A Declaration of Independence for today

 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.

  And believe me brothers and sisters, we’ve got plenty of them (causes, that is) . The original signers wouldn’t have put up with what we do for 15.5 mille-seconds. Bunchawooses. — jtl, 419

Two-hundred forty years ago a group of men pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor and embarked on a dangerous journey with an uncertain outcome in an effort to wrest themselves and their country from a despotic monarch and forge a new nation.

When taken in context, the tyranny under which the Founders languished pales in comparison to that we face today, as our Becky Akers so ably wrote last week.

So with apologies to Mr. Jefferson, the drafters and signatories of the original Declaration of Independence, I have taken their framework and drafted a new document stating our new grievances – many of which are eerily similar to those of yesteryear.

From my office, July 4, 2016.

My unanimous Declaration for the united States of America, (use of lowercase intentional; see original document)

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 united States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of recent presidents, congresses and federal courts 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.

• They have created a host of  Laws, regulations, ordinances and statutes that are most unwholesome and contrary to the public good. Presidents have created laws with the stroke of a pen, congresses have ceded their authority under the Constitution to make law and declare war to both the president and bureaucrats, and the courts have created law from whole cloth and stricken down laws passed by the people, all contrary to the established Constitution.
• They have forbidden Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation, till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• They have labeled freedom-loving people as dissidents and enemies of the state and sought to have them disarmed.
• They have endeavoured to prevent the population of these States, for that purpose establishing Laws for Admittance of Foreigners to act on their own behalf; refusing also to pass others to discourage their migrations hither, and raising the limits of foreigners imported.
• They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing to restrain the bureaucrats and by granting the Judiciary powers it does not possess.
• They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out our substance and spy on us, rifle through our bank accounts, scan our electronic correspondence, raid our homes and places of business, prevent the self-determination of land use, inspect our gardens and livestock pens, prevent us from determining what is good and proper for consumption and to steal our property.
• They have kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies in the form of militarized and federalized police officers who steal our possessions in the name of the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror,” who torture us and shoot us in order ensure their own safety; and have militarized a host government alphabet soup agencies with huge stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.
• They have affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  • For establishing crony Trade pacts with all parts of the world:
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
    For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending laws passed by our own Legislatures and voted on by the people, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• They have abdicated Government here, by declaring illegal immigrants in his Protection and waging War against us through an intentional invasion of foreigners.
• They are at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation, making war on other nations that have not attacked us and do not threaten us.
• They and their minions have excited domestic insurrections amongst us.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to representatives in Congress. We have warned them from time to time about their attempts to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation from the federal leviathan, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

I, therefore, as a Representative of the people of the united States of America and the readers of Personal Liberty,  appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these states, solemnly publish and declare, That we are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the unlawful U.S. government, and that all political connection between them and the people, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Who will join me?

 

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: The Austrian View

edited by

Dr Jimmy T (Gunny) LaBaume

Is now available in both PAPERBACK and Kindle

Murray N. Rothbard was the father of what some call Radical Libertarianism or Anarcho-Capitalism which Hans-Hermann Hoppe described as “Rothbard’s unique contribution to the rediscovery of property and property rights as the common foundation of both economics and political philosophy, and the systematic reconstruction and conceptual integration of modern, marginalist economics and natural-law political philosophy into a unified moral science: libertarianism.”

This book applies the principles of this “unified moral science” to environmental and natural resource management issues.

The book started out life as an assigned reading list for a university level course entitled Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: The Austrian View.

As I began to prepare to teach the course, I quickly saw that there was a plethora of textbooks suitable for universal level courses dealing with environmental and natural resource economics. The only problem was that they were all based in mainstream neo-classical (or Keynesian) theory. I could find no single collection of material comprising a comprehensive treatment of environmental and natural resource economics based on Austrian Economic Theory.

However, I was able to find a large number of essays, monographs, papers delivered at professional meetings and published from a multitude of sources. This book is the result. It is composed of a collection of research reports and essays by reputable scientists, economists, and legal experts as well as private property and free market activists.

The book is organized into seven parts: I. Environmentalism: The New State Religion; II. The New State Religion Debunked; III. Introduction to Environmental and Natural Resource Economics; IV. Interventionism: Law and Regulation; V. Pollution and Recycling; VI. Property Rights: Planning, Zoning and Eminent Domain; and VII. Free Market Conservation. It also includes an elaborate Bibliography, References and Recommended Reading section including an extensive Annotated Bibliography of related and works on the subject.

The intellectual level of the individual works ranges from quite scholarly to informed editorial opinion.

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