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The New Feudalism

Are You Citizen or Serf

I have been thinking about the Declaration of Independence a lot lately.

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,

In particular I have been thinking about that secular Trinity of the American political faith, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. What genius those men possessed. Here you have three bedrock principles of the American people, none of which are possible without the others. Analyzing each separately is a mistake many make, for each is interconnected to the other and dependent on each other for their fulfillment.

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.

The given is Life, the surprise is Liberty, but the reminder of both is the Pursuit of Happiness. Life and Liberty get all the attention, but it is the Pursuit of Happiness that makes both worthwhile. And it is the Pursuit of Happiness that has captured the greatest share of my attention lately.

Most writers I have found look at those three words as a Jeffersonian instruction to pursue happiness. Much of their writing is directed toward an American right to happiness, or maybe to an American overindulgence or even shallow indulgence in their personal happiness. The majority view seems to be an acceptance of the 60’s "whatever makes you happy" mantra, as the explanation of Jeffersonian thinking.

However, they are very wrong.

According to Webster a pursuit is also an activity that one engages in as a vocation, profession, or avocation. Clearly our Creator endowed us with Life. And being a just Creator, He created us to be free and to live our life in Liberty. However, He also created in us a desire and a need to work. That’s right, I believe that Jefferson’s genius was in finding the unalienable right of a Free People to the pursuits of their heart, to engage in the vocation, profession, or avocation of their Happiness.

Americans have been a people of singular energy toward their pursuits, clearing land, building cities, engaging in farming, industry and manufacture. This they did for their livelihood, for their families, and for posterity.

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.

And though the government instituted to be theirs tried over time in increasingly diverse ways to insinuate itself into America’s pursuits, through taxation, property rights intrusions, and various schemes and claims, the American people continued in their pursuits and seldom looked back. As Jefferson so rightly said, as long as these intrusions are sufferable, they will be suffered in the continuation of the pursuit of Happiness.

But what happens when that government begins to turn a blind eye to the abuses perpetrated on the American people and to increasingly support those abuses and even to facilitate harms to We the People. For over Two Hundred years of American history it has been the intention, direction and policy of the American people to build a strong American Middle Class. For over Two Hundred years it has been the intention, direction and policy of the American people to provide a free and unencumbered entryway into that ever-growing American Middle Class. Today the pursuits of the American people are being destroyed by the capricious whims and self-serving interest of the lords of American politics and business.

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.

Today Americans are subjected to a new Feudalism, an Aristocracy has arisen to usurp the hard work of the American people’s pursuit of their Happiness. America is for sale to the lowest bidder, as long as it fills the coffers of the Lords of Industry and the pockets of the Princes of Politics. The American people are losing their nation one illegal entry at a time, one overseas factory at a time, one "guest" worker at a time, and one exported white-collar job at a time. This suppression of America’s unalienable right to their Pursuit of Happiness, to the unbinding of the American Trinity of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness accelerates.

Will We the People throw off such government, or will the serfs serve their lords?

Glenn Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project and a columnist for USA Daily.  His columns also appear on EtherZone.  Glenn is also a  former State Chairman for Buchanan 2000 Presidential campaign, and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party.  Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.                

© Glenn R. Jackson