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The issue was raised in another thread (several actually) about whether or not we have reached the time where " it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another" and we should turn to the cartridge box to end tyrany and restore liberty. Personally, I am of the oppinion that, no, we have not yet reached that point. However, I do think that we are at the point when we should start discussing what the criteria are, so that we will be better able to asertain when that time does, if ever, arise.
But we are in a bind. The Declaration of Independence gives us a very good, and clean of example of how to appropriately announce grievences and justify such a political dissolution. I think it is safe to say that most of the people on this forum do not want to cast off our entire system of government, but rather, we would be seeking to restore the Constitutional government that we are supposed to living under. Upon reflection, I think that the other side (the socialist agenda of the left) would have a much stronger argument for something along the lines of a Declaration of Independence. For one thing, it i sthe Constitution that is restraining and interfering with their political view. It would be in their best interests to seperate form the Union and declare New York and independent state. What is more, they could probably make good political argument to justify such a move:
* the Federal laws interfere with what is best for New York,
* the Federal Courts over-rule and strike down laws that are legitimately passed by our own legislature,
* the Federal government takes significant revenues from New York and redistributes it to other states and disproportionately returns it to New York (to the tune of over 40%),
* decisions made by other states in the Union are used to bully and pressure New York to follow suit, even when a majority of our people prefer a different course,
* the Federal government has used it's poltically motivated investigators against our Governor and interferes with his ability to serve the people of New York [I am speaking from their point of view]
If one wants to break away and end the US COnstitution as law in New York, you simply point to any reason or way that being part of the Union interferes with what a majority of New Yorkers want. BUT, if one wants to maintain (and restore) the Constitution, as I believe most of use do, then we are hampered and limited by that very Constitution. The Founding Fathers were very smart, and so the Constitution includes various means for resolving these types of problems without resorting to destruction of the Union. The existence of the Courts allows us to resolve differences of opinion (while we think our interpretation of the Constitution is correct, so does the other side, and it is the Supreme Court's perogative to decide, not ours). It is no argument to simply say that we want the Constitution followed but only by our interpretation and do not want to abide by the interpretation the Constitution has declared should be made by the Court. The Congress has the baility to impeach and remove the President, and if they wont then theoretically it is a sign that the Representatives if a majority of American's don't want him removed. Unlike the King of England, there is little time, max 8 years, for any executive to become tyranical in his own right and the people have the ability to remove him from office on a regular basis (and I don't think a reasonable argument can be made that Obama, or any President in the forseeable future literally wont leave). Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution declares that "no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State" so we cannot even justify the declaring the indepence of the upstate counties form New York City while remaining in the Union. We are in a difficult position to try and justify use of arms as a means to legitimately restore the Constitution as intended.
However, when those mechanisms and protections built into the Constitution have completely failed to operate, I propose that THEN we could rightfully justify use of arms as a means to restore the COnstitution.
The Declaration of Indepence is a well crafted model that I think can guide us. (And like our middle school english teacher taught us, is laid out in 5 parts)
1- The first sentence simply states (paraphrasing) that it is proper and appropriate to provide the reasons that we are taking drastic action - because we are honorable people and do not take this decision lightly.
2- Next the founders, in one paragraph, lay out their justification in simple but direct terms. It is an executive summary of the political argument that justifies the action. What is more, they start the argument from first principles ("We hold these truthes to b self-evident...") and build their argument from there.
3- Atfer the executive summary, is a list a grievences. These are all very direct and explicite examples, offered as evidence to support the broad statements made in the previous paragraph.
4- Then, they describe what has already been done in attempts to rectify and correct these problems. This is done in two paragraphs; first that they petitioned the King himself and that it was ignored, and second that they informed and appealed to their fellow Britons and Parliment and that too fell on deaf ears.
5- The last paragraph concludes with the "therefore" for all the reaosn above we are and should be independent. They take a full paragraph to lay out exactly what they mean by that.
The entire thing is actually relatively short.
