“What do you do when you’re not buying stereos, Nick? Finance revolutions?” – Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
I guess the taxes were too steep.
In honor of the holiday, here are some facts that I made up about the Declaration of Independence:
- John Adams felt that July 2 would be the national holiday, but just to spite him because he was a tool, it was changed to July 4.
- The Continental Congress could not afford air conditioning, so Thomas Jefferson used his sweat as the liquid in the ink.
- The original Declaration of Independence was stored at the Pearl Harbor naval base until 1941 in a rusty footlocker, but was moved back to Washington, D.C., because John Wayne told “that pinko” FDR to bring it back.
They were going to name a street after John Wayne, but then realized that no one could cross John Wayne and live.
- Thomas Jefferson was originally going to have the Declaration printed, but because his HP™ printer kept flashing “replace black ink cartridge” and because Office Depot™ would not exist for another 200 years, he wrote the whole thing out by hand.
- The Declaration has a secret message written on the back, that, when translated said, “D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E. No one knows what that means.
- Disney® tried to buy the rights to the Declaration in order to make a cartoon, and then a live action version of the document, replacing Thomas Jefferson with Jada Pinkett Smith.
- Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, and their bodies regenerated in a secret lab of Benjamin Franklin’s where they were combined with parts from a cotton gin to become MechaAdamson who took the lead in opening trade relations with Japan, and whose portrait is on the $1500 bill.
Okay, on to the more serious bit.
It has been 248 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed. Obviously, it was written the night before, because Jefferson was cramming for the final. We often think of the Founding Fathers as Old Dead Guys, because they are, but let’s go back in time to 1776:
Thomas Jefferson was 33. In 2024, that would mean that in 2024 he would still be saving for a downpayment on a house, but when he was 13, he inherited nearly eight square miles of productive farmland.
Jefferson wasn’t very old, but I think he did the job of writing this amazingly subversive document very, very well. John Adams, who was 40 at the time, convinced the committee (yes, the Declaration was the result of a committee) that Jefferson should write it because everyone liked Jefferson, and everyone thought that Adams was a tool. Adams said that.
“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished. – Benjamin Franklin”
So, if a Jefferson would be alive today to write up a new Declaration, he’d have been born in 1991 and would be younger than Teen Spirit.
Jefferson was a genius, but how big a bag did they have to pick from to find him? 2.5 million people were the total number of citizens in the colonies. Today, all but fourteen states each have more people than the colonies did, and yet they produced a Franklin, a Jefferson, a couple of Adams boys, and a Washington.
The point I’m trying to convey is that even though we look back at the bravery and genius and learning of the Founding Fathers, we sometimes overlook the fact that they were ordinary men in an extraordinary time. I would bet that in any population of 2.5 million Americans of similar stock in the United States today that you’d find men of Washington’s bravery and ability; Franklin’s learning, cunning and sense of humor; Adam’s stoic stubbornness; and Jefferson’s erratic brilliance.
What was Thomas Jefferson’s father’s name? Thomas Jefferdad.
Keep in mind, too, that the whole proposition of “standing up to the world’s biggest empire” was pretty risky. War had been ongoing sporadically with Great Britain for the better part of a year, but up until the Declaration, the idea and hope was for a reconciliation with the Mother Country, although one built upon respect for the Colonies.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. Once the committee tasked with drafting the Declaration was done, Congress itself edited the document, word by word, and sentence by sentence. This chopped a bunch out, and Jefferson was miffed. Regardless of Jefferson’s butthurt, on July 2, the Declaration was adopted on a 12-0-1 vote, with New York being in a dither, as usual that finally changed its vote due to peer pressure from the cool kids, eventually making it 13-0.
When it was time to check out of the empire, they all checked out.
I have said before that the United States of our forefathers, even the United States of my youth is dead – heck, one wag even said, “we all die in a foreign country”. But I have also said, and I will stand by that, although we may not live to see it, we stand ready for the seeds of a new, and hopefully more glorious Republic in the future.
It will require the burial of nearly 200,000 pages of federal regulations. There will certainly be depravation, and likely more than one horrific battle. It took decades to get the United States into this mess, and digging out will be the task of generations: keep in mind that from 1775 (the real start of the Revolutionary War) to the first presidential election was 13 years, and that we’re not even to 1775 yet – I peg us at somewhere between 1765 and 1773, and I think the Revolutionary War will look easy in comparison.
I accidently signed up for the company 401k – I don’t think I can run that far.
