The more things change, the more they remain... insane.
Michael Fry and T. Lewis, Over the Hedge, 05-09-04
WE are 233 years into the world’s oldest experiment with freedom based on individual rights—not the rights of kings, or generals, or gods. And yet those who have benefited the most from this Republic are the very ones who cry loudly for rights not for individuals but for groups. Our system of government emerged from the belief that mankind are created in the image of God, the one God embraced by our ancestors who unashamedly declared that each one of us is endowed, that’s right, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Through a lengthy series of legislative slight of hands, the individual has been superseded by special interest groups. But, I wonder, who assigns you to a group? Who or what bureaucracy is the labeler-in-chief that lets each of us know that we have no meaning or purpose in life unless we can be seen as a member of a protected class?
History is a cruel teacher as it points out what results from certain choices. Centuries of tyranny cannot hide from the historian’s eye. So it is no wonder that it is critical to decouple the current generation from that record if one wants to embrace a new age of tyranny. Fools who have made of themselves gods believe that with their superior intellect and communication techniques they can wash away the historical records with a little rewrite here and little deletion there. In that fantasy world, tyrants can be redressed in the new clothes of progressivism. Even Hitler can be redrawn as a conservative Christian in their eyes in order to avoid seeing the similar roots of Nazism and the progressive “empathy” they profess.
So in case you missed it, here is a little “change” history. If you do not realize that July 4th is a tribute to the American Revolution that has given you your current world, you may not know what caused regular folks to rise up and challenge a government knowing full well they could lose their lives, fortunes and sacred honors. So what caused that first Tea Party? Much of what we are experiencing today.
Current circumstances in our country and its leadership are reminiscent of themes, emotions, and challenges leading to the American Revolution. Unless you're a history buff, you may not know that the original revolution was eerily similar to what we're going through at this moment, down to the roots. According Gordon S. Wood, a professor at Brown University, it was the economy, stupid. Adding intrigue is the fact that it wasn't just the economy, but SPECIFICALLY A HOUSING BUBBLE that made the American Revolution unfold the way that it did.
In an article that appeared in the New York Times:
For the colonists, as for us, first came the boom. During the height of the French and Indian War, which lasted from 1754 until 1763, money flooded into the colonies, especially New York, where the British Army was headquartered. At the same time, the New York Legislature issued large numbers of bills of credit.
All that cash sloshing around resulted in lavish displays of wealth— notably by British officers, who’s opulent living, was emulated by the locals, especially in New York.
Housing prices soared during the war. But when credit tightened afterward — thanks in no small part to a prohibition on the issuance of paper money by the colonies under the Currency Act of 1764 — real estate owners who could not pay their debts lost their land.
In that era, the citizens demanded accountability from their leaders. Instead of having their grievances addressed, they were taxed more on items that they depended upon for daily life and commerce. The tax that broke the apathy of the colonists was the tea tax, thus the Boston Tea Party. (No Janeane, it wasn’t about discrimination!) What they objected to the most, was the disregard for the individual. No matter their status, they were all placed in the group called colonists. And as such were subjects of the Crown. This led to the organizing document of this country, the Declaration of Independence. In the body of that document, the plaintive established a legal case for separation. “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
The eerie similarities to today have many of the same ingredients, but the most egregious is the failure to uphold individual freedom. As the dominoes for the “remaking of America” continue to be put in place by the ideologue-in-chief along with the creation of a non-elected group of czars who hold allegiance only to him, it is important to dust off our founding documents, re-read them along with Common Sense and The Federalist Papers, make your signs, attend a local Tea Party and fax without ceasing.
