Northern Illinois Patriots

Understanding the urgency of not letting a crisis go to waste, President Obama has decided that now is the time to pillage the Second Amendment. Using the Sandy Hill shooting as a catalyst he is demanding that gun control “must be tackled now.” But his track record of expeditious action on our nation’s pressing needs leaves a lot to be desired.

Did he say that securing our borders, having the Senate pass a budget, and paying down our national debt must be tackled now? Did he say that balancing our budget, reducing the size of government, controlling government spending, and initiating regulatory reform must be tackled now? Did he say that job creation, ending pork barrel spending, welfare reform, becoming energy independent, and ending the inflationary practice of printing money must be tackled now?

The President’s propensity for pompous proclamations portends perilous partisan politics. President Obama’s insatiable thirst for power and control fuels his agenda. Not one life will be saved by making citizens less able to defend themselves against well-armed predators. “Fast and Furious” proved that government is not concerned about citizens killing other citizens. But government trembles at the thought of a well-armed citizenry fighting a tyrannical government. No law will ever make a moral citizen commit a crime and no law will ever make a criminal follow the law.

The President’s last four years have left a path of economic and moral destruction. He has divided our nation, pitting citizen against citizen, and government against the private sector. The least qualified person ever to assume the office of the Presidency continues to lecture us on how we must lead our lives. It is the need to stop our President and his Cabinet leading us down the path of tyranny and ruination that Must Be Tackled Now.

 Ronald Reagan said that, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” He also said that, “We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.” Mitt Romney was in fact the last hope for our nation to be returned to our founding principles and our Constitution. This generation will witness the extinction of what was the greatest and most prosperous nation the world has seen.

Mitt Romney made the case for individual liberties and personal responsibility. He challenged people to use their God given abilities and their freedom to pursue their dreams to become successful contributing members of society. He talked of American Exceptionalism and love of God and country. He is a man of deep personal conviction, unquestionable morals, an enviable record of success both financially and personally, and a man with a long history of selfless public service.

We are witnessing a nation consumed with greed and self interest, a nation that has abandoned God and worships at the altar of government entitlements, a nation more obsessed with being served than serving, a nation more concerned with receiving than giving. We are a nation more content with sitting on the wagon than pulling the wagon.

We will little note nor long remember our Declaration of Independence or our Constitution. Alexander Tyler said that the life cycle of a democracy is about 200 years. We are well past that time. As surely as history has seen the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, we will now experience the Death of America. 

The Declaration of Independence states, “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”

 The rights endowed by our Creator have been replaced with rights determined by elitist politicians. They have given us civil rights, human rights, patient’s rights, consumer’s rights, animal rights, enemy combatant’s rights, passenger rights, parental rights, illegal aliens’ rights, the right to remain silent, the right to privacy, the right to speak to an attorney, a woman’s right to choose, and the right to terminate the life of an unborn infant.

 They have also given us the right to food, clothing, shelter, a formal education, health care, legal advice, privacy, laptops, cell phones, child care services, transportation, medicine, and welfare.

 These same politicians have given themselves the rights to benefits not available to all of its citizens, freedom from accountability, pork barrel funds, unlimited power, disdain of the electorate, and perpetual powers of office.

 Government has become the new God. They determine life and death, good and bad, rich and poor, success and failure. Rights once endowed by our Creator are now rights Endowed by Our Government.

 Most Americans are sick of the attacks made on the evil rich and ascribing to them the role of perpetrator and to everyone else the victim. A recent quote says it all: Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income tax at all.

The top 1% pays almost 40% of our Federal Income Tax, the Top 10%, almost 70%. During the Reagan Presidency only 10% did not pay Income Tax, in the Clinton years the number was 25%, and in the Obama years, 47%. We are near a tipping point where government will not be able to tax the tax payers enough to offset the number of tax receivers.

Our nation was founded on the principles of equal opportunity not equal results, that our unalienable rights were endowed by our Creator not the government. The cradle to grace entitlement mentality started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, grew during the Lyndon Johnson Presidency, and continues with the Obama administration.

A nation founded by rugged independent self-sufficient individuals has been replaced with a population of whining, demanding, self-centered, lazy people who look to government for their every need and desire. While they expect and demand an outpouring of sympathy they have a complete disregard for the sacrifices that hard working taxpayers must make to supply their insatiable appetite for perceived entitlements. We have become a nation of Takers not Givers.

 Unless you were the toughest kid in school, everyone experienced the grade school bully. The first time he approached you, he told you to give him your lunch. Because you were afraid of the bully and didn’t want to make him mad, you gave him your lunch. But the bully wasn’t satisfied. He next demanded your lunch money, then your new watch, then your cell phone, then your new coat. No matter how much gave to the bully or gave into the bully it was never enough.