Along the way, a new form of government will be born, hopefully with an eye to the freedoms we have lost and with sure prohibitions (I can think of another dozen amendments today of what government should never be allowed to do) to keep government in check and make it take at least another 200 years before the rotten edifice of regulation and emanations and penumbras can be reconstituted. Maybe we’ll add a third house of Congress that can repeal any legislation with a 33% vote, I mean, if 33% of the country hate a law, why keep it?
America is dead, but also waiting to be born. Come with me.
Let us go and find her.
“There will certainly be depravation” I think you meant deprivation, meaning hardship.
We already have a surfeit of depravity going on, being actively supported and enabled by a network of sociopaths, psychopaths, and the tortured souls who just want to watch the world burn.
Nope, meant depravation. It will be horrific and far worse than today’s epidemic.
The Constitution is a copy of the British government of the time, because the Founding Lawyers wanted to become the American aristocracy, and reduce the entire middle class to the situation of Sally Hemmings. The British king didn’t have unlimited power; he had to keep nobles happy, just like the President today has to keep bankers and captains of industry happy. Unlike the King, the President can come from more than one family. This doesn’t disperse power, it only matters if you are one of those families. Remember the Presidential race between the two frat brothers Bush and Kerry?
Democracy doesn’t work as advertised, because most humans are Non-Player Characters who do whatever the Mainstream Media of the time tells them to. Adding elected representatives to democracy doesn’t fix that problem. The genetic human political instincts are for a great ape troop, which is extended family communism. Increasing the group size from 150 individuals to 300 million drastically increases the power of the primates at the top, which makes things worse.
Yes – the competition has gone up, yet the quality (Kamala) has gotten worse.
No thank you, I’m not interested in digging up a corpse.
Like you, I’m convinced that there is a better future if a sufficient number of us set about working forward rather than looking back at it.
I’m frequently asked “but what can you or l do about it?”;
My answer becomes more concise everyday.
“Prepare to care for those immediately around you, document where you are at and clearly argue* for the simplest governance that impacts the most the least.”
The corpse is from another time.
The vultures feeding off of it need to be scattered so that the child that will be lives to see tomorrow.
*YKWIMAIKTYD
Everything starts small. Every nationwide control started with controlling an area.
Today’s tension is between those who want to limit government and those who want to expand it. Put another way, those who just want to be left alone (introverts) and those who want power over others (sociopaths).
Government is ultimately about being the only entity allowed to use force and violence against lawbreakers – all others are to seek redress for their disputes in a system of courts. We can all see how THAT is going.
The real problem is that real power is real money and not that fake paper stuff – or worse, debt. There’s goods and there’s services and America generates too few of the former and too many of the latter, especially “financial” ones.
We declared “independence” in 1776 when we really were able to break away in a war from a now-faded Mother Country that has come to think that the US was their greatest invention – or at least, so said that greatest of British statesmen, Liz Truss. Today it’s our turn to be faded, and threaten with war those countries that feed our utter dependence on their energy and manufactured products while begging them in overseas trips to keep buying our T-Bills.
Declaring “independence” in 2024 will be quite the trick, much akin to a surgical separation of Siamese twins that share only one heart. New scalpels are seemingly laid out daily. Enjoy a good hotdog under a sky of fireworks this week while you still can. Happy Fourth, everybody!
Again, never said any of this would be easy. Even in 1776, the nation was divided.
I totally agree that there could be a better, USA V2.0 on the other side of this crap show – and that it’s going to be a slog getting there. The Constitution was really a beta version and it didn’t take into account (evil) human nature. I could see building more structure into a Constitution 2.0 (take a page from Cyrus the Persian King) – like hard-wired term limits, capital punishment for taking bribes / corruption, a freakin’ glossary FFS so the Leftists can’t change the meanings of words (“regulate” comes to mind), capital punishment for promoting Jewish Bolshevism – aka Communism, banning a central bank NOT run by the people, mandating a backed currency and forbidding fiat, structuring “service” in government similar to the military (low-pay, physical needs are met, highly structured). Capital punishment for advocacy/corrupt judges. All lobbying by any organization or group should be done in the open – in front of everyone. All banking and property listings for any employee of the government should be public record. Eliminate “politician” as a career choice (as Washington warned about). etc, etc.
Jefferson was right in that it would take a revolution to put the country back on the path – he just got the timing wrong (he estimated 150 years).
Yes, we’ve learned a lot of lessons, so we can plug a lot of holes. How about regulators being prevented from ever working in the industries they regulated?
