A New Declaration of Independence
What would our list of grievances be if we declared a national divorce
I’m not Thomas Jefferson, so I’m not going to try to rewrite the DoL. I’m going to focus on the grievances. It’s interesting when you read the Declaration of Independence and discover the Revolution had almost nothing to do with taxation, with or without representation. I know. We were all taught that in school, but it’s nonsense. Taxation without representation falls very far down on the list of the usurpations imposed upon the colonists by King George and the Parliament—almost as if it mattered less than jury trials and press-gangs.
So that got me to thinking about what would our grievances be today. We’re on the verge of a civil war. Some would (and could convincingly) argue that what’s going on in Los Angeles and other major cities is a color revolution preparatory to a hot civil war. So if the Right (those who are not progressive leftists which is a wide panoply of philosophical positions including some but not all conservatives, a lot of libertarians, a wide swath of independents, and an increasing trickle of disaffected liberals who find themselves rejected by the left they were once a part or so end up on the right) were to declare their independence from the country’s lefts, what would we list as the grievances we hold against them?
Grievances
Rejection of God, redefinition of truth, and shunning of traditional morality. It’s a fundamental split over worldview and we cannot reconcile if one of us rejects the moral law and the moral Lawgiver because there is no basis for the social contract. Civil discourse requires moral alignment at least around how we make decisions as a society.
Rejection of reason, logic and civil discourse. The modern left will utilize reason and logic up until it no longer becomes useful to them and then they abandon it. Logic and reason doesn’t restrain their argumentation in the same way it does those on the right. Evidence and the reason-based examination of it can influence people on the right. Demostrate where what they are supporting doesn’t align with reality and conservatives will entertain changing their minds. When conservatives are presented with evidence that shows they are wrong, they accept they have a duty to realign their thinking to reflect reality. Leftists aren’t similarly constrained. For them, reason, logic and civil discourse are tools they’ll used to seem civilized until they realize they can’t get what they want with them and then they’ll bust out their weapons and abandon reason, logic and civil discourse as “tools of patriarch”. Reason and logic doesn’t play a constraining role in their argumentation. Civil discource requires reason and logic because it forces us to deal with reality to act as a neutral third party to which all sides can appeal, but the moment you deny that truth is the final arbitrator, we’re in the swamp of post-modernism and we’re unable to get out of the quicksand.
They have rejected a standard of freedom of speech and association. Leftists elevate the prevention of harm (but only in certain selective arenas) to the point where if someone’s speech about reality causes some social ostriche discomfort — well, that can’t be tolerated. It’s structured to prevent any discussion about constraining the actions of leftists. Anyone who makes a leftist feel uncomfortable is an oppressor and oppressors are BAD, so your speech must be constrained. Now, if theirs offends you — well, that’s a horse of a different color. You’re an oppressor so it’s fine to oppress you and make you uncomfortable. They feel very justified in their actions that rejected logic and reason, deemed you “intolerant” and shut down any possible discussion.
Rejection of the rule of, and equality before, the law. They will appeal to it without believing in it when it suits their ends. They will also appeal to equity, which means something quite different from equality. They are constantly using the law to address what they consider to be inequality…but only for the people they’ve deemed worthy of their largess. Everyone else is seen merely as tax cows and societal slaves.
Rejection of private party. The Marxist mayoral candidate in New York City wants to increase taxes on private grocery stores to fund public-owned grocery stores. There’s a known problem in this country where tax entities increase the valuation (and therefore, the taxes) on people’s homes. They’re pricing seniors out of their homes because fixed incomes can pay higher and higher taxes. When they are forced to sell, Blackrock and like corporations sweep in to buy up the properties to turn them into rental houses. The marxist socialists believe in the elimination of the private means of production. The fascist socialists believe in the restriction of the private means of production, provided it is operating according to the dictates the fascists dictate. Both reject private property, though their methods vary.
Rejection of self-defense. They want to disarm you. The handful of leftist who are willing to discuss some gun ownership always focus on collecting (preferrably of non-functional guns) or sport. Self-defense is seen as either unnecessary or the job of the government. You couldn’t possibly encounter a situatoin where you can be trusted to recognize that you’re in danger and need to exercise self-defense. No, you should wait for specially-trained and ARMED government agents to show up and ascertain whether your life is really in danger and, if you die while waiting for those special people to show up, well, that’s unfortunate, but it was for the greater good. Daniel Penny and Kyle Rittenhouse are prime examples of how the leftists distort self-defense into some sort of evil that must be suppressed. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of cases where self-defense is punished while the criminal you defended against will likely not do more than a few days in jail.
A rejection of federalism. The American left wants to, and essentially has, gutted the 9th and 10th amendments. The Civil War made clear that might makes right and the states better not buck the federal. The 16th amendment provided a mechanism for the federal to impose its will on the states because states are limited in their taxation ability because the federal takes so much of people’s individual incomes, then turns around and offers part of it back to the states so they can continue operating. Then the 17th imasculated state legislatures and made it so out-of-state money now contrls senatorial election outcomes. The Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) enumerates what few things the federal government can do, but then the Supreme Court found a loophole in the General Welfare clause, which essentially means the government can do anything so long as it’s for the general welfare (whatever that means) , but that wasn’t incredibly useful until the 16th amendment was passed and caused a huge shift in revenue from the states to the federal. The left views federalism as a shield between states and individuals and their progressive agenda and they absolutely must kick that shield down.
