What Will You Do?

     [The following arrived just this morning from longtime reader Tim Turner, perhaps better known here as “furball.” I post it with his permission. -- FWP]

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     Apropos of almost nothing, but very much about Fran’s and others’ calls about the current state of humanity and its politics and:

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

     I got to thinking, what if you could stop Gavrilo Prinzip, the guy who murdered Archduke Ferdinand and sort of started World War I - which I think sort of destroyed the hope of the “modern era.”

     Or, what if you could have killed Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot Kennedy? - which I sort of think killed a generation’s optimism - never mind Bobby, Martin and then Teddy leaving a woman to die in a car because he panicked. What if you could kill Hitler? Napoleon? Genghis Khan? (KHAAAAAN! 😊 ) Woodrow Wilson?

     Stalin? Mao?

     The left rails against Trump and Kavanaugh. The right points at Nathan Phillips or Pelosi or Ocasio-Cortez or Kamala Harris.

     Who do you kill? How do you stop it? WHO, after all, are you arming against?

     Soros? “The Clintons?” Obama?

     Those are just symptoms or bad people. I don’t think you can just go on a vendetta against “bad people.” (“Why not.” Well, I’ve been bad at times and I don’t want all you guys coming against me!)

     But the Declaration of Independence laid out the whys and wherefores of when a people might take up arms and repudiate a leader and government:

     “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

     Laws are meant to apply to all. And we’ve have seen that laws are NOT being applied to all.

     “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.” and. . .”He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”

     We’ve seen Obama and democrats NOT applying laws, and we’ve seen judges stretching legalities to keep the President from exercising his Constitutional powers.

     “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

     “He has 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” There is an entire movement to subjegate the laws of the United States to UN mandates, such as the Law of the Seas and so on. There is a move to subject our elections to foreign inspection.

     “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:”

     “For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:”

     H.R. 1 has 218 cosponsors. It forces states to implement mandatory voter registration. If someone is on a government list—such as receiving welfare benefits or rental subsidies—then they would be automatically registered to vote. Few states have enacted these systems because Americans still view civic participation as a voluntary choice. Moreover, aggregated government lists always contain duplicates and errors that states, even without mandatory voter registration, frequently fail to catch and fix.

     H.R. 1 also mandates that states allow all felons to vote. Currently, states have the power under the Constitution to set the terms of eligibility in each state. Some states, like Maine, have decided that voting machines should be rolled into the prisons. Other states, like Nevada, have chosen to make a felony a disenfranchising event.

     “For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

     “The Electoral College is one of the very worst features of American democracy, a vestigial mechanism that effectively reduces presidential contests to a few swing states. Like so much of our political system, it bestows disproportionate power to rural America.”

     “He is 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.”

     “The number of people residing in an EU Member State with citizenship of a non-member country on 1 January 2017 was 21.6 million, representing 4.2 % of the EU-28 population. In addition, there were 16.9 million persons living in one of the EU Member States on 1 January 2017 with the citizenship of another EU Member State....Regarding the country of birth, there were 36.9 million people born outside of the EU-28 living in an EU Member State on 1 January 2017, while there were 20.4 million persons who had been born in a different EU Member State from the one where they were resident. Only in Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Cyprus was the number of persons born in other EU Member States higher than the number born outside of the EU-28.”

     “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

     “There were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2016”

     “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.”

     “Obama: I have a pen and a phone.” “Obama executive order on DACA.”

     I know, I know. In so many cases, you might think references to ancient Indians, “domestic insurrections amongst us” and “endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,” is somehow NOT germane to us now.

     But I ask you to read that all again, and then, consider that our nation, our lives, as Americans, were founded on the next paragraph of that declaration:

     “Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature 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, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

     “We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, 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 Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, 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.”

     So. The answer? You don’t assassinate anyone. You proclaim your inherent rights and proclaim your freedom from oppression.

     And, yes, when they come to get you, you defend your life, liberty and sacred honor with everything at your disposal.