‘America is dead, but also waiting to be born. Come with me. Let us go and find her.’
Lemme know how that goes. I found her, and she was evil incarnate.
Few of the Founders were friends of Christ. Jefferson, for example, decided to write his OWN ‘bible’ because, y’know, the KJV wasn’t personalized enough for him. He rejected much of the King’s doctrine because, hey, he had better ideas. I mean, everybody said so!!
Washington was a famous master mason and a ho-ho-ho Christian. The city and district named after him was laid out according to longstanding occult principles. It is not a shrine to Christ, to say the least. It’s a shrine to somebody else.
Most of the Founders were Deists, NOT followers of Christ. Ancient Babylon was ‘Deist’, like ancient Rome and other polytheistic empires. Franklin was a devout mason and enemy of Christ. So forth.
No, not all of them. Jefferson? Yes. Adams, partially.
John, I will write a serious comment, for a change. You concluded with the idea that a new America (singular) is waiting to be born. I think that one of the problems — perhaps the fundamental problem — with the current America is that it’s too damn big to work as an organic country. Consider how often we hear even the politicos that we might think of as being on “our side,” at least to an approximation, talk about how gov’t policy should be aimed at advancing “our” national interests. Well, there is no such thing as a national interest. My interests are not your interests (although they may be close), and they for damn sure aren’t the interests of the corporate oligarchs and Israel lobbyists who in fact own Mordor-on-the-Potomac. People in New England and on the west coast and in the deep south, even if they look like me and those around me, are quite different from me and my neighbors. Rather than hope for the rebirth of Happy Great Big America, I hope for a number of entities, each of which is small enough to function on a human scale. I have no expectation that such will actually happen, and would willingly strive for something much less, as long as it’s an improvement over the Kingdom of Feces in which we now live. But visions aren’t supposed to be compromises, even though actions may properly be.
“I hope for a number of entities, each of which is small enough to function on a human scale.”
Maybe we should call them “States”.
That was one of the things that got me thinking – 2.5million seemed like a nice number. We did okay with 100 million. A third of a billion seems a bit much.
Let’s start with automatic execution for every government official violating any of the first Ten Amendments, with absolute standing to make the charge a right of every citizen.
No more civil fines and qualified immunity punish-the-taxpayers-for-your-misdeeds b.s.
You break it, you die.
Period.
Bonus points if the sentence is carried out by public stoning in the town square, by the assembled populace, with anyone old enough to heft a rock allowed to participate, and the aggrieved and violated party(ies) throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.
When the Bill of Rights goes from being a tissue paper barrier to being a primed claymore mine, everyone from POTUS to the local dog catcher will tiptoe a lot more circumspectly in its presence.
Not so bitchin’ to be a tyrant when picking up your pen every morning means you have skin in the game, and anyone who survives a term or ten in government service will have been vetted countless times, and still have to wonder every minute of every day if their next step is a misstep.
It also obviates any need for term limits, but it will ensure robust levels of vacancies among the stupid class.
Win-win.
Then repeal the idiotic Progressive Amendments still in place (that would be XVI, XVII, and XIX), and let’s see how the machine runs with only the original mechanism parts installed. We can revisit that in 25 or 50 years, and see which way folks want to go.
The fact that the latter would make Democrats as a party as extinct as the passenger pigeon is a happy serendipitous circumstance.
Exactly which of you mice have volunteered to bell the cat?
I’m on the fence about the XIX amendment. Sure, there are plenty of women who are not emotionally stable enough to vote, but, anymore, that’s true of many of the men, too.
Maybe allow some exceptions, should a woman demonstrate to an unbiased group of men that she really DOES use her brain? Perhaps by explaining something in the Constitution?
How about only veterans can vote, like Starship Troopers?
I’m soft on that part, as I said.
So let’s try it out for 25 or 50 years, and then let people decide if they want the XIXth Amendment back, or not.
I like my odds.
Married women?
No. You’ve barely begun the troubles that women and weak men led you into, and already you are searching for ‘exceptions’ for ‘special women’.
This is like the doods at Breitbart who keep trying to convince me (and themselves) that the, y’know, ‘conservative’ women are ‘on our side’ and it is only those few radical leftists causing the problem. It is the collective power of WOMEN, and of the men submissive to them, that is causing the problem.
No vote for females. No political offices for females, especially including judgeships and court officials. And that’s just to start.
