A New Declaration of Independence? No You Can't!

I knew that there would come a day when I would not just roll my eyes at something our new president said, but instead would be gripped by genuine, cold fear. I thought that at least the traditional honeymoon period would go by (the first 100 days in office - when we would be treated to meeting the new president’s dog, watching him wave during cornball photo ops, and generally doing nothing of real substance) before he said something that truly terrified me. However, if I have to find something good to say about “the savior,” it is that he has certainly hit the ground running. The only problem is that he is trying to get us all running toward our mutual destruction.

In a speech on Saturday in Baltimore, he said words that should be sparking mass protests all over the United States. President Obama has called for “A New Declaration of Independence,” which of course would provide the ideological backdrop for his plans to try to “perfect our union.” So that I am not taking his words out of context, I will quote him verbatim based upon the official transcript provided by his staff.

“And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that those first patriots displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives - from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry - an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.” [emphasis added]

It will certainly be argued that this was just a rhetorical figure of speech, as Obama did not actually call for the drafting of a document. The dreaded words are certainly watered down by what follows them, making the statement seem more like an appeal to each person to make some sort of personal commitment to help make a better world. However, I here and now warn the reader not to write this statement off as just another speech. During his campaign, Obama repeated the words “service and sacrifice” so many times that it is likely that most Americans now feel that service and sacrifice are now required of them. Of course, the questions, “Serve whom?” “Sacrifice what?” and “For whom?” were never answered, but they certainly will be when our new emperor begins dictating policy to his rubber stamp Congress.

It should come as no surprise when we hear these new words from Obama again and again, until one day a story breaks that someone is actually working on a new declaration. Likely we will be told that this person – maybe a Congressman, maybe some other servant of the empire – was “so inspired” by Obama’s ideas that he decided to take him up on this one. It will of course be served up as the spontaneous action of this inspired person, and will be lauded as one of many wonderful results of Obama’s “transformative presidency.” Whether the official story is true or not will not change the disastrous results.

Most Americans reading this would probably wonder why a new declaration would be such a big deal. After all, the original Declaration does not have the force of law. Why would a new one constitute any substantive change?

While it does not have the force of law, the Declaration of Independence is monumentally important. It is not law itself, but the declaration of what the purpose of every law passed is supposed to be. As that document says, our government only exists to secure our individual, unalienable rights. Therefore, we declare in that document that we shall only pass laws whose purpose is “to secure these rights.” Implicit in “the Pursuit of Happiness” is the central, most important right: the right of each individual to the fruits of his labor.

As I argue in my book, this is the right without which no other rights can exist. This was the central theme in Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, which was the direct source for our Declaration by Jefferson’s own (repeated) admission. This was the true reason that our American Revolution was fought. We have ignored this plain fact for too long, as our increasing loss of liberty proves.

Unlike our last president, President Obama does not have the dubious freedom that a more limited intellect can provide. He knows how troublesome the original Declaration is to his agenda. While it still stands as our declaration of what our government is supposed to be doing, it stands in the way of what he wants our government to be doing, regardless of the fact that our government already violates its principles in so many ways.

Like the United Nations “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” I would anticipate that Obama’s new declaration would grant additional rights to everyone, including a minimum standard of living, healthcare, unemployment benefits, and the rest of the entitlements granted in Article 25 and beyond in the U.N. document. At first, that might seem like a great idea. How can more rights be bad?

The answer is that the price of these new “rights” is the surrender of the most important of the true natural rights – the right to the fruits of your labor. For example, “healthcare” is nothing more than the fruits of the labor of healthcare providers: doctors, nurses, technicians, hospitals, etc. Therefore, no one can have a right to healthcare. If the doctor has a right to the fruits of his own labor, then other people cannot have a right to that same labor. It is a logical contradiction. In order for everyone to have a right to the doctor’s labor, either the doctor – or whoever is forced to pay the doctor’s bills for “everyone” – must give up the right to their labor. No one can have a right to something that someone else must be forced to provide – at least not in a society that wishes to be “the land of the free.”

Of course, I am certainly not the first to point out that the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights was modeled on the Soviet Union’s Constitution, not ours. That is why it grants the “non-rights” that it grants – because it is based upon communist philosophy. Granting everyone a right to the fruits of everyone else’s labor is the definition of communism, and almost all of President Obama’s rhetoric is consistent with it. He never talks about protecting the individual. Instead, he says “out of many, we are one.” We all have a responsibility of service (to the collective) and sacrifice (for the collective). We have no protection from the collective, no matter what they demand out of our labor or out of our hides.

However, our Declaration of Independence stands in the way of all of that. Unlike his predecessor, President Obama is an intellectual and he knows that the Declaration can still provide an impregnable defense against his monstrous plans, if only the American people would rediscover its meaning. Once a new declaration is in place, he can make the argument that the old one is outdated and that “we have all agreed” that “the challenges of the 21st century” demand a different role for our government.” While rights are unalienable and therefore cannot be taken away, they can certainly be violated. A house resolution recognizing a new declaration of independence would provide strong support for just that.

This is a line that our government must not be allowed to cross. From this day forward, each time President Obama mentions a new declaration of independence, our voices must be raised together in deafening unison: No You Can’t! No You Can’t! No You Can’t! (I can’t hear you) No You Can’t!

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