Originally published on FB – 4 JUL 2020.

On this day, 244 years ago, some of the best and brightest of law, society, and business gathered as representatives of 13 of the British colonies in the Americas. These men had been chosen to address the growing concerns of the citizens, who felt unrepresented in Parliament, punished for trade practices, and oppressed by the intrusive and unjust policing of communities by the army. These men knew that they were gambling with their lives and property, which would be forfeit if their gambit failed. They knew what the King and his cronies in power would do to them if they lost their bid for independence.

Some of the same men that would become the leaders of the new nation had been lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and legislatures representing the Crown for many years. Conversely, some were less than upstanding, acting as spies and saboteurs, smugglers and gun runners, and trafficking in human chattel. All were ultimately united in the common cause that the system needed to change for the betterment of all, and to secure liberty for all.

Nonetheless, these men, formerly loyal to the Crown, and having made every effort to stay within the limits of expected conduct and the unwritten Constitutional law on which British jurisprudence and legislation was conducted, decided to sign a document that would sever the 13 colonies from the bonds that tied them to the Crown. They did this in public, in the open, and published their Declaration of Independence for all to see – leaving no doubt who they were and what they wanted.

The war had already started. The forces of the King had already begun to ratchet down on the natural rights of the Americans, long before the first shots were fired. The ability to protest had been squashed. The freedom to worship was severely restricted, and the Crown had a long-established state religion. Negative press and even speaking out of turn could land one in the stocks or worse. The ownership of firearms and other weapons was being restricted despite the volatile nature of the New World, as well as the Constitutional rights and responsibilities of citizens to maintain arms of all types – in defense of the Realm.

Courts and Judges were punitive, politically motivated, and corrupt. The enforcement of the law was conducted at bayonet point with no expectation of privacy or due process. Torture, coercion, and imprisonment without charge were leveraged to get confessions and testimony against neighbors and family members. The law was, despite the unwritten Constitution, a farce, and was in fact, whatever the Crown needed it to be at the moment.

In spite of the shortcomings of these men, despite the force of British Common Law and its unwritten Constitution, these men knew that the law could be a force for good. Some argued for radical change, and while many agreed, the pragmatism of the moment, the need to keep as many colonies together for the battle as possible often caused them to set aside supremely important issues for a later time. Issues such as the banking and monetary systems, guaranteeing the natural rights of citizens, who indeed were citizens, and the abolition of slavery were important, but had to wait for victory and sober debate, as now was the time to arms, to throw off the larger yolk of tyrannical monarchy, full knowing that losing would mean an ignoble end with a short drop and a sudden stop.

In their time, these men were not considered conservative, right-wing radicals. Indeed, the Great Experiment, as a product of its Age of Enlightenment, would see these men as far from conservative, and seen as liberals, bent on establishing Liberty and Equality for all. Since then through the Industrial Age, through globalization, two World Wars, a great Cold War, the Space and Information Age, to today the world has changed exponentially. Hancock and Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, Washington and Paine, would not recognize modern America. They would not recognize the wholly inadequate left-right political spectrum that is used simplistically to force Americans into two camps separated by wafer-thin arguments and wholly invested in maintaining the status quo.

Those liberal radicals would see statists on all sides of the modern political debate who want more government and less liberty on nearly every issue. They would see taxes so high and pervasive as to be unbelievable. They would see demands for government services that have no place in a free society. They would see the natural rights of citizens trampled in the name of security. They would hear of an army used for foreign wars, and another army who enforces at gunpoint, tax and revenue collection, the possession of permits to execute natural rights, and regulation of both free trade and possession of arms of all types.

Those radical liberals would weep. They would see that their experiment has all but failed. But they would also see a few things that would give them hope. They would see that some citizens refuse to be poured into a political mold. Citizens that refuse to kneel before the ordained. Citizens who have read and understand the many debates, and ultimate goals of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, and where we have gone so wrong. They will see that in spite of their own failure to resolve issues such as slavery and citizenship, and feeling their own guilt for the deaths of untold numbers in the subsequent struggles to right those failures, that truly all Americans are now equal under the law.

They would be proud that the son of an African man had become President. They would marvel that aside from the 1860 election, the transfer of power has gone relatively smoothly through the years. They would be astounded at the stature of the nation as a world power, and it would probably outweigh their own misgivings about foreign entanglements. They would see a country as divided as it has ever been, but still a country of free people, exercising rights that no citizen in any other country can boast of.

They would see the Great Experiment as continuing to evolve, as eclectic as its founders, as troubled and contradictory as it was in 1776. They would perhaps smile and think: “Well, they have kept a Republic, but for how long?”

I implore you all to make an effort to read more of the writings of the founders and framers, better understand how well they really understood what they were doing, and where it could all possibly lead. Dig deep and try to get to the root of the system that they built, and why they structured it as they did. Then ask yourselves, is this, what we have today, where we should be? Is it in keeping with the best values and spirit of 1776? Are you properly pigeonholed as a “right-wing conservative,” or a “left-wing liberal”? As for me, I am a liberal like Paine or Henry, not a conservative like King George or Lord North.