Most of us who know our history can recite the beginning paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. However the rest of the Declaration is unknown to most of us. In short, it is a list of grievances against the King of Great Britain, summing up why the signers of the Declaration of Independence felt it necessary to separate themselves from the mother country and become an independent nation. We know, both from this great document and from general common sense, that “all men are created equal.” We know that God has endowed us with the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We also know that it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish any form of Government which has become destructive of such rights, instituting a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to the people, seems most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Following this there reads ” But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their (the people) right, it is their (the people) duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their (the people) future security.

Let us now look at but a few of the abuses which the founders listed, as reason to declare the colonies independent of Great Britain.

1. He (the King) has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
2. He has imposed taxes on us without our consent.
3. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…….

Does any of this sound current to you? Do any of these abuses appear to be of modern man rather than a long dead King?

Our Constitution was therefore written to curb these and many more abuses. It was written to limit the reach of the Federal Government, as to its ability to interfere with our lives and our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Nowhere is it written in the Constitution that the Federal Government is our Mother and Father from cradle to grave. Nowhere is it written that it is the Federal Government which has provided us with those inalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that the Federal Government may ruin our lives through the craven greed and misdeeds of its members. Nowhere is it written that our President has the powers of a King.

In the Preamble to the Constitution, our founders laid out, in general terms, just what our Government is to provide – the formation of a more perfect union, the establishment of justice, the insurance of domestic tranquility, the provision for the a common defense, the promotion of the general welfare and the insurance of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. That is the purpose and the reason for our Federal Government – that an nothing more. Rather than being a document providing expansive powers, it is a document which limits the powers of both the President and of Congress, so as to prevent the abuses we suffered under the Monarchy. And yet, the majority of Americans today feel exactly how the colonists felt under the thumb of the King.

Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution states that while Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, and that did not refer in any way to an income tax, a taxation which came much later in our history through an amendment, Congress was also “to pay its debts.” This section did not say that Congress was to incur and enlarge our national debt, but was to “pay” debts. The same section allowed Congress to borrow money on the credit of the United States, but credit only comes with the status of fiscal security. Unfortunately the United States no longer has credit in the respect envisioned by our founders. What we have is debtor status, which grows daily. Our only credit status comes from the power of our armed forces, our nuclear arsenal, and nothing more. Your paper money has no more backing than your full faith in the credit status of the nation. Your paper money is, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than a promise that the government will accept it in return for debt. Unfortunately, most other nations are beginning to consider our currency nothing more than a means to kindle a fire.

Let me throw this in for just an ” I told you so.” Keep your eye on the rate for the 30 year treasury bond. When it rises above 4.60 % interest, prepare to unload your bonds, prepare for a Carter style inflation, and prepare for another massive drop in the stock market. We are in deep fiscal trouble and the water is rising. When a Health Care Bill is as thick as the NYC phonebook, you know that it contains tons of unnecessary pork, and that Congress is not following Article I, Section 8.

Section 8 also states that the Congress is to establish a uniform rule of Naturalization. We have nothing of the sort. Why do you suspect that California is bankrupt? Why are many states teetering on the brink of fiscal destruction? It is because each state is paying for Congress’s failure to establish a uniform rule of naturalization and enforcing it. Make sure your muni bonds are insured, because state bankruptcies will occur unless the citizen is taxed to death.

Section 9 states, and this may be the biggest joke of all, that under Congress no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriation made by Law, and a “regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. Let me ask you – were you aware of the Murtha Airport? Were you aware of Senator Byrds highway to nowhere? Are we made aware of any of the expenditures made, using our tax dollars for these pork projects, which benefit no one but the spending Senator or Representative him or herself? The answer is no! But, that is how the system works, and it works only to the advantage of those within the beltway.

The actions of Congress today would have brought about insurrection by the original colonists. We the people are being treated by this Congress and the current President no differently than were the original colonists. And yet, when we do gather to voice our opinions about the chicanery going on in Congress, we are written off as lunatics. Well, let this be a lesson to those of you who have forgotten your history. Were it not for the lunatics who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you and I would still be speaking with a British Accent and owing our allegiance to the Queen.

JLK