------------------------------
QUESTION 1: What sort of poltical/philosophical argument could be laid out for justification of removing tyranical systems to restore the Constutitional government that some would argue still exists? The hard part is laying out a true logical argument and not just 'I dont like it' (addressing part 2)
QUESTION 2: (The fun one) What list of grievences already exist, or would need to exist, to adequately justify such action? I propose we should keep track of a) the one sentence version that is clear to everyone, and b) a detailed accouting and proof of it (examples etc) (addressing part 3)
QUESTION 3: What steps would need to be exhasted as the peacable attempts to resolve the problems? I propose that for us, this needs to be three paragrpahs, one addressing each branch of government. (addressing part 4)
To propse an answer my own question: We have appealed to the Exutive and been ignored. In what ways has Congress failed or been unable to act and why. We would need to show that the Court has either stopped doing it's job, or that when it does it is ineffectual because it's rulings are ignored.
QUESTION 4: What should such a document be called? Declaring "Independence" is not appropriate if we want to remain in the Union.
---------------------------
Some form of Declaration is not a new idea and we can look to others who have attempted something similar to see what we can learn. Note: I do not offer the following for their content (they may contain items we disagree with) but rather for their form, and how they were presented to see what we can learn to be more successful.
The protesters from Occupy Wall Street in New York City drafted and published a Declaration to lay out their grievences.
Why We #OccupyWallStreet: The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City - YES! Magazine
Lesser known, there was a "Continental Congress 2.0" was organized and drafted a "Petition for a Redress of Grievances" known as the 99% Declaration. Only 76 of the intended 878 deligates were able to attend.
Latest Draft
The biggest failing of these may be awareness. I believe the Declaration of Indepence was even delivered to the King, but it was certainly posted, printed, and read publically in bascially every town throughout the Colonies. To be sure, the Village of Fishkill, NY to this day continues a tradition of publically reading it from the steps of Village Hall every July 4th (to be fair, it is in the deed for Village Hall and they will loose thebuilding if they dont).
The Occupy Wall Street declaration made some news and I think the public was at least aware of it. But I doubt it had a wide impact or that many people know what was in it. The difference may be in that it was an ineffectial document that didn't *DO* anything (more later), unlike the 1776 declaration which was an FU to the King and likely to to start all out war.
The 99% Declaration- who even heard of it? i only stumbled on it looing for a link to the Occupy Wall Street one. They claim they were going to serve a copy to the President and to Congress, but it appears it may not have happened- the web version is still marked Draft. This may be the only real flaw in it. It makes reaosnable arguments - even if we disagree with some they are reasoned out and have a logic to them. And they propose solutions to resolve the problems.
The Occupy Wall Street was discussed and criticized at the time. It is basically the first three parts of the Declaration of Indepence. I think the biggest problem with it is that it is mearly a list a grievences. Basically just provides a long list of things they find disagreeable. No solution is proposed or demanded. At the time they said they intended to follow it with another declaration proposing solutioins, but as far as I know no such document was produced (please post a link if you know of it). To many people this was fatal to the purpose of the document. "Yeah, so? What do you want done about it?"
An additional problem was that many of the grievences were already illegal. I estimate about half. Which made many people just say/think, "So go report it or file suit if you are aware of that being done." This flaw is likely related to the lack of a part 4 discussing failed attempts to resolve the issues. Many of the complaints likely could be resolved through existing means so failure of correction can be argued as tied to not seeking the available avenues.
But there is a related issue. The Occupy Wall Street declaration directed their complaints against "they." Who is they? A nebulous big business and corporations. They never point to a specific bad actor. And while many citizens could certainly find Banks or certain corporations that fit the descirption, it hardly justified extending it to ALL business because the public was also aware of businesses and corporations that were NOT doing such things and were behaving appropriately. The Declaration of Independence made very direct alegations against the King. A single individual with grieves about what HE did. Being a King, he was the singular embodiment of the government. I propose that we do not need a singular person but that the President, the Congress, the Court, the New York Legislature, etc, are direct and specific enough to declare who is alleged to do what bad acts - even if they are corporate bodies, because they are specific corporate bodies. We would need to avoid the error of Occupy Wall Street and not simply the Government. In our system of seperation of powers that is too nebulous given the seperate branches and levels (Fed, State, County, Town, Village).
I appoligize that this is so long, and thank you if you made it through my ramblings.
