“In inspiring words, the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence insisted that each man should be considered as owning himself, and not be viewed as the property of the state to be manipulated by either king or Parliament.”
The Declaration of Independence, signed by members of the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, is the founding document of the American experiment in free government. This is well taught and known.
But what is too often forgotten is that the Founding Fathers’s Declaration argued against the heavy and intrusive hand of big government. And it true today when dissident groups invoke the memory of the revolutionary period to call for political change anew.
For … and Against
Most Americans easily recall those eloquent words with which the Founding Fathers expressed the basis of their claim for independence from Great Britain in 1776:
… Continue ReadingWe 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 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.
“The [LOST] treaty proposes to create a new global governance institution that would regulate American citizens and businesses without being accountable politically to the American people. Some treaty proponents pay little attention to constitutional concerns about democratic legislative processes and principles pf self-government, but I believe the American people take seriously such threats to the foundations of our nation.” [2]
– Donald Rumsfeld, “Why the U.N. Shouldn’t Own the Seas,” June 12, 2012.
A proposed Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which has not yet ratified by Congress will grant a newly established U.N. bureaucracy, the Kingston, Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA), power to regulate deep-sea oil exploration, drilling operations, seabed mining, and fishing rights beyond 200 miles of our coast. As part of the deal, as much as 7% of U.S.…
Continue Reading“Let’s stop politicalizing our electricity supply. Let’s eliminate all tax credits for energy production. Let’s require that utility scale generators produce firm, dispatchable capacity, and eliminate those that don’t.
Let’s demand that electricity grids and their regulators provide abundant highly reliable and secure electricity consistent with the most informed notions of public health. Abundant electricity will offer consumers real choice, resulting in lower prices and increased value.”
The most recent effort by those seeking profit from “green energy” evidently presumes that rate and taxpayers, if not most of the country’s citizenry, were born yesterday. Which made me think of Billie Dawn’s wicked malaprop in the movie classic, Born Yesterday: “This country and its institutions belong to the people who inhibit it.”
Few initiatives better illustrate how the nation’s future is being seized by those who would inhibit it than last week’s plea to “stop politicizing green energy.” …
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