And Liberty For All

Haikus - posted every friday on the Citizen Against Lies Blog

2005-11-03T20:34:00.000Z

Sick of all the lies
The spin has made me dizzy
Shut these bastards up!

Election reform?
If money equals free speech
The poor have no voice

Power hungry pigs
Use governments as their tools
Feed upon the weak

Tax cuts for the rich
Taking money from the poor
Where's Robin Hood Now?

Two thousand poor dead
Casualties of Bush's lies
The rich get richer

The Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776

2005-09-30T17:26:00.000Z

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 to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. 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. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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.

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies 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 that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

[Signed by] JOHN HANCOCK [President]

New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT,
WM. WHIPPLE,
MATTHEW THORNTON.

Massachusetts Bay
SAML. ADAMS,
JOHN ADAMS,
ROBT. TREAT PAINE,
ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island
STEP. HOPKINS,
WILLIAM ELLERY.

Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN,
SAM'EL HUNTINGTON,
WM. WILLIAMS,
OLIVER WOLCOTT.

New York
WM. FLOYD,
PHIL. LIVINGSTON,
FRANS. LEWIS,
LEWIS MORRIS.

New Jersey
RICHD. STOCKTON,
JNO. WITHERSPOON,
FRAS. HOPKINSON,
JOHN HART,
ABRA. CLARK.

Pennsylvania
ROBT. MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH,
BENJA. FRANKLIN,
JOHN MORTON,
GEO. CLYMER,
JAS. SMITH,
GEO. TAYLOR,
JAMES WILSON,
GEO. ROSS.

Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY,
GEO. READ,
THO. M'KEAN.

Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE,
WM. PACA,
THOS. STONE,
CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton.

Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE,
RICHARD HENRY LEE,
TH. JEFFERSON,
BENJA. HARRISON,
THS. NELSON, JR.,
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE,
CARTER BRAXTON.

North Carolina
WM. HOOPER,
JOSEPH HEWES,
JOHN PENN.

South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE,
THOS. HAYWARD, JUNR.,
THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR.,
ARTHUR MIDDLETON.

Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT,
LYMAN HALL,
GEO. WALTON.

The Social Contract Broken

2005-09-25T21:40:00.000Z

You have probably heard of the Social Contract.

There exists an implied social agreement among the citizens to allow themselves to be governed. This implied agreement is what grants a government the authority to govern. Its authority only applies to the body of citizens by which it is formed. This is known as government by consent of the people.

If the people do not consent to be governed by the existing government, they have the right to replace it by revolution. In an evolved civilized society, this can be a non-violent revolution, by people holding a constitutional convention. This has happened in America before, it can happen again.

Did you know that our current constitution was not the first one? Our country's first version of government after declaring itself free and separate from the British monarchy, was a Confederation. We had a president prior to George Washington. To learn more about the original Articles of Confederation go Here.

The Articles of Confederation were determined to be deficient after a decade as the supreme law of the United States of America, and a commitee was formed and our current Constitution was created to replace it. The Constitution was a ground breaking document for its time, but it has its shortcomings. At the time of its writing, only property owning males had a vote in the government. Which means that even though there were some "enlightened" minds among these people, the common man and women were NOT the focus of the constitution. The main purpose of the document was to protect the wealth and property and existing power structures of the wealthy men, who were forming the new government. Even the Bill of rights was an add on after the main constituional document was ratified and in affect. Any government forming document should have from its conception the unwavering goal of protecting individual liberty and sovereignty, if it is to truly serve all the people.

Wealth and power are corrupting influences. Anyone who has either ALWAYS seek to gain MORE of both. This corruption has completely permeated our current government. The current US Government has overstepped the limits of the authority granted to it by the Constitution. The people are angry and feel that their needs are ingnored by the government which has been purchased by impersonal corporations and the wealthy elite.

The Constitution still has value, mostly because of the addition of the Bill of Rights, and later Amendments that brought universal suffrage, it could could be amended again to repair the problems of corruption and incompetence. There needs to be enforced accountability for government eployees and elected officials, besides just not electing them again. In the next article I will give some options for the people to take back the country, with amendments.

People should always keep in mind that, the govenment exists because we allow it to. And if we can't repair the current Constitution, we have the right to nullify and replace it.

Unalienable Rights

2004-11-10T19:47:00.000Z

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Indepenence

This is the most important concept behind the formation of The United States of America. There are, and were other democracies. There are countries who have granted their citizens liberal freedoms. But never until these words were written and declared, was there a govenment formed on the basis that our individual rights are inherent and unalienable.

Our rights are not a gift from our fellow man. They are not a gracious privledge bestowed on unworthy masses by the poweful elite. They are not granted by any government! They are rights endowed by our Creator. Our rights are written with the other laws of Nature, like gravity or the seasonal cycles. We are an integral part of Nature, and our right to protect our life and liberty and to pursue our personal happiness in not in the hands of any other human.

You are free. You have a God given right to self determination. Take it. See through the illusion, and reclaim your personal sovereignty.

My mission

2004-06-02T19:06:00.000Z

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

This world is full of cowards, people who run in fear of everyone else, always afraid of what someone else will say, do or think.

My mind is my own. I will take it where I will. I not be driven, deterred, or defeated by the opponents of freedom and liberty. I refuse to kneel before fools who claim that the restrictive laws they seek to impose are for my own good.

I will determine what is good for me. You determine what is good for you. If you don't like my choice... so what? You have the right to not like it. But you don't have the right to keep me from making my choice.

I plan on posting about free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to keep and bear arms, and freedom of self determination.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry