Independence Day, 1776-2014
The following is an excerpt from Jerry Bowyer’s July 4th piece, “238 Years After The First Revolution, Is It Time For A Second?”
“[T]he fact remains that the rationale for the existence of the nation known as the United States of America, which first appeared in print 238 years ago today, is entirely dependent on the premise that there are indeed times ‘…when in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…’ and that such times may require the first group of people to ‘…mutually pledge to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor.’ And that having dissolved those political bands with another people, the newly liberated people (‘…and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War…’) may, among other things, protect themselves from a tyrannical power which engages in ‘…a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object [which] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…’”
“This is the argument presented to the world by Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin.”
It may be understandable that early colonists, settlers, and eventual Founders of the Republic may not have been respectful of the opportunity to settle new lands in the Americas, first thought to be the alternate route to India which traded commodities with Europe. It was not in the province of King George III of Great Britain to grant land rights belonging to an indigenous peoples.
Eventually the land grab extended across the entirety of America, while native Indians were squeezed out and confined to reservations and burdened with lack of employment, drugs, alcoholism, inability to own private land and property, all while living desperate, seemingly, useless, aimless lives.
Meanwhile, many Presidents have added to their legendary legends the National Parks created and carved out of State-owned lands that might better have been used for Indian territory, or even to give the original slaves their promised forty acres to give them a fresh start and helping hand after the trauma of forced slavery.
But that was not to be as President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with his historic Emancipation Proclamation that was and is a fake because Lincoln freed the slaves in the third-year of the Civil War, but freed only the slaves in the rebelling States over which he had no power, but did NOT free the slaves in the North over which Lincoln did have the power.
The Civil War cost upward of 640,000 casualties, 10% of the American population. According to that benchmark, should there be another American Civil War, the casualties could range upward of 30 million, not including the atrocious number of badly wounded. Many black people consider only their slavery while ignoring that mostly white people who suffered and died for their cause.
Overlooked is the fact that most of the 320 million Americans are of immigrant heritage, arriving well after the Civil War. Ignored also is the fact that Africans along the Niger River valley captured and sold prisoners into slavery worldwide. Slaves were brought to the Americas by Great Britain, France, and Belgium, and not directly by American settlers. But that is not justification for basically inhuman treatment of slaves, though many plantation owners treated their slaves with dignity and respect. Not all slave-owners were bad apples.
Lincoln fought the Civil War to prevent secession of States from the Union, effectuating a shotgun wedding that has caused harm and rift into the current 21st century. Slavery is and was always wrong but its roots date back to the Old Testament of the Bible which narrates conquered peoples placed into slavery until they rebelled, seceded from slavery bonds, and reformed, or recaptured other sovereigns that they in turn reduced to slavery. Conquests and re-conquests are historical realities.
Lincoln to his discredit broke, bent, mutilated, and folded the Constitution, and since that time, succeeding Presidents have overreached their Constitutional authority, as they nipped into legislative and judicial powers not named in the Constitution.
Since 1900 Progressive President Woodrow Wilson and other Presidents have reached far and wide to expand their authority at the expense of Congress, even intimidating the Supreme Court. Chief-Justice John Roberts took it upon himself to redefine ObamaCare by changing its penalties into taxes to make it conform to the Constitution, an act beyond the scope of SCOTUS, leaving one to think that Obama had dirt on Roberts that influenced the positive vote.
GOP House Speaker John Boehner is complicit in his own way by proceeding with funding ObamaCare, and hypocritically calling for about fifty fruitless, wasteful votes to repeal ObamaCare. Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to consider any repeal for any discussion except for which trash can to stuff it in. And who in their right or wrong mind would ever believe Obama would sign repeal of his epic legislation?
Blacks constitute 14% of the population but suffer double the unemployment rates for whites, but Mr. Black President balks at signing the already EPA approved Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to Texas and points in between that could provide 50 million direct and indirect good high-paying, tax-paying, welfare-reducing “shovel ready” jobs.
Another major problem with young black men in particular is that they disdain education and their own fellow blacks who succeed, claiming they act too white. The only options are crime, drugs, pimping and other nefarious prison-inducing habits.
President Obama scoffs at Congress saying he cannot wait for Congress to act but he will act without them as he has a pen and a phone. Boehner counters by saying he will sue the President, which could take fifty-years – but mid-term elections are pending, a scant five-months away.
Obama chose to promote the homosexual lifestyle which is a known carrier of the AIDS-HIV virus that is self-destructive and extremely costly. On the other hand, Barack and First Lady Michelle tout healthy broccoli type school lunches children will not eat.
Other Obama self-inflicted negatives include a dozen scandals, each in turn knocking preceding scandals off the top of the centerfold. But that does not prevent his leaping into yet other areas that can be mauled to death while being unworkable.
Obama’s open aversion toward Christianity is legend. Speaking before a U.N. Security Council meeting, he said, “The future shall not belong to those who disrespect the prophet.” Telling words from a self-professed Christian. On another occasion Obama said, “The Muslim call to prayer was the sweetest sound on earth.”
FDR overreached and actually went into a fourth-term as President and may have intentionally induced the U.S. into WWII. Lyndon Johnson expanded the Vietnam War at the cost of over 50,000 casualties. Johnson also introduced the Poverty Program that increased rather than decrease poverty.
Bill Clinton had his Kosovo and African interruptions, along with a personal scandal and debasement of the Presidency. President Bush illegally and unnecessarily injected the U.S. into the oil brouhaha involving his personal oil friends, Saudi Arabia. The second President Bush of Yale re-engaged Saddam Hussein, a job his father did not finish, on a variety or premises including WMD that were never found, and at a time during which the U.N. was discovering and destroying weapons on a daily basis. Prevailing wisdom holds that as long as there is progress, war should be averted.
Benjamin Franklin noted, “There is no good war or bad peace.” To his shame, President Obama criticized G.W. Bush for his Middle East wars, while continuing them and expanding war and revolution into Egypt, Libya, Syria, North Africa, Pakistan, and reaching into India and Malaysia, all without Congressional approval that Bush actually received.
Now the ultra conundrum places Obama in union with enemies of America, including Iran, Syria, Russia, China, and a host of Shiite Islamic countries. Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and by inference, wipe out America, the Great Satan.