Rejection of the traditional family and complimentary roles of biological men and women in society. It’s actually rejection objective reality. Men and women aren’t the same and we’re not interchangeable and children do best in tradition families. There are impiracal studies that demonstrate these truths. And yet, the left uses various mechanisms to dissolve the ties between us. The welfare state weakened marriage. The education system dumbs children down and weakens family ties. It has been a systematic dismantling of the necessity of marriage and the family. The latest manifestation of that is the trans movement. Not only do we reject husband/wife, father/mother, but we’re rejecting the categories themselves. American society is built around the belief that individuals are the building block of society. Individuals form communties, the most intimate of which is the family. The left fundamentally rejects the family as a building block of society — it’s oppressive and abusive — always, in their view. It’s an impediment to bonding with your larger social group that is your rightful cohort in society. They reject the notion that parents can decide the village their children ought to grow up in and instead, they want children in government-run daycare as early as possible, then go to public school, and public university so that the kids will receive a well-rounded course of indoctrination in leftist ideology. The leftists reject organic voluntary communities in favor of the state as an artificial community.
Rejection of the sanctity of life and the protection of the innocence of children. We’re speaking of abortion, but we’re also speaking of cross-sex “medical treatment” and genital mutilation. The moment we said “the stage of fetal life is not a sacred human deserving of protection” is the moment we rejected that life has any value at all. Now we’re allowing assisted suicide of people who are a little depressed. Add to that, radical environmentalism where they’ve decided humanity is the problem and that we should just stop all human activity to save the planet. We shouldn’t be surprised at mass shooting and medical system CEOs getting stabbed on city streets. We’ve said “innocent life isn’t sacred” so no life is worth saving. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Ancient societies had child sacrifice. Now we’re aborting our children and the ones who are born are subject to revisionism in their own bodies. A neurotic single mother (usually) doesn’t want a boy, so she asks doctors to affirm “him” as a “girl”. This also speaks to “minor-attracted persons” where leftists are advocating for the rights of creepers to diddle young children. This is a common sentiment in universities in the United States and their influence our young adults.
Rejection of border soveignty. The American left has no problem appealing to the sovereignty of borders, so long as those borders don’t surround the United States. Ukraine can have borders, for example. Iran has a right to apply whatever laws necessary to secure its borders. But the borders of western countries, particularly the United States, are being completely ignored. OUR borders are arbitrary and unjust. Why? Because they were established by oppressors, and any border seeking to actually protect western civilization is illegitimate.
Rejection of a philosophy of individual liberty combined with a sense of personal responsibility. This is the notion of our rights versus their rights. America was created with negative rights and the American left wants to assert positive rights. When people on the right talk about rights we refer to restrictions on an outside force telling you to do someing. We have a freedom of speech which the government may not regulate or infringe upon it. We have a freedom of faith and the government may not dictate to us what we believe or how we practice what we believe. The government doesn’t provide us with free speech, a printing press, or a church. It leaves those things alone so we can provide it for ourselves. From the leftwing perspective, these negative rights should be curtailed, but you have a “right” to housing, food, and health care that must be provided to you “free of charge” by people who pay taxes. Negative rights don’t obligate anyone else to anything except leave other people alone so they can enjoy their rights. Positive rights obligate others to give up some portion of their time, talent or property to provide that “right”. But this liberty requires that we take responsibility for our own lives and leftists can’t allow that. You must provide me with the resources I need to reach my best life. It’s not fair you have stuff I don’t have, so you need to pay for those things I need. I don’t care that my pursuit of happiness infringes upon your pursuit of happiness. You’re an oppressor, and I offer as proof you have things I don’t have and I want them. I (or the government) can take it from you to provide it to the people who don’t have it.
If you’ve ever wondered what seperates the right and the left in this country — well, I’m not Thomas Jefferson, but I think I’ve touched on the top 11 things the right disagrees with the left on. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
If this is what the left really believes, it’s impossible for us to find agreement. If my worldview is dominant, the left can pretty much live their lives fairly freely. They’d probably have to stop killing babies in the womb and cutting off their sons’ genitalia, but most everything else is non-confrontational to the American left.
But if the leftist worldview is dominant, they are unable to restrain themselves from imposing their worlview on others, so now we’ve got a problem because the left is currently in charge of the schools, the medical profession, the federal bureaucracy, Hollywood, and the media. They are currently in the minority politically. But we saw what they did the last time they were in charge under Biden — the lawfare, the social media manipulation, the character assassination. We have a lot of examples worldwide over the last 80 years of their worldview becoming deominant and none of them have a good outcome. Over 200 million people died because of leftist ideology combined with state power in the 20th century.
It is because these two worldviews are fundamentally opposed that we are increasingly self-sorting along ideologial lines. We are two states within one. Democrats (reprsenting the left) hate the country, while Republicans (representing the right) express patriotism. I once hoped my country wouldn’t split apart, but increasingly I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t include a national divorce.