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Introduction to the Declaration of Independence 1776
By Jonathan Joel Hansen
On October 12, 1999, I, Jonathan J. Hansen, passed the Nevada Bar Examination and entered into practice with my father, Joel F. Hansen. Prior to that time I had been instructed for twelve years in the public education given by government schools in Las Vegas, Nevada. After graduating from high school with honors, I attended four years at two private universities, Brigham Young University and Brigham Young University-Hawaii, and graduated with a B.A. in history. I then decided to go into law and was accepted at the University of San Diego School of Law.
Throughout these many years of schooling, I learned many interesting things about our nation and its birth. I enjoyed classes focusing on the Revolutionary War and early American history. However, not once in all my many years of schooling was I ever required to read the entire Declaration of Independence, even in law school. I was told why the document was written and in fact, had to memorize the famous paragraph that begins “We hold these truths to be self-evident... ;” but at no time did I ever know or understand what the specific grievances were that compelled our Founding Fathers to declare that they were being oppressed under a tyrannical government.
The first time I ever actually read the entire Declaration of Independence was sometime in November of 1999. I had been working on some research regarding jury trials and administrative agencies and came upon several references to the words of Thomas Jefferson. I decided to read Thomas Jefferson’s words first-hand and picked up an old copy of the Declaration of Independence.
For quite some time I had been feeling like our present government was chipping away at our freedom, and had been doing so for a long time, but I did not completely comprehend the exact means the government was implementing to limit and destroy our freedom. However, after reading Thomas Jefferson’s words where he cited many “injuries and usurpations... all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these states...,” I understood the subtle means the government employed. The words of this great document were like a revelation to me. The King of England had done just what our present government was doing, and is doing, to destroy our freedom!!!
A few examples include the following:
- Imposing taxes on us without our consent, which is equal to the tirades of the IRS, Social Security taxes, and other oppressive taxes used for evil purposes,
- Depriving us of the benefits of a trial by jury by establishing administrative review boards as the only forum for factual determination of so called “public rights,”
- Making judges dependent on his will alone for their payment of salaries, which is again similar to the administrative review board judges who are part of the executive branch and have no real judicial independence,
- Combining with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pseudo legislation, which evokes thoughts of the UN, WTO, and many other multinational organizations they have policies directly contrary to the independence of the United States of America,
- Altering fundamentally the forms of our governments, which in our time is the huge growth of the fourth branch of government, administrative agencies, that have all three branches of government combined into one, and are immune from any traditional checks and balances on their power.
- Erecting a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out our substance, which is exactly what the Federal Government is doing with offices or agencies such as OSHA, EPA, BLM, USFS, IRS, and many others.
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example, which is just like the Federal government has done with large tracts of land in the western states, subject only to Congress’ absolute authority over territories under Article IV of the Constitution, leaving the state governments to beg to use land within the states’ own borders.
There are others grievances that Thomas Jefferson cited which were particular to that time and are not necessarily applicable now, but the main focus of the Declaration of Independence was that the government had usurped power and authority from those it governed and had become tyrannical. England had deprived them of the ability to obtain redress by taking away their capacity to check the government’s power, and that is what our government is doing today.
It became painfully obvious to me the reason I had never been taught the specific reasons that prompted the writing of the declaration. Why would the government operated schools want to teach the citizens of this nation that they were losing their freedom in exactly the same manner as those who lived here 200 years ago? If we do not know our history we are bound to repeat it. And that is exactly what is happening. We are losing our freedom because we do not know the specific reasons the Founding Fathers declared their independence from England.
The Founding Fathers were inspired men who were well aware what happens when a government becomes oppressive. They pledged their time, fortunes, and even their very lives to the cause of freedom. Their knowledge of government and the potential for abuse by those in power led to the drafting of our Constitution. I now more fully understand why our government wages a continual war to limit the power of the Constitution—because it stands in the way of tyranny. Our founders’ words have inspired me to join the cause of freedom in an attempt to regain our God given rights as free men.
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