OPINION:
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.
After all, the people who fomented the American Revolution spoke out at rallies, distributed critical pamphlets, wrote scathing editorials, and took to the streets in protest. They were rebelling against a government they saw as being excessive in its taxation and spending. For their efforts, they were demonized and painted as an angry mob, extremists akin to terrorists, by the ruler of the day, King George III.
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Of course, it doesn’t take much to be considered an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) today.
If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched by the police, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you’re at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
Indeed, I and every other individual today who dares to speak truth to power could also be targeted for surveillance, because what we’re really dealing with is a government that wants to suppress dangerous words — words about its warring empire, words about its land grabs, words about its militarized police, words about its killing, its poisoning and its corruption — in order to keep its lies going.
And just like that, we’ve come full circle to a time when armed soldiers could crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials; when citizens were watched all the time, and if you looked even a little bit suspicious, the police stopped and frisked you or pulled you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal; when having a firearm of any kind could 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 that 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.
Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Mr. Jefferson doesn’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.
Two hundred and forty-eight years after a group of anti-government extremists declared their independence from tyranny, the American people have once again managed to work their way back under the tyrant’s thumb.
“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 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.
The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of 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.”
Wake up, America, before it’s too late.
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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books “The Erik Blair Diaries” and “Battlefield America: The War on the American People” are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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