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. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
It is remarkable that the greatest civilization of the last two centuries started with these words.
It is not the democracy that made our nation great. Is is the individual freedom. The most unbridled expression of capitialism in a civilized country is what made our country great.
Will we stiffle this freedom to pacify the voters? Tocqueville warned of the “tyranny of the majority”. Jefferson said
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
How will we declare our independence when the power of the democratic majority inflict “a long train of abuses and usurpations” upon the individual?? As the number of people on the public dole reaches 50% and entire departments of government are established to dispense collected taxes and the proceeds of government debt to all forms of welfare recipients will we burden the producers of our great wealth to the point of collapse?
To me it is immoral to tax the producers for the benefit of the political powerful. This happens every day across our country and we see it here in Louisiana. We expand charity hospitals, create huge corporate welfare funds in the name of economic development, throw millions at failing public schools, and on and on. This is only compounded across the nation as we fund foreign wars, socialized medicine, farm welfare, and huge public assistance programs.
We have an obligation to keep government small--to promote individual freedom--to stay out of the way of those who seek to better themselves by industrious labor and ingenious knowledge. Historically it is how we grew to be what we are. We should never, ever forget that and like the signers of the Declaration of Independence we must stand up to these subtle, sometimes short sighted, moves toward tyranny.
We must fight the “tyranny of the majority.”
