Monday, July 4, 2022

Happy July 4th, 2022! Where the elites and Confederates need to be beaten back again

I usually use today to print off the entire Declaration of Independence, because it's still an incredible document with ideas that have signficant relevance for today. But instead I'll leave a few excerpts and thoughts about a more local absurdity.

First, let's go to the opening of the Declaration.
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 shewn, 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.
Author Charlie Pierce went over some of the "long train of absuses" in a recent string of tweets. And Charlie reminds us that the Former Guy bore a lot of resemblance to the type of guy that our Founders fought against 246 years ago.

For a bunch of people who claim to be all about the Founders and Constitutional government, GOPs sure don't like to be reminded of the reality of what this country was like over 200+ years ago. Not just in TrumpWorld, but also up and down the Republican Party in Wisconsin.

Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is running in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, is coming under fire for comments he made nearly a year ago about the teaching of slavery and the founding of the country.

"Imagine being so ashamed of how we got to this place in America that you outlaw teaching it," Barnes said in an apparent reference to slavery.

"You know, and things were bad," Barnes said in a video clip of an Aug. 19 event in Portage that was posted on Twitter by conservative talk-radio host Dan O'Donnell of WISN (AM-1130).

"Things were terrible," Barnes said. "The founding of this nation? Awful. You know, but we are here now and we should commit ourselves to doing everything we can do to repair the harm because it still exists today.

"The harm, the damage, whether it was colonization or whether it was slavery. The impacts are felt today and they're going to continue to be felt unless we address it in a meaningful way."
No lies detected in Mandela's statements. Adults would deal with that reality to strive for a "more perfect union."

But then again, when I think about what the WisGOP spokespeople on Klan Radio 1130 stand for, I don't think they would have been with the Union 160 years ago.

Republicans certainly don't believe in "consent of the governed" these days. And they have an illegitimate Supreme Court allowing for that non-consensual arrangement to go on steroids, which is why this country's system of government is the closest it's been to collapsing since the Civil War.

And the people charged with making sure this government continues to work and maintain freedoms for Americans aren't doing enough to fight those who want to destroy such things.

WHY? Why should we say the rulings from an illegitimate, out-of-control SCOTUS "has value". Especially when SCOTUS that has ZERO ENFORCEMENT POWER?

That certainly isn't what people put up with in this country 246 years ago, when another unaccountable, unelected group of elites thought they could impose their will on the rest of the nation.

Voting in those who would defend this country and (ALL) its people is part of the equation, and one that everyday citizens such as us must do. But we also need actions from those we elected in the 4 months before the election as well, if we are to "provide new Guards for [our] future security." And to bring down our own monarchs and oligarchs in 2022 who think they are above accountability.
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