Exploration of the meaning of a key passage in the Declaration of Independence. by James Goodfellow
(libertarian)
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
This article explores the most profound passage of the Declaration Of Independence. In it's few words, the entire reason why the United States of America matters, why it is different than other societies, and why, until of late, it has been a beacon of hope for the rest of this world, is brilliantly elucidated.
The passage distills an ideology that raised a ragtag collection of former colonies into the most prosperous nation on earth. It is an ideology that has been largely forgotten, ignored or misunderstood - we have embraced pragmatism when we should embrace principles.
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.
Government doesn't grant us our rights - we are born with them. The rest of this world lives under governments who explicitly state that rights flow from them. What is implied by their position is that most citizens are at least partial slaves except these in government who are full time masters. As slaves, citizens can only do what government allows them to do, while government can grow or shrink the sphere of what it allows seemingly at whim. Theoretically, in the USA, the opposite is true.
Which do you prefer?
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --
What does this mean to you?
To me, it means that most of the citizenry voluntarily delegate the task of securing rights, implemented in such areas as external defense and jurisprudence, to a subset of the citizenry hereafter referred to as government. Logically, it follows that these delegates serve the people who employ them.
Notice that my two examples above involve the use of force. This demands further explanation. As a free individual, I claim ownership of my person - if not me , who? As a self owner, I have a right to repel all threats to my person. This logically further extends to my labor - to quote the Rev Elisha Williams (1744):
"As reason tells us, all are born thus naturally equal, with an equal right to their persons, so also with an equal right to their preservation . . . and every man having a property in his own person, the labour of his body and the work of his hands are properly his own, to which no one has right but himself; it will therefore follow that when he removes anything out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. . . . Thus every man having a natural right to (or being proprietor of) his own person and his own actions and labour, which we call property, it certainly follows, that no man can have a right to the person or property of another: And if every man has a right to his person and property; he has also a right to defend them . . . and so has a right of punishing all insults upon his person and property."
The organization of this protection is the core of government - the task of our delegates.
I claim the right to defend my person and property. As such, I claim the right to convince or hire others to aid me in this defense. This action is legitimate up to the point where defense becomes offense, as then I intrude on the right of another to defend his person and property. Thus murder, assault, theft, rape are all examples of offense and are all by this definition illegitimate.
If I am prohibited from engaging in offense, it logically follows I cannot legitimately delegate this behavior to another, even if that other is government. Nor can delegates magically obtain these powers by assuming the role of my servant.
From this, I conclude that taxation is theft - if I take money from you against your will and give it to someone else, I go to jail for theft. Reiterating, if I can't legitimately do it, I can't delegate it.
From this, I conclude that all government activity is illegitimate, since it is funded with taxation.
How then to fund government?
The original funding mechanism for the federal government was tariffs, or import taxes. Excise taxes were also collected, but so despised and resisted that most of the operating income came from tariffs. This, in my definition, is also theft, but relatively easy to avoid - do without imports.
Voluntary contributions, or user fees are one solution consistent with property rights. The standard objection is that nobody would pay, which besides being an indictment of the quality of service that government actually delivers, ignores the fact that today, roughly 50% of potential taxpayers actually pay any tax at all. Surely, a legitimate system of property protection would find more than 1 in 2 willing to pay for the service.
--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.
This section reiterates the roles of master & servant, making it quite clear that government is the latter. It is a point revisited later in the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution.
The implementation of these principles, 11 years after the signing of the Declaration Of Independence, in the Constitution Of The United States was hampered with political compromise, slavery being a glaring example. As to taxation in the form of tariffs, I can only surmise that this relatively minor compromise was not countered with a viable alternative, and ignoring funding was obviously not an option.
What this compromise did however, was to open the door to a much more invasive and illegitimate offense - the income tax. This vehicle has fueled an unprecedented growth in our government and correspondingly, in their illicit intrusion into all corner of our lives.
Once the principles I am exploring in this passage were undermined, a trickle of violations began that has grown steadily into a flood. The only recourse I see is to elect statesmen who understand and agree with this assessment.
As this election cycle in the USA draws near, we would do well to understand the words of Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founders who contributed to this passage. There are very few candidates who fully embrace this philosophy, while most outright reject it. For those who are already in public office, their position is a matter of public record. I urge you to determine for yourself who is true to the principles that made America great, and who is a closet despot, asking you for a blank check on your life.
Here is an admittedly incomplete list of candidates who do understand and embrace these principles:
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/
http://www.lp.org/candidates
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The views expressed
in this article are those of James Goodfellow only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
James Goodfellow is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
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