Our government is the new grade school bully. Government takes what it wants when it wants. If we refuse we will be punished. Government determines what we will be allowed to keep and how we may spend it. Our Declaration of Independence states that, “All Experience hath shown that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

Voters have been complicit in the steady erosion of our liberties. We have allowed government to dictate what we may eat and drink, where we may live, the cars we may drive, the clothes we wear, what our children will learn, what we see, what we hear, what we may say, the manner in which we worship, and through health care reform, who may live or die. They control all aspects of our lives.

Rather than stand up to the bully we accede to his every command and decree. What will it take before we make a stand and defend the unalienable rights endowed by our Creator? When Will Enough be Enough?

 James Madison said, “It will be of little avail to the people if the laws are so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the health care bill before we know what is in it.”

Our Constitution is a mere 20 pages long. The health care bill was over 2,600 pages long and that was just the outline of the bill. Obscure provisions were written and hidden in the massive document. References in the bill were made to other bills and other documents. Few if any Senators read or understood the entire bill or its legalese jargon.

The Federal Register which contains proposed new rules and regulations, final rules, changes to existing rules, and notices of meetings and adjudicatory proceedings annually tips the scales at over 70,000 pages. The Federal register does not include State and Local rules, regulations, and restrictions.

The Declaration of Independence states that governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed in order to secure the unalienable rights endowed by our Creator. Every regulation, every law, every rule removes one of those rights. Our government controls the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the homes we live, the cars we drive, what our children learn, and the air we breathe.

The bureaucratic quagmire that politicians call the “Rule of Law” is really just Colossal and Confusing.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

 The Declaration of Independence states, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

Whether it is our tolerance for suffering, our complacency, our apathy, or fear of change, we have allowed our Federal Government, whose sole responsibility is to secure our individual liberties, to seize the unalienable rights endowed by our Creator. Every regulation enacted by our government removes one of those rights.

Through decades of onerous, costly, and sometimes unconstitutional legislation, the Federal government controls the cars we drive, the homes we live in, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the places we work at, the schools we sent our children to, the clothes we wear, and the toys our children may play with. With the recent Supreme Court ruling of the expensive and highly unpopular health care bill, they now control the doctors we may use, the procedures we will be allowed to have, who will live and who will die.

A government that we have allowed to become powerful enough to give us everything we want will now take away everything we have. A nation that fought a war to free us from the bondage of the British Empire has once again been returned to bondage. When will sleeping Americans awake? When is Enough, Enough?

 The Declaration of Independence states, “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”. Government is created solely to protect and defend our individual liberties. Every regulation removes one of our individual liberties.

The recent decision to uphold the health care reform bill confirms that the Supreme Court cannot be relied on the defend our Constitution, that there is no limit on what our government can force us to purchase, as long as they call it a tax, and individual liberties are under assault like no other time in our history.

Just because the Constitution doesn’t say our government can’t do it doesn’t mean they can do it. Nowhere in entire 20 pages of our Constitution does it give our government permission to require its citizens to purchase a product or a service. The Supreme Court majority chose to ignore the obvious and rule based on ideology not the Constitution. Today’s decision does not mean the law is Constitutional it simply means that five Justices believed it was not unconstitutional.

Thomas Jefferson said, “A government big enough to give you everything you need is a government big enough to take away everything you have.” That day is here. While many Liberals will applaud the decision, freedom is dying a death by a thousand cuts. Whether it is evil men with evil intentions or good men with good intentions the results are the same. We are living in a nation unknown to our founding fathers, our grandparents, or our parents. This day will go down in history not as a triumph for mankind but The Day Freedom Died.

 No society can exist without laws and laws are meaningless without universal enforcement. The United States has more laws than any other nation. The outline of healthcare bill alone is 2,600 pages. Our President takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution.

Our Constitution provides for three separate and distinct branches of government: The Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial Branch. Our Constitution has provisions for its change through an amendatory process. No citizen, and no politician, not even the President has the authority to decide which laws they will obey and which laws they will ignore.

Our President has displayed a consistent pattern of ignoring laws. Most recently he has decided not to enforce immigration laws. He has similarly ignored laws regarding gay rights, drug enforcement, Internet gambling, and school achievement standards. He has ignored rulings of Federal Courts regarding on order not to implement health care reform.

The Department of Justice has refused to prosecute cases of voter intimidation, ignored states rights on border security enforcement and voter identification cards. They have refused to comply with Congressional requests for documents in a gun running scandal.

Our President has openly stated that if Congress will not comply with his agenda he will find a way to accomplish his objectives without them. What we are witnessing is anarchy and the establishment of a despot. We have seen the abandonment of the Rule of Law.