognized that election for what it was, a failure, I remained hopeful, and I had and do have more confidence in Liberty than my more conservative friends.

And over the past few days the people of Egypt have stood up and corrected their mistake.  Liberty, once tasted, is not so easily taken away.  Listening to commentators over the past 24 hours many have made the observation that Morsi moved too quickly toward an Islamic state.  I think from a tactical point of view that may be correct, but strategically the people of Egypt were not going back to totalitarianism.

Of course, the future remains to be seen.  Egypt will now draft another constitution and hold new elections.  This is messy and contentious stuff.  Keep in mind not everyone wanted Morsi and The Muslim Brotherhood overthrown.  There will be discussions and debates and arguments and, yes, some bloodshed.  The outcome is not a foregone conclusion. 

And I would be remiss if I did not mention that unrest of this sort is going on all over the world right now.  One example is in Turkey, where Prime Minister Erdogan has been slowly consolidating power and quashing dissent and moving Turkey toward a totalitarian Islamic state.  And when he started restricting the consumption of alcohol, in accordance with Muslim principles, people took to the streets in protest.  It was not so much about the alcohol or the small park they wanted preserved, it was the realization that their liberties were slowly being taken away.

I will not belabor this point but as much as the US war in Iraq had been vilified and maligned, it may be that there were unintended, or perhaps intended, consequences of a positive sort.  It was not lost on the people of the region that Saddam Hussein was overthrown and the people of Iraq were free to set up a democratic government.  The Arab Spring was the result of many things, but I believe one of them was that people saw a dictator unseated and they realized it was possible for them too.

We can only hope that the people of Egypt, and everyone else, will look to the founding of the United States, to the process we followed, and the documents we came up with, as an example.  And we hope they can do so peacefully, without bloodshed.  It is a messy process, even when it is finished.  Freedom is a beautiful thing, warts and all.

And now I return to the United States of America, on this our birthday.  We have not changed our constitution in some time, but our society is changing nonetheless.  Our liberties are eroding.  The Balance of power has shifted.  Separation of Powers has come to mean Republican versus Democrat, instead of Legislative versus Judicial.  States have handed their power to the federal government.

Our Executive branch is too big, too powerful, too arrogant, and they are ignoring our constitutional protections.  We are in need of a “rebalancing” of power in this country.  But as we have seen around the world, once leaders have power they do not give it up easily.  These changes have been happening gradually, but I would say we are very near the tipping point.  Recent revelations have shed light on the extent of overreach of our federal government.  The Legislative branch has been vocal but seems powerless to change it.

It is a mistake to think the only problem is the current occupants of the office.  We need a change to the system, a rebalancing of power.  We do not need a new Constitution, we need to return to the principles behind the one we have. 

Of course, just as not everyone disliked the British King, and not everyone wanted to remove Morsi, not everyone agrees the federal government has too much power.  Having said that, there appears there is a critical mass of people in this country who are having their own Howard Beale moments.  We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take this anymore.  Go on Twitter and listen, or better yet go look at AR-15’s and ammunition flying off the shelves.  The government, realizing this, is preparing for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act by buying huge amounts of ammunition and AR-15’s for the IRS and training them to use it.

Yes, the people of the United States may very well rise up and reclaim their government as well.  It can happen in Egypt, and Turkey, and Brazil, and it can happen here.  My hope is that we can peacefully bring about the changes that must happen in our country.  We are nearly $17 trillion dollars in debt, we are printing money at a blistering pace, and we are losing our liberties at an unprecedented rate.

Two hundred and thirty seven years ago a small group of men got together and decided they were mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore.  They knew right from wrong.  They knew the fight for liberty would be messy.  They did not all agree.  But they all had courage, and they all pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor for the support of that Declaration.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That 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.”