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What Does "Independence" Really Mean? Is There Anything Left To Celebrate?

Posted by freedomforall 2 years, 10 months ago to Philosophy
44 comments | Share | Flag

Excerpt:
"Jefferson wrote, poetically, about the truths he declared to be self-evident. That all men were created equal – by which he meant that all men have the same equal right to independence. To be let alone, in other words. Neither owned nor beholden. Free – to pursue happiness, as each individual saw it. How can such happiness be pursued when one is not independent from this thing styled “government”?

When one cannot even celebrate independence from the government of Great Britain by lighting off fireworks that fly or explode in most of the rump states of these United States, singular?

When one must present a government ID – an internal passport – to travel within these United States, by air?

When the government presumes the authority to dictate – without even the pretense of any American being “represented” – that every American will roll up their sleeves and submit to being experimented upon as the price of the “freedom” to be allowed to work?

Americans aren’t even independent in their homes, which are liened in perpetuity to the government, no matter how long ago they became independent of their mortgages. The government having asserted its ownership of what they deludedly permit themselves to imagine, almost as children, to be “their” property.

Americans aren’t even free to decide for themselves whether to wear a seatbelt. Their children have become veal calves owned by the government, which “schools” (and “masks” and injects) them according to its preferences. Parents in America having been reduced to little more than breeding stock.

This will only abate when American decide in favor of independence. Their own independence, psychologically first. Fiercely asserted in their minds, first. And – if need be – defended even more fiercely. But the first step toward independence is recognition of the fact that it cannot exist alongside subordination to the government that is its mortal enemy."


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  • Posted by tutor-turtle 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not until the age of majority! That is at least 16 in most states. Before that, it is nothing less than statutory rape, a felony charge that qualifies for life-time sex offender status. It must be treated as such.
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  • Posted by GaryL 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    This is very different times but understand this, Our founding fathers would be shooting by now!
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  • Posted by $ Markus_Katabri 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Agreed. And I insist that they keep it “none of my business”. As in.....they don’t get to force me to “celebrate” it on my front porch. And, they don’t get to force me or my children to watch.
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  • Posted by $ pixelate 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am on board. At this point in my life, at the ripe old age of 57, I have accomplished more in my lifetime than any 500 normies will accomplish in their collective livetimes. I have the guns, the ammo and the will. Things get a little more strange -- as in, I am somehow forced to get the vax -- I will get it. Then the guns come out. Night siege.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree. The plan is to win the information war and then to prosecute. The final option remains but it is not desired path.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    From Q

    4466
    Jun 13, 2020 4:32:49 PM EDT
    Q !!Hs1Jq13jV6 ID: 7e5786 No. 9600835
    https://www.ushistory.org/declaration...
    When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes DESTRUCTIVE of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
    Q
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  • Posted by tutor-turtle 2 years, 10 months ago
    From the Declaration of Independence: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
    Further and to the point:
    "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

    We have been here before. And when all is said a done, we will be here again.

    There are very sick people running our country. They must be cast away. It is our duty to do so.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 10 months ago
    The problem is that those truths are not self-evident to looters and moochers. They are only self-evident to producers. Jefferson and the other founders lived in a time when those truths were self-evident. Many people today have been sufficiently poisoned that nothing is self-evident to them anymore.

    Ayn Rand always told people to check their premises.
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  • Posted by GaryL 2 years, 10 months ago
    I'm so tired of all the phony fireworks on July 4th and wondering when the real ones will start.
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  • Posted by Ben_C 2 years, 10 months ago
    As I posted before, the West Virginia vs EPA will define our country. It will either begin to restore "consent of the governed" or confirm our "transformation" into total bondage under socialism. Given the two most recent SCOTUS decisions I am cautiously hopeful.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 2 years, 10 months ago
    No, we are not as independent as we ought to be. But it took some time for this country to get rid of slavery,also. Still, it was done. And the States continued to assert their "rights" to violate the individual rights of their citizens (particularly blacks) for about another century. But it still remains as an ideal. Of course, there has been a lot of regression, because of many American voters' having been disgracefully willing to surrender their individual independence to government, for instance, with FDR's "New Deal".. And then, there was LBJ's so-called "Great Society". And on it goes.
    But the ideal still remains. And we still have to fight for it.
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  • Posted by $ Markus_Katabri 2 years, 10 months ago
    I struggle with 4th of July since 2020. It’s more a celebration of what once was vs. what is.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It doesn't go far enough. Examples:
    1) Secession from the US Immediately In Effect.
    2) Men transgenders must move to Commiefornia.
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  • Posted by $ 25n56il4 2 years, 10 months ago
    Read the proposed platform of the Republicans in Texas. Talk about Conservative...I think they mean Independence. If some of these bills get passed, it will be a wake up call for the rest of the states. I laughed my beautiful off! You'll get a kick out of it. They hit on everything. Men transgenders cannot use a ladies' rest room! Teachers must report a child's ideas of their gender to the parents. A person can't be threatened with loss of their employment for refusing to be vaxed. You can't be ordered quarantine for the flu! etc. etc. etc.
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