“Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
Those words by James Otis, father of the American Revolution according to John Adams, morphed quickly to the catchier, “No taxation without representation.”
And no four words better encapsulate the existence of the United States.
The words, of course, allude to money.
Yet, the phrase is inextricably linked to a greater American truth: “The people have no duty or obligation to obey any decree of government without representation in the legislative branch passing the law”. Moreover, the law passed must be constitutional, thus falling within the powers delegated to government by the people.
There is no wriggle room, I submit. For once, words mean what words mean. This is absolute.
Today, “we the people” are the victims of tyranny, plain and simple. Perpetrator: President of the United States and any entity – individual, government or otherwise — that attempts to enforce the unlawful edict.
Our Founders would not have put up with it, nor should we.
President Biden has no authority to do this. We are citizens. Or, are we subjects? We cannot be both.
Patriots should be pushing back. Those who do not are willfully or naively abandoning their birthright.
This is the bright red line. If not now, when? If not for this cause, which?
This is not an issue of parties or political “current.” It is a foundational issue that cuts to the core of our identity. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents should unite in a single, “NO!”
Enemies of liberty are the only outliers that would approve.
This has nothing to do with your viewpoint, positive or negative, on the vaccine issue. It is about how we do things as members of a Constitutional Federal Republic.
A President’s viewpoint is not the basis for a decision with profound impact on 360 million people.
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal government are few and defined,” Madison wrote in The Federalist Number 45. “Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
That is what was intended. We have strayed.
We have set ourselves up for obeying executive mandates without question if their “intent” is for our safety.
Our reaction to Covid was the stress-test and we failed miserably. Governors throughout the land abused their emergency powers by expanding the law’s intent and arbitrarily ruled over us without calling for special sessions of the legislative branch.
These necessary emergency powers were to be the exception and used carefully in times when the legislative branch could not participate in a timely manner.
Now they have become the rule.
And most states have capitulated with little kickback from the people or the legislative branch.
Think of the precedents set by these unilateral actions. We are seeing the fruits thereof with Biden leading the way.
We, as a people, are now primed to submit ourselves to coercion without representation.
It is a sad reflection of whom we have become.
Jefferson was right in stating a nation cannot be ignorant and free. Many are ignorant and they affect those of us who would be free.
It’s time for us all to do what we need to do.
Civil disobedience is in order. Do not comply.
From the individual to the corporate executive, we should not comply.
Neither the 50 governors nor any state representatives should comply.
We are still a semi-free nation, and we should not become less.
Arbitrary power-grabs are exactly why the Framers put limitations on government.
These limitations are meaningless, however, and we are proverbial lambs to the slaughter unless we assert our rights to representation.