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THE VIEW FROM HERE - Whether you are registered as a GOP or Dem, you are probably at heart an Independent Declarationist. Whether or not you know what a Declarationist is, you probably are one. About 85% of Americans are Independent Declarationists.
The first test whether you are an Independent Declarationist is that you are neither a far Right MAGA Trumpist nor a far-Left Woker DEI Dem. The second test is that you believe that each person should be judged by their character and not by their skin color, ethnicity, sex, religion, etc. About 85% of Americans past both tests.
Why 85% of Americans Are Actually Independent Declarationists
Whether we think about it daily, Americans love the values in the Declaration of Independence. They’ve become so ingrained that we automatically operate on them somewhat similar to how we subconsciously auto-drive between home and work. Let’s review our core values, all three of which are in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.
1) all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
2) Government’s purpose is to secure the individual inalienable rights
3) The government’s just powers come from the consent of the governed Inalienable Rights Require Government Protection
Our government’s duty is to secure these rights for Americans. Because the government’s legitimacy rests upon the consent of the governed, one way to ascertain the consent of the people is through the limited use of voting.
Why the Power of Voting Is Limited?
Almost no one thinks about the constitutional limitations on voting. When a country is based on inalienable rights, it cannot be a democracy. This statement probably shocks most people, but we all need to be crystal clear why a democracy will destroy the rule of law and quickly move our nation towards tyranny. In a democracy, whatever the voters decide is the law. A democracy has no higher authority than the will of the majority. When voters decide to forbid all abortions, that is the unchallengeable law. When the voters decide that no family may have more than one child and second pregnancies must be aborted; there is no appeal of that law.
When a nation bases itself on inalienable rights, however, those rights are the supreme law of the land and it does not matter what the voters decide. Any law which infringes upon inalienable rights can be declared unconstitutional and the High Court’s decision kills that law even if 100% of voters passed it. We are familiar with the tyranny of absolute monarchs who like the Queen of Hearts shout “Off with his head” and with dictators like Saddam Hussein who would round up citizens in the middle of the night and executed them. There is also the Tyranny of the Majority where everyone’s life, liberty, and happiness are subject to the whim of the voters. That was the essence of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857) – Blacks had no inalienable right to freedom, except as the voters of each state may grant or withhold. That odious legal principle is also the philosophy of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022) where each woman’s rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness rests upon the majority of voters – from which there is no appeal. When supreme court justices deny the existence of inalienable rights in favor of allowing voters’ whim to be the law, we have a constitutional crisis. Our judicial crisis does not, however, invalidate the Declaration’s and the Constitution’s foundation on the rule of law.
The Declaration totally rejects the idea that the voters’ transitory opinions are the supreme law of the law. No matter how much we may dislike members of the US Supreme Court, and there is much to dislike, we recognize that there has to be an institution to protect our inalienable rights from voters. (The issue of justices like Samuel Alito who make unconstitutional decisions which abrogate inalienable rights is beyond the scope of this article.)
A Home for All
The Declaration’s values provide a home for all. It matters naught one’s religion, gender, sexual orientation, skin hue, ethnicity, etc., everyone has the same innate rights. No one has more or better rights than anyone else. As set forth in the Constitution’s Preamble, the government’s role is to secure these rights within the context of the general welfare, e.g., “secure the blessing of liberty” and “promote the general welfare.” The government’s goal is to be mutually beneficial for all without favoring or disfavoring one group versus another group.
The founding fathers declared these principles because everywhere they were violated. None of them were so deluded as to believe that people already enjoyed these rights. Rather, their purpose was to set up a framework where each individual could maximize his rights without others throwing stumbling blocks in his path.
A Practical Example – the Present Immigration Bill
Senator James Lankford (R-OK) is taking the lead on the present immigration reform bill. The bill’s core principle is: each immigrant is to be judged upon his own merit. When the number of immigrants entering the nation exceeds the number we can properly vet, the bill halts the influx. Entry falls to zero. A grave injustice is done to meritorious immigrants, when our system is unable to judge their character. When the nation follows a “catch and release” policy, the national security is imperiled. Thus, reasonable Americans should feel at home with Sen. James Lankford. The bill is a cooperative effort to place immigration on our core values, but there is no magic wand. Thus, the present bill is a reasonable approach: anyone, whom we cannot vet, gets no type of legal entry.
The far Right MAGA Trumpists oppose Lankford’s bill as do the far Left Wokers. Anyone who demands 100% compliance with their criteria lives outside the Declaration’s principle of cooperative governance. Because both the Alt Right and the Alt Left adopt the concept of group rights, they have placed themselves in direct opposition to Declaration’s core values. The far Alt Right believes that Whites are superior, and thus, Whites should rule. The far left divides the world into two groups – oppressors and the oppressed. Whites and Jews are deemed oppressors of all minorities. Dr. Jonah Salk, Albert Einstein and Jesus all fall into the Woker oppressor category. Minorities like the terrorist Hamas, who are dedicated to the extermination of all Jews, are lauded as heroes by the US Wokers. Today’s Hamas would summarily execute Salk, Einstein and Jesus, while Harvard students would cheer them on.
We can end the reign of both the Right and Left group rights advocates by de-registering from both the GOP and Dem parties and by re-registering as Independents. Then, we will be free to evaluate candidates and policies by the three core values of the Declaration. As long as people remain registered in either party, the extremist MAGA and extremist Wokers will control policy so that polarization will continue to make us ungovernable. Once a critical mass has re-registered as Independents, the extremists lose control. Our first step to freedom is for each of us to remove ourselves from the present political parties and become de facto Independent Declarationists.
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected].)
