7.14.2010

Change A Word And Everyone Forgets What It Means -- the master plan!



Much like me friend Blue-pit-Bull, I don't find much interest with this blog of late. Same old grind, discussion is getting nowhere. Being called cracker by melba toast or grahams for wanting the right to "EARN" my state in life is bullshit and that bullshit grows into a deeper wedge. One of self respect. Those whom don't have it demand it. Those who have it will give it to those who earn it. And those who scream loudest for tolerance is the very same ones who are the least tolerant. 
So as my Master and Commander of my historical education of FACT has taught me, me gives to you. A quick lesson of where we need to look at renewing the idea of. From Mike Church --

The word “independence” is the operative word of the declaration. It’s all that really matters. The rest of it, again, is preamble in nice – yes, it is nice, brilliant prose. Yes, it is a great statement of liberty and natural rights. All of those things are true, but it does not have the force of law. The force of law and the thing that was done on the 4th of July, 1776 was an act of secession.


Now, I got into a little tit-for-tat with somebody on the Internet over the weekend. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no – secession’s not even mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, you idiot.” Oh, it’s not. Let’s see here. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires them to declare the reasons that impel them to the “separation.” Separation is 18th-century for “secession.” “Secession” wasn’t even used then. “Secession” was coined in the 19th Century. The word Jefferson used was “separation.” They talked about it incessantly. “We can’t separate from the mother country,” said John Dickenson. Said, “Whoa, we cannot have this separation.”

So “separation” was the operative word, not “secession.” “Secession” was not on their minds. It hadn’t even been used in that sense at the time. “Separation” was the word that was used. It’s in your precious preamble where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is. Or should I say where all men are created equal is. And it is separation that – the separation from Great Britain that was the purpose of the declaration. That’s why there’s this list there of those 83 things that Jefferson said the king had done. “83? Church, you’re a nut. There’s only 37.” Oh, only 37 survived. 37 survived the editing process. There were editors in Independence Hall on the 3rd of July that cut out 50 or 40-some-odd of Jefferson’s protestations against the king. 37 survived, made it into the document. If you go read it, you’ll see them there. The original document there were 83. And Jefferson was very wise because he kept a copy of his original draft. And you can read it all over the Internet. It’s not hard to find.But this – I want to focus on something really, what I think is important to this 5th, 6th of July debate here after the 4th of July, to just keep the pressure on as we head into election season. Because after everybody’s finished with their summer breaks, after everybody’s finished turning their dishwashers and washing machines off because it’s hot outside and we’re burning too much damn electricity and being lectured by the AP radio news

I want to read to you a letter, a portion of a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to one Dr. Joseph Priestley, 29 January, 1804. They’re talking about the purchase of Louisiana from Bonaparte, Napoleon Bonaparte, and about the tensions that are arising in New England because the New Englanders didn’t like the Louisiana Purchase. They wanted the young American republic to remain a New England Northeastern republic. They didn’t like the idea of a bunch of hick hayseed Southern Frenchmen coming onboard, and they didn’t like the idea of an expanding South, and especially expanding West. The New Englanders wanted it to stay a little 13-states republic as it was.

And so they were threatening, what’s that word? They even had a convention to discuss this. [Whispering] “Secession.” The New Englanders toyed with the idea of getting out of the union. They wanted to get out. In his inaugural address to the nation, ladies and gentlemen, in March of 1801, Jefferson actually said, and I’m going to paraphrase here, look, if there’s anyone out there that wants out of this union, man, you’re free to go, dude. You don’t have to stay in. We wish you peace and harmony. You’ll always be our brothers.
So how is it that unions must persist and must stay together forever, according to Lincoln a mere 60 years later? We’ll get into that later on. Let me get to the letter to Priestley. So Jefferson is responding to the New Englanders’ rattling of sabers, or rattling of teacups, that they may want to separate. And he writes this – now, remember, now, he is President of the United States. He is the author of the Declaration of Independence. And he writes this to Dr. Priestley: “Whether, however, the good sense of Bonaparte might not see the course predicted to be necessary and unavoidable, even before a war should be imminent, was a chance which we thought it our duty to try; but the immediate prospect of rupture brought the case to immediate decision. The dénouement has been happy, and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to ensue.”

He’s talking about the Louisiana Purchase there. It’s a good thing, in other words. Now, here’s the kicker: “Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants as those of the eastern. And I feel myself as much identified with that country in future time as with this. And did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty and the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.”

Does that sound like the ramblings of a one-union-under-God-indivisible-forever to you? “What does that matter?” It matters because that is the historical predicament that Jefferson and the founders left to us. That is your birthright, my friend. That’s why it freaking matters. What did Judge Reinhold say in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High? “Live it, learn it, know it.”

3 comments:

Red said...

"Live it, learn it, know it.”

I love you Landshark!

Red said...

Yes, blog boredom happens when you feel like you're living in an echo chamber or that you have to keep proving your point over and over again to the same group of schlubs.

LandShark 5150 said...

And me lubs you too RED!