But I hope that such an exercise will guide in what course of action is appropriate and that if we consider what would truely be the criteria that demonstrates force is needed, I hope we will find that not all other options have been exhausted. And this will give us directin on what other options to persue.
But we are in a bind. The Declaration of Independence gives us a very good, and clean of example of how to appropriately announce grievences and justify such a political dissolution. I think it is safe to say that most of the people on this forum do not want to cast off our entire system of government, but rather, we would be seeking to restore the Constitutional government that we are supposed to living under. Upon reflection, I think that the other side (the socialist agenda of the left) would have a much stronger argument for something along the lines of a Declaration of Independence. For one thing, it i sthe Constitution that is restraining and interfering with their political view. It would be in their best interests to seperate form the Union and declare New York and independent state. What is more, they could probably make good political argument to justify such a move:
* the Federal laws interfere with what is best for New York,
* the Federal Courts over-rule and strike down laws that are legitimately passed by our own legislature,
* the Federal government takes significant revenues from New York and redistributes it to other states and disproportionately returns it to New York (to the tune of over 40%),
* decisions made by other states in the Union are used to bully and pressure New York to follow suit, even when a majority of our people prefer a different course,
* the Federal government has used it's poltically motivated investigators against our Governor and interferes with his ability to serve the people of New York [I am speaking from their point of view]
If one wants to break away and end the US COnstitution as law in New York, you simply point to any reason or way that being part of the Union interferes with what a majority of New Yorkers want. BUT, if one wants to maintain (and restore) the Constitution, as I believe most of use do, then we are hampered and limited by that very Constitution. The Founding Fathers were very smart, and so the Constitution includes various means for resolving these types of problems without resorting to destruction of the Union. The existence of the Courts allows us to resolve differences of opinion (while we think our interpretation of the Constitution is correct, so does the other side, and it is the Supreme Court's perogative to decide, not ours). It is no argument to simply say that we want the Constitution followed but only by our interpretation and do not want to abide by the interpretation the Constitution has declared should be made by the Court. The Congress has the baility to impeach and remove the President, and if they wont then theoretically it is a sign that the Representatives if a majority of American's don't want him removed. Unlike the King of England, there is little time, max 8 years, for any executive to become tyranical in his own right and the people have the ability to remove him from office on a regular basis (and I don't think a reasonable argument can be made that Obama, or any President in the forseeable future literally wont leave). Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution declares that "no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State" so we cannot even justify the declaring the indepence of the upstate counties form New York City while remaining in the Union. We are in a difficult position to try and justify use of arms as a means to legitimately restore the Constitution as intended.
However, when those mechanisms and protections built into the Constitution have completely failed to operate, I propose that THEN we could rightfully justify use of arms as a means to restore the COnstitution.
The Declaration of Indepence is a well crafted model that I think can guide us. (And like our middle school english teacher taught us, is laid out in 5 parts)
1- The first sentence simply states (paraphrasing) that it is proper and appropriate to provide the reasons that we are taking drastic action - because we are honorable people and do not take this decision lightly.
2- Next the founders, in one paragraph, lay out their justification in simple but direct terms. It is an executive summary of the political argument that justifies the action. What is more, they start the argument from first principles ("We hold these truthes to b self-evident...") and build their argument from there.
3- Atfer the executive summary, is a list a grievences. These are all very direct and explicite examples, offered as evidence to support the broad statements made in the previous paragraph.
4- Then, they describe what has already been done in attempts to rectify and correct these problems. This is done in two paragraphs; first that they petitioned the King himself and that it was ignored, and second that they informed and appealed to their fellow Britons and Parliment and that too fell on deaf ears.
5- The last paragraph concludes with the "therefore" for all the reaosn above we are and should be independent. They take a full paragraph to lay out exactly what they mean by that.
The entire thing is actually relatively short.
