Saturday, September 10, 2005
LivesFortunesSacredHonor.com:
If Blogs (and Trolls) Had Existed in the 18th Century
[Posted after one too many late nights spent reading one of my favorite blogs.]
Let's Get to Work!
Posted by TJ at 12:31pm
We've been talking about (and around) this for years here on LFSH.com. It's high time we started to put some of it down on virtual paper.
To start the discussion rolling, here's a preliminary list of bullet points we can probably all agree to in some form. They all could use some wordsmithing, I know. Let's hear what everybody has to say about them and after we've wrestled them into submission LOL I'll try to rephrase them per consensus.
It's fair to say that our basic goals are well understood, and these might be worked into a preamble of some kind:
- to dissolve the political bands which connect us with His "Majesty's" government, and
- to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which Nature and God [oh, yes I know, but come on Ben -- it won't hurt that much to include this] entitle us.
- He has refused to assent to laws which will clearly benefit most of the citizenry in these colonies.
- Even when such laws are already on the books, he has forbidden anyone to actually enforce them -- until and unless, of course, his almighty assent should be obtained. Meanwhile, he'll just ignore them.
- If that wasn't enough, he won't even consider many laws, even if they would clearly accommodate large groups of people, unless the people in question essentially throw up their hands and agree to let him make decisions without any input or oversight from their legislative representatives. (The right to this kind of oversight is inestimable to people and, it would be fair to say, threatening only to tyrants.)
- He regularly holds meetings and work sessions in places where no normal people could travel in comfort, not to say safely. (His cronies, needless to say, have no such difficulties.) Even if the people actually affected by the decisions at such events could make the trip, by the time they got there they'd be so fatigued they'd willingly comply with his measures.
- When organized watchdog groups have tried to present him with firm and (for lack of a more gender-neutral term) manly protests about his invasions on the rights of the people, he's simply dismissed them at best -- or, at worst, harrassed them into non-existence.
- Once he's succeeded in marginalizing the organizations mentioned in the previous point, he proceeds to forbid their credible re-establishment (although, true, he often does this through the agency of supposedly "neutral" third parties and the sneering asides of underlings). Once the people are no longer protected by these groups' watchdog functions, of course, the State essentially remains exposed to dangers of invasion from without, and all manner of convulsions within.
- He has endeavoured [spelling note here, somebody help me out: do we want to keep hanging onto that antiquated "u"?] to prevent the population of these colonies by restricting immigration laws, refusing to encourage migration hither, and raising the requirements of home and other property ownership.
- Whatever the laws of the land might be, he has cramped their actual Administration -- by refusing his assent to laws strengthening the judiciary.
- Such judges as there are, he has made dependent on himself for their tenures and, when it comes down to it, even their very livelihood as judges.
- All his protests about the evils of government notwithstanding, he has set up a multitude of new agencies and offices, sending hither literal swarms of officers to harass the citizenry and (as with swarms of locusts) to eat out their substance.
- Even in peacetime, he has militarized the law enforcement agencies of the colonies -- virtual standing armies they are -- with the consent of no one at all, least of all the very citizens they are supposed to "protect."
- As for the regular armed forces, he has removed them from oversight by civilian authority, and elevated the importance of military considerations over those of the common civil good.
- He has combined with others in his inner circle to subject us to jurisdiction foreign to our consitution and unacknowledged by our laws. In doing so he has given his stamp of approval to such fake "rules" as:
- Subjecting us to the quartering of large bodies of armed troops among us;
- Protecting those troops -- by means of mock trials which nobody really believes in -- from punishment for any depredations they should commit on the Inhabitants of the country;
- Cutting off trade with all parts of the world, unless it either (a) denies economic opportunity to large bodies of the native populace, or (b) transfers wealth directly or indirectly into the already bulging coffers of his political and economic cohorts;
- Imposing on us, without our consent, both explicit taxes and implicit ones -- the latter in the form of "tax cuts" which so deplete our treasury as to make impossible the delivery of critical services to the populace, and thereby allow private enterprises unresponsive to the popular will to do whatever they want, at whatever cost, thereby depleting the public treasury even further;
- Depriving many of us of the rights of due process, in some cases even of trial by jury at all;
- "Rendering" our own citizens overseas to be tried for pretended, if not secret, reasons;
- Arbitrarily abolishing the right of self-rule in at least one foreign nation, manipulating its very boundaries in order to set an example for anyone else who piques his temper (including, it is to be feared, our own country);
- Taking away charters, abolishing or simply ignoring valuable laws, and altering -- again, we fear -- the fundamental form of our government;
- Suspending the laws of individual states, arrogating to himself and to his unelected inner circle the power to legislate for us.
