The Shattered Legacy of the Founding Fathers

Consent, independence, and fireworks.

We’re one year away from the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It remains one of the most impactful and revolutionary documents ever written. While our horrific leaders still pay infrequent lip service to it, they obviously don’t remotely believe in the sentiments expressed by Thomas Jefferson.

The delineation of God-given rights, as opposed to any granted by a government, was a literary nuclear bomb. This resonated with the American colonists, who almost all believed strongly in God. Now, of course, since probably half of present day Americans at least doubt the existence of God, it becomes a much harder proposition to sell. God-given rights mean nothing to those who don’t believe in God. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would eventually translate into the Bill of Rights, which made the Constitution palatable to anti-statists like Jefferson. I still don’t know why two of my other revolutionary era heroes, Patrick Henry and George Mason, didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence. Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights greatly influenced Jefferson. Mason would lose his friendship with George Washington later when he refused to sign the Constitution, because it hadn’t added the Bill of Rights.

I’ve detailed a lot of hidden history about the Founding of this republic in my books Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963 and American Memory Hole. Thomas Paine stoked the sentiments of the average colonist with his remarkable little fifty page pamphlet Common Sense. He would be jailed during the French Revolution for opposing the violence of the revolutionaries, and grew bitter at Washington when he refused to ask for his release. Paine eventually became so obscure that only six people attended his funeral, and it is still unknown where his human remains are. James Otis, who came up with that whole “no taxation without representation” thing, was struck dead by lightning as he stood in a doorway. Remarkably, he had expressed a desire to exit the world in such an unlikely manner. The list of hardships those who signed the Declaration experienced makes their vow to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor all the more chillingly impressive.

These were the One Percenters of their day. No revolution could ever be possible without some great power behind it. In this case, it was the immense wealth of those like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and John Hancock, which made it possible. Much as we’d like to believe it, the common people simply are never going to overthrow their masters, no matter how tyrannical they become, unless they are ordered to. Crumbling, Third World shithole America 2.0 proves that. They’ve demonstrated quite clearly that they have no tipping point. Just picture Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and the like, meeting surreptitiously in dimly lit taverns, discussing how to devise a government that grants liberty to its people. A nation without a king or queen, with an armed citizenry. Where you’re free to express your opinion, and have the right to peaceably assemble in protest.

The language in the Declaration of Independence is such that those who misrule us must consider it “hate speech.” This passage, for example: “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.” How does that equate to what happened to the Confederates, who no longer consented in 1860? Or to the January 6 Stop the Steal Rally protesters, who even if they had been “insurrectionists,” had the right to be, according to Thomas Jefferson? The fact is, our government is so powerful that it’s never going to let anyone “alter or abolish” it.

Consider what the Founders would think, if they could see the embarrassing mess we’ve made of their bright and shining republic. If Patrick Henry refused to go to the Constitutional Convention because he “smelled a rat,” then what would he be smelling today as he walked through the crumbling streets of America 2.0? The human excrement from illegal migrants and homeless U.S. citizens? I don’t know, maybe they shit in the streets in Colonial times. I wasn’t there, and there were no rest rooms. George Mason was most responsible for writing what became the Bill of Rights. What would his response be to Orwellian terms like “hate speech?” I’m sure he, Thomas Jefferson, and other liberty-minded patriots would have been outraged over the asterisk that Oliver Wendell Holmes’s WWI admonition that “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” represented. What would any of them think of transgender reassignment surgery? They sacrificed their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for that?

I doubt if Donald Trump, or any other politician, mentions George Washington’s Farewell Address today. You know, the one that stands in start contrast to our official foreign policy for over a century now? Whether or not the legend about him trying to ban Jews from America is true, Ben Franklin would certainly not look favorably on our intense “entangling alliance” with Israel. But then, if they were alive today, no one in power would care what they had to say about anything. They surely wouldn’t be able to attain any power themselves. They’d be relegated to alt media podcasts, where half of the hosts would claim they were disinformation agents or limited hangouts. I’d be happy to welcome them on “I Protest.” Even Alexander Hamilton. The dead White banker’s favorite, not the hip Black Broadway star. I’d like his thoughts on the Federal Reserve, and if he had any reservations now about creating the national debt.

It’s understandable why our culture pays such little attention to the Founding Fathers. As I’ve pointed out, not a single biopic was made during the Golden Age of Hollywood, about Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Henry, Mason, or even an overview of the War for Independence itself. Cary Grant in The Howards of Virginia was about the best you got. The last thing absolute tyrants want to do is to remind their docile sheeple about how their country was formed by overthrowing tyranny. And given the oppressive taxation we face today, and the failure of our political representatives to act on behalf of their constituents, “no taxation without representation” is not an issue they want to focus on. The entire Declaration of Independence, which is our founding document after all, is subversive by today’s standards. Our political leaders don’t agree with any of it.

