Erosion of Rights

Pan Editorial Columns - B.O.L.T.'s Editorial The continued erosion of our rights and ongoing interference by the federal government to coerce states to get in line is both perplexing and disgusting.

Whatever happened to the proud possession of State Sovereignty so eloquently proclaimed in 1776 and reaffirmed in 1781? Has the concept of state’s rights vanished and turned into dust? Remember, sovereignty like chastity cannot be surrendered in part. It is indivisible; it is the supreme power of the state.

What our forefathers declared in 1776 was not that we were a free and independent nation or a free and independent people. What they said was, “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”

Although the Declaration of Independence opened with what is termed the “human rights” enunciation, it concluded in the plainest of terms pronouncing the political powers of the newly created states. From the beginning, this was a government of the people and when that government moves away from the control of the people it becomes a great evil and greater restraint upon liberty.

The continued movement toward a centralized government is causing an obliteration of state’s rights. Gladly, some states are standing up and speaking out against such encroachments, specifically dealing with 2nd Amendment rights for instance. More states need to assert their sovereign rights on all matters of creeping federal interventions.

Our system of government was derived from English Law, which ruled by authoritarian rule. Simple men were ruled by and for the benefit of those of higher class distinction. Gentlemen at the top of the ladder still had to submit to the authority of the king, whose power was given by God. Thus you had nobles, gentlemen, tradesmen and finally the masses or common people. This structure was imposed against the will of the people who finally revolted in the 1640’s against King Charles. These were the first effective expressions of resistance against the authority of the crown.

What these civil disobedient commoners were saying was that certain aspects of life, conscience and property among them, were beyond the reach of authority. These were “natural rights”, and this philosophy came to America with dissenters who left England for a new life. Among the most prolific of orators of the time was Englishman John Locke. The conflict of the time involved King Charles and his followers who had formed a Church State, which was opposed by the Calvinists. Locke promoted a separation of church and state, and advised that the clergy attend to men’s souls and leave governing to the state.

Locke went on to write his Four Letters Concerning Toleration essays, which became the bedrock of American thinking. It was not Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin or John Adams or any of them who devised the words that inspired our nation. They undoubtedly had read John Locke’s words, such as “Civil interests are life, liberty, health and the possession of outward things such as money and land. It is the duty of the civil magistrate to secure unto all the people in general the just possession of these things.”

Those words were written 86 years before the Declaration of Independence. In John Locke’s view, no person should be excluded because of a religious belief or for that matter for not subscribing to any religious belief. It set the foundation for freedom of religion in America. After the revolution in England in 1688, Locke wrote an essay on Civil Rights. This piece secured the heritage America acquired from England in 1690: habeas corpus, trial by jury and representative government.

It was then that the concept of higher law came to life, with beliefs that the law of God and nature was superior to laws emanating from human authority. We find that evident in the Declaration of Independence as our forefathers invoked natural rights and constitutional prerogatives. What did they borrow from Locke? His essay on Civil Rights contained these prophetic words: “In this state of nature all men are equal in the sense that they are endowed with certain natural, or inalienable rights which no other individual may justifiably infringe.”

Further, Locke wrote down the words that actually justify revolution: “And so, whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people. The social contract, out of which government emerges, therefore is no surrender of individual rights. The fact is citizens bind themselves to allegiance to the laws so long as these laws do not infringe upon the original purpose for which the society was established.”

The founders of our country surely had read John Locke and although they formed their opinions and words around his philosophy, a distinct American philosophy was emerging. Many early ideas were reborn in the Declaration of Independence, and later by other scholars and theologians, including Martin Luther King. Remember King’s letter to the clergy, wherein he proclaimed it a duty to resist unjust laws? Johnathan Mayhew, a pastor at West Church in Boston, wrote “To stand up to tyranny was not rebellion, but rather defense of liberty, and to do less than resist would be to fail in their duty.”

We who call ourselves Freedom Fighters revel in the delights of following in the shadows of such great men, although our sacrifices and the threats to our well being or fortunes are nowhere near the risks taken by these great men. It should be mandatory reading for every Freedom Fighter to take up Thomas Paine’s essay, Common Sense, written in 1775. It was a masterpiece of Whig propaganda, but the opening lines of his essay, The Crisis, ring true even today. “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

With those words of Paine’s in my mind, I cannot help but think of Quig’s constant attempts to lure police and DA’s into his web of judicial connivance. And continuing that legacy, Mark Temple and Dave Stilwell, among others in BOLT too numerous to list here. These Freedom Fighters are not acting as agitators to create disturbance or disorder but rather to secure and put things back in order. They act in the true spirit of the Freedom Fighter of the past, the Minutemen, the guardians of liberty and the bastions of freedom.

I still believe that among the things we cherish most, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that our rights to property and privacy are paramount. We, BOLT, will continue to move forward with our tiny militia, secure in knowing that we are doing the right thing and our cause is just. If it’s only us who understands the issues and are willing to take it to the battlefield, we still have them outnumbered.

- Pan