- He has in effect abdicated government itself here, by declaring many of us beneath his notice and hence out of his protection, even to the extent (it is no exaggeration) of waging war against us.
- He and his agents have plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, rendered our cities and towns smoking slag heaps, and destroyed the lives of our people.
- He has behaved, in short, in a manner of perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
So that's the starting point but it's just a brain dump at this point. What have I left out? Anything need to be rearranged? Wording changes? Anything?
Comments:
Tpaine said (1:52pm):
Tom, interesting list. I'd support it all. Tho' as you said it needs some "wordsmithing," also some considerable tightening. It's hard to imagine anyone at all reading the thing in its present verbose form... certainly not those who we might most need to convince, e.g. some of our own stubborn neighbours. (And yes, I'd keep the all the superfluous "u"'s for now. We don't want to seem to be, you know, working too hard to distance ourselves from G & Co.)
One suggestion. I know this will just irritate some of you, thinking I'm just going off on a self-promotion bender. But I can't help thinking that some of the ideas, if not the actual words, of my recent "Common Sense" brochure might not be used here. For example, take the notion that the time for argument is long past and that the time for arms is upon us; as cast here, while the arguments are persuasive as far as arguments go, they do not amount to calls for radical action, are they?
Again, just a suggestion. I'm not going to be signing the damned thing, after all!
TJ said (2:18pm):
Thanks, Tpaine. And yes, we're all aware that your not being a signatory continues to be a sore point. :)
Almost as soon as I posted it, I realized I hadn't addressed at all what exactly we were planning to do. The logical place for that, I think, would be in a separate paragraph or two at the end. What do you think?
As I told you a couple weeks ago, I am a terrific fan of "Common Sense" and sincerely hope it is taken to heart by a million readers. (It is at the top of the blogroll, after all.) But this document we've been talking about here on LFSH.com really isn't the place for bomb-throwing, you know? Instead of a direct all to arms I am thinking of something along these lines: " We, therefore, the Representatives of blah blah blah, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People yada yada, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved. And so on and so forth."
??? Even if the words per se are softer than your version, would it help get your approval if I italicized parts of it?
Ben said (3:18pm):
Zounds! All this has been going on for a couple of hours and I feel as though I have nearly missed the boat already! Let me collect my wits and my breath before I get a stitch in my side (although a stitch in the side saves nine more, to paraphrase myself) (and if you don't believe I said it, a pox on you too!).
Tom P, you are the man! Keep at 'em, for all of our sakes!
Tom J, I agree with Tom P (and with you, come to that) in one respect, and that is that this needs a conclusion, you know? A stopping point. A dot, if not indeed an exclamatory mark, at the end of the eloquent sentence. But as I read through TP's and your comments on the matter, adjusting my bi-focal spectacles (which I invented), one thought kept intruding. And that thought was, Practicality! Whatever we propose, we must propose with a clear (if not, heh, a bi-focaled!) eye to the considerable skepticisms of our neighbors (and strike the "u," both of you dear Toms). If it is not doable, or not in some obvious respect useful -- if it, whatever "it" may turn out to be, does not heat our living rooms, protect our houses from striking by lightning, measure the mileage which our carriages travel, and/or grasp a book, shelved upon an upper shelf while we ourselves stand upon the floor -- if none of these things be true, then I fear the best we may hope for from those upon whom we will depend in the coming struggle is to be a shrug, a raised eyebrow, and the terse response, "And?"
Just my tuppence.
Anonymous said (10:12pm):
Oh for heaven's sake! LISTEN TO YOURSELVES! You people have been blabbering all this hateful blabber for years now and I for one am SICK of it! NEWS FLASH FOR YOU, you radicals haven't won a victory that counts yet, you have FAILED MISERABLY and you will FAIL MISERABLY in 1776!!!