The supermodels photographed so beautifully in the magazine don’t actually want to be your girlfriend. That magazine’s offerings are a fiction for entertainment, and enjoying that magazine should be a private activity. Similarly, the picture of political liberty in your mind will not alter voter behavior to produce it by using the technological mechanism of magical force.
The original wasn’t that bad. The emanations and penumbras are killing it now, and I like your additional amendment to keep officials far, far away from our rights.
It was also, largely, a racially and ethnically homogenous population. Those things matter far more than most Americans realize.
“When the Bill of Rights goes from being a tissue paper barrier…”
Citizen: “It’s one of our Founding Documents!”
US Gov: “Nah, it’s just a restraining order…”
Jim_R
The most direct path to prosperity is brutal cuts to spending, agencies, entitlements (that doesn’t include Social Security, or Medicare, which should be solvent if fat fingered politicians would keep out of the funds) foreign aid and subsidies that only benefit slush funds for politicians. What would we do with all those people out of a job? Why that’s their problem, not ours.
Medicare and Medicaid are the leading factors in the destruction of the American health care system and the spiraling costs of health care.
But are those things that .gov should be involved in anyway? I could see them all being taken over by a voluntary trust, and taken out of .gov hands forever.
The Governors of the several States shall meet in conclave for no more than one week (seven consecutive days) each quarter year. This body shall have the power to summon any member, officer, or agent of the Federal government for questioning, and by two-fifths vote to fire any officer or agent of the Federal government, and by majority vote to veto and nullify any bill, law, or regulation made in the ten previous years. This body may, by three-fifths vote, veto and nullify any treaty, or overturn and nullify any decision by any Federal court lower than the Supreme Court, made in the five previous years. This body may, by four-fifths vote, overturn and nullify any decision by the Supreme Court, made in the five previous years.
This body shall, during each Spring conclave, choose one Senator and one Representative to be executed by hanging on the lawn before the Capitol Building at noon on Independence Day of that year. Failure to choose shall result in the execution of one Governor, chosen by lot, in their place. Failure to hold this lottery shall result in the automatic and immediate revocation of both office and citizenship of every governor at the conclusion of the conclave.
Funding for this body shall be allotted by Congress and shall consist of an amount equal to the yearly salary of the senior-most serving Senator, to be paid half to to each member, being the Governors of the various States, and half to the body as a whole. The various States may, but are not required to, provide additional funding and personnel to assist in the purpose of this body. This body may use its funding as it sees fit, according to agreed upon rules of parliamentary procedure.
***
Any violation of the restrictions of this Constitution by any member, officer, or agent of government, be they Federal, State, or lower, shall, upon conviction, result in death by hanging on either the lawn before the Capitol Building, or on the grounds of their respective Statehouse, as appropriate.
I like it! Do the convictions replace executions, or are the executions just bonus?
Governors with power summoning Federal officials. Hahahahahahahaha…….
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/politics/democratic-governors-joe-biden/index.html
Great idea, tho. 🙂
Family lore says we’re connected to John Adams. As it’s odd for an old, southern family to claim a Yankee, I suspect it’s true.
Plus, he was said to be “obnoxious and disliked.” As my wife noted, “that certainly bred true.”
I did enjoy the HBO miniseries.
And I’ve my peculiar, non-republican, ideas about what comes next. One experiment ended in blood in 1865. Another is ending now.
Yup.
“…we sometimes overlook the fact that they were ordinary men in an extraordinary time. I would bet that in any population of 2.5 million Americans of similar stock in the United States today that you’d find men of Washington’s bravery and ability; Franklin’s learning, cunning and sense of humor; Adam’s stoic stubbornness; and Jefferson’s erratic brilliance.”
I wouldn’t say they were ordinary. It’s more that our system intentionally selects against such people for positions of power. There are probably a bunch of people of such caliber working in a trade, or small businessmen. Or clocking in their 40 hours a week of bullshit then going home to do whatever hobbies they enjoy in lieu of doing anything Great.
===
” Maybe we’ll add a third house of Congress that can repeal any legislation with a 33% vote”
I’ve had similar thoughts. A mere majority is a ridiculously low goal, especially when you factor in how easy it is to influence many people. At least 2/3 majority to pass anything, with 1/3+1 required to repeal it should be a minimum. It would be prohibitively expensive to lobby for something that wasn’t at least of some benefit to the nation as a whole.
I heard recently (can’t verify) that in 1900, 10% of people worked for large companies, 90% for themselves or small businesses. Now the number is flipped.
That’s a problem. Kill the corporations.