Happy Birthday America: Don’t Throw Away Your Shot

Today is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It’s worth putting those words in print once again:

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.

Those are fighting words. Indeed, if you’re ever in DC, check out the Jefferson Memorial, where the author’s words are selectively presented with the more radical sentences edited out without ellipses.

While I don’t share the same fear in displaying such radical thought as the Roosevelt administration did when building the Jefferson Memorial in 1939, I do think we need to rise up. It just doesn’t need to be an armed revolt like in 1776. We need independence of thought.

The best way to affect that is to support the Taxpayer Association of Oregon here and the Cascade Policy Institute here. That’s better than throwing your proverbial tea into the Port of Portland.

The defeat of HB 2025 in the past legislative session feels like a miracle, but it’s a sign of the times. It couldn’t get enough Democrats to pass because, at least a handful of them appear to believe that taxing even more in the name of maintaining our roads while delivering an anti-mobility policy may lead to a popular revolt against their rule. So don’t throw away your shot. If they pursue this with a special session, let them feel it at the ballot box next year.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.