I thought this was going to be a serious discussion group about the future of our colonies but I guess I was wrong. All you want to do is blame and point fingers and politicize everything. You hate our colonies you know that don't you? And what's with all this about the letter "u"? Don't you people have anything more important to do than sit around debating spelling rules??? Don't you realize that YOU without U is just YO????
It’s not really difficult to predict what the left will do... it’s become rather boring to watch the same ol' false accusations over and over again. THE MAN IS OUR KING and you must respect the monarchy AND THE MAN WHO HOLDS THE OFFICE. But no, he does that and he does this and blah blah blah. Ho hum! B-o-o-o-o-ring!
Do you not remember how the King (and YES thank you very much I know very well it was not THIS KING but ONE OF HIS PREDECESSORS, I am not a dimwit you know) came to our aid in the wars against the savages? In the wars against the French to our north? If it were not for OUR KING and THE MONARCHY and the ROYAL ARMIES we would probably be speaking Iroquois and drinking wine today!!!
And since when is OUR KING and OUR MONARCHY responsible for OUR HAPPINESS. I guess I'm the odd one out here, because I believe I must take care of myself and my own family.
And puh-leeze, do not come telling me that I have not had to sacrifice anything. I have the husband of a cousin who has been pressed into service on board one of OUR MAJESTY'S warships. It is true that he is a cook and he has never seen a shot fired in anger but HE IS ONE OF OUR MILITARY and so I know all about the pain of separation even if I have never met him and MY WHOLE FAMILY is very proud of him for serving our MAJESTY. Not one time have I ever heard of him uttering the word "quagmire" either.
TJ your whole silly list is boring to me and it is all made up of RADICAL LIES. You and all your so-called "independent presses" have been repeating all the LIES so much that you don't even know they are LIES. OUR MAJESTY GEORGE THE THIRD is a leader... he doesn’t rule by polls unlike a few of you around here with your vote on this and vote on that!! Don't any of you ever listen to yourselves!!!
If there is any problem here in our GREAT COLONIES in this so-called "emergency" I believe it is with our local "leaders" not with OUR ROYAL GOVERNMENT. For example if people from other countries want to come here then why don't the colonial governments let them in themselves? Why not provide CARRIAGES to transport them here?
I hope you enjoy this comment as much as I enjoy the failure to place blame on OUR KING for umm... just about everything that happens world wide!! It does wonders come succession time... as RADICALS LOSE AGAIN to the DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS! All this KING GEORGE GOUGING makes me SICK!!!
It’s called tact guys... if ya would use some, perhaps the other side may listen... doesn’t mean they will agree... but at least you will be heard and won’t be discrediting yourself in the process!
In closing let me leave you with a few questions...
Firstly, don't talk down to me about the plundering of our seas and forests, blah blah blah, until you look at the log in your own eye. Yes, I'm not going to name any names because UNLIKE YOU RADICALS I am also civilized but you know who I mean -- Mister Chop-down-the-cherry-tree.
Second, THE KING IS OUR PROTECTOR. Have any of you seen any savage redskins lately? Any Spanish raiders? French entrepeneurs? No!!! OUR KING is fighting them overseas, well not the redskins but you know what I mean, so we won't have to fight them ourselves!
Third, Tpaine, although you claimed otherwise, those of us who can SEE know all about your hidden agenda to get your RADICAL WRITING into the hands of as many of those who CANNOT SEE as possible.
Fourth, TJ, don't talk to me or the rest of us who can SEE about the rights of mankind until you get rid of your own you know whats. Gee what's up with that TJ ???????? I would love to hear how life would be so much better for them WITHOUT OUR KING ?????
Basically, the biggest difference between those of us who can SEE, and those on the left that post on this site, is that you all prefer to look at the doom and gloom of every situation. How sad it must be for you to go through life... never appreciating the good, only wallowing in what you perceive to be bad! It’s apparent that most 'radicals', not all, have zero morality. All we here from most of you is a lack of disregard for the faithful and those who believe in living their lives to a certain moral code... we see you supporting and condoning the worst moral offense of all... insurrection... murder of Tories yet unborn... what more do I need to say after that?
P.S. Gee don't you think it's funny we haven't heard anything from Martha about this! Isn't she the big heroine for all you radicals ???????