Our Founders are denigrated, like the founders of no other nation on earth have ever been. Without a Revolution taking place, that is. You’d expect the Casanovas and Cagliostros to depict the French monarchy in the worst possible light. But we have had no second Revolution here. You saw what the response was to a bunch of angry voters protesting what they believed was electoral fraud on January 6, 2021. So any potential new Sons of Liberty must plan on meeting in even dimmer lit places, with no smart devices or security cameras around. What other country has its leaders regularly violate the Constitution they swear allegiance to? Even the most lecherous adulterer has a bit more respect for oaths than that. As George W. Bush said, it is just a piece of paper, after all. Even Ilhan Omar, who clearly favors Somalia over the U.S., and Rep. Brian Mast, who wore his IDF uniform to congress, swore the oath.

At the birth of the republic, the political differences between the Federalists, led by Washington, John Adams, and Hamilton, and the Democrat-Republicans, led by Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, centered around the central bank, and the power of the federal government. Federalists, especially bankers’ puppet Hamilton, wanted the kind of central bank that would eventually culminate in the Federal Reserve system we’ve come to know and love. Jefferson’s philosophy, on the other hand, was best summed up in his remark that, “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Needless to say, Jefferson and his kind lost. Were crushed. Not only on the central bank issue, but on the size of government. That should be obvious to any modern American.

In fact, many of my readers would suggest that the initial concept, as envisioned by the Sons of Liberty, was lost with the ratification of the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation gave extremely limited powers to a central government. It was designed as a confederacy of separate states, each with the power to govern themselves as they saw fit. Madison’s conception of three equal branches of government, as checks and balances against too much power anywhere, along with the passage of the Bill of Rights, made the Constitution unique, and what I consider a lot more than Dubya’s “piece of paper.” But from the very beginning, with the Marbury vs. Madison decision, the Judicial branch eclipsed the others in power. In a positive sign, the present Supreme Court just reached a decision that was the first rebuke to Judicial Review since Thomas Jefferson was railing against it.

I noted earlier that we’ve never had a second Revolution in America. However, you could certainly look at the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and internal conflict which resulted in almost a million senseless deaths, as the second American Revolution. This one, however, repudiated the first. Lincoln was no fan of the Founding Fathers, and hated Jefferson, as readers of my books know. He created the first imperial presidency, thereby making two of the three branches far more powerful than the legislative, which remains weak and silent by comparison. Lincoln set so many dangerous precedents, which have been cited by other imperial presidents like Woodrow Wilson and FDR, to justify unconstitutional overreaches of authority. He arrested unknown thousands of northerners, without due process, and shut down hundreds of newspapers. Every child learns that he was our greatest statesman.

After the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression, the Second American Revolution- whatever you want to call it, the United States, until then always referenced as a plural, would forevermore be singular. We became one big, beautiful country, to paraphrase the beloved Donald Trump. Lincoln is routinely grouped together with Washington and Jefferson- whom he despised- as if they all fought for the same thing. Lincoln worship is right up there along with “back the Blue” and “support the troops” among my pet peeves with conservatives. The unconstitutional and unresponsive bureaucracy was born during this second revolution, led by the great “conservative” icon. Jefferson and the other Founders wouldn’t have been able to conceive of a monstrosity like the Military Industrial Complex. They certainly would not “support the troops.”

“Patriotism” now, as promulgated by the media, concerns mindless flag waving, the hideous figure of Uncle Sam, comingling polar opposites like Washington and Lincoln, and overt enthusiasm for the military. The Founders would have blanched at all of this. None of them supported a standing army. They would have despised Uncle Sam, advertising an excessive government that “wants you.” Income tax? Property tax? Remember, that generation dressed up in costumes and threw a bunch of tea into the Boston Harbor to protest a comparatively modest tax on just that one item. They were willing to literally die for liberty, as recalled by the famous words of Patrick Henry. Today, a “patriot” is some young, unwitting dupe who must be willing to die for some pointless whim of the elitists, so that bankers can profit further. The original patriots overthrew tyrants. Now, “patriots” are those who blindly support them.

You’ve been lied to about this, as you’ve been lied to about everything. They don’t want you realizing that the great men most of us were taught to idolize as youngsters, would be loading up their muskets again, if they saw the present day “free and independent colonies.” Our present government, with all its endless unconstitutional agencies, resembles the original republic less than it resembles the Roman empire. I’ll probably search for some documentary on Jefferson to watch today, although finding one that doesn’t misrepresent him won’t be easy. Millions of Americans will barbecue, and wash down all the hamburgers and hot dogs with lots of beer. The fireworks started here a few nights ago. I’ll probably watch them again. God bless the real “greatest generation.” You tried. You did everything you could. It isn’t your fault that we were too unthinking and gullible to, in Franklin’s words, “keep” our republic.