------------------------------
QUESTION 1: What sort of poltical/philosophical argument could be laid out for justification of removing tyranical systems to restore the Constutitional government that some would argue still exists? The hard part is laying out a true logical argument and not just 'I dont like it' (addressing part 2)
QUESTION 2: (The fun one) What list of grievences already exist, or would need to exist, to adequately justify such action? I propose we should keep track of a) the one sentence version that is clear to everyone, and b) a detailed accouting and proof of it (examples etc) (addressing part 3)
QUESTION 3: What steps would need to be exhasted as the peacable attempts to resolve the problems? I propose that for us, this needs to be three paragrpahs, one addressing each branch of government. (addressing part 4)
To propse an answer my own question: We have appealed to the Exutive and been ignored. In what ways has Congress failed or been unable to act and why. We would need to show that the Court has either stopped doing it's job, or that when it does it is ineffectual because it's rulings are ignored.
QUESTION 4: What should such a document be called? Declaring "Independence" is not appropriate if we want to remain in the Union.
---------------------------
Some form of Declaration is not a new idea and we can look to others who have attempted something similar to see what we can learn. Note: I do not offer the following for their content (they may contain items we disagree with) but rather for their form, and how they were presented to see what we can learn to be more successful.
The protesters from Occupy Wall Street in New York City drafted and published a Declaration to lay out their grievences.
Why We #OccupyWallStreet: The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City - YES! Magazine
Lesser known, there was a "Continental Congress 2.0" was organized and drafted a "Petition for a Redress of Grievances" known as the 99% Declaration. Only 76 of the intended 878 deligates were able to attend.
Latest Draft
The biggest failing of these may be awareness. I believe the Declaration of Indepence was even delivered to the King, but it was certainly posted, printed, and read publically in bascially every town throughout the Colonies. To be sure, the Village of Fishkill, NY to this day continues a tradition of publically reading it from the steps of Village Hall every July 4th (to be fair, it is in the deed for Village Hall and they will loose thebuilding if they dont).
The Occupy Wall Street declaration made some news and I think the public was at least aware of it. But I doubt it had a wide impact or that many people know what was in it. The difference may be in that it was an ineffectial document that didn't *DO* anything (more later), unlike the 1776 declaration which was an FU to the King and likely to to start all out war.
The 99% Declaration- who even heard of it? i only stumbled on it looing for a link to the Occupy Wall Street one. They claim they were going to serve a copy to the President and to Congress, but it appears it may not have happened- the web version is still marked Draft. This may be the only real flaw in it. It makes reaosnable arguments - even if we disagree with some they are reasoned out and have a logic to them. And they propose solutions to resolve the problems.
The Occupy Wall Street was discussed and criticized at the time. It is basically the first three parts of the Declaration of Indepence. I think the biggest problem with it is that it is mearly a list a grievences. Basically just provides a long list of things they find disagreeable. No solution is proposed or demanded. At the time they said they intended to follow it with another declaration proposing solutioins, but as far as I know no such document was produced (please post a link if you know of it). To many people this was fatal to the purpose of the document. "Yeah, so? What do you want done about it?"
An additional problem was that many of the grievences were already illegal. I estimate about half. Which made many people just say/think, "So go report it or file suit if you are aware of that being done." This flaw is likely related to the lack of a part 4 discussing failed attempts to resolve the issues. Many of the complaints likely could be resolved through existing means so failure of correction can be argued as tied to not seeking the available avenues.
But there is a related issue. The Occupy Wall Street declaration directed their complaints against "they." Who is they? A nebulous big business and corporations. They never point to a specific bad actor. And while many citizens could certainly find Banks or certain corporations that fit the descirption, it hardly justified extending it to ALL business because the public was also aware of businesses and corporations that were NOT doing such things and were behaving appropriately. The Declaration of Independence made very direct alegations against the King. A single individual with grieves about what HE did. Being a King, he was the singular embodiment of the government. I propose that we do not need a singular person but that the President, the Congress, the Court, the New York Legislature, etc, are direct and specific enough to declare who is alleged to do what bad acts - even if they are corporate bodies, because they are specific corporate bodies. We would need to avoid the error of Occupy Wall Street and not simply the Government. In our system of seperation of powers that is too nebulous given the seperate branches and levels (Fed, State, County, Town, Village).
I appoligize that this is so long, and thank you if you made it through my ramblings.
But I hope that such an exercise will guide in what course of action is appropriate and that if we consider what would truely be the criteria that demonstrates force is needed, I hope we will find that not all other options have been exhausted. And this will give us directin on what other options to persue.
