Regardless of what you think of his politics, you have to
wonder about his grasp on history!
Mr. Willard “Mitt” Romney a crowd of TEA Party conservatives
the type of red-meat drivel they gobble-up without a care as to its veracity
yesterday in Pennsylvania. The disturbing thing is that neither he nor his
audience seems to care whether his comments are accurate. The ovation-inducing
lines were as follows:
“Let’s stop and think about the system of
government and what it tells us in our founding document, the Declaration of
Independence. It does not say that the government gave us our rights. It says
that God gave us our rights. They came with us not with Government.”
Despite the theological problems here (does he really believe
that our rights were given to us by a 6’4” white man living on a planet called
“Kobol?” Or is he saying that some other god – the God of your personal choice
– gave you the rights?); there is a fundamental (rather than fundamentalist)
issue with this statement.
The Declaration of Independence did not found our
government. It did what its name implies. It declared our independence from the
tyranny of King George III. The writers of that document saw themselves as
British and as loyal subjects they were severing their ties with a king that
was acting in a manner inconsistent with the social contract implicit in that
relationship.
Our form of government did not become established for
another eleven years. The constitution was not written until 1787 and it was
another two years before it was ratified. That is the basis of our government
(as the TEA Party and presumably the candidate) would know had they been paying
attention in Civics class.
The Articles of Confederation, our first official governmental
form, were adopted in 1777 and served as our basis of government before the
constitution. Basically, those were only created to give the colonies an air of
legitimacy. But the problem is that no matter how you define it, the
Declaration of Independence did not found our government, it can only barely be
said to have been the basis of our government.
But, then neither the candidate nor the TEA Party seem to be
overly concerned with that little thing I like to call “the truth” so what is
one more misstatement in such a flurry of distortions, inaccuracies, and
outright lies?
Wherever you are today I hope you have a better grasp on the
history of your country than our candidates seem to have on the history of
ours.
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