Bill Whittle - Ghosts Of Independence: Old Ink, Eternal Ideals

The tea partiers know its not just about the high taxes. Its about the rulers behind them who have lost touch, like too many of us, with a simple question: why are we Americans? Bill Whittle finds a simple answer in recalling our founding ideals.

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Related Post: Founding Fathers - George Washington
Related Post: Founding Fathers - James Madison
Related Post: Founding Fathers - Thomas Jefferson

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Remembering The 56 Signers Of The Declaration Of Independence

Remembering 56 very important men in our American history... At this crucial meeting, the creation of this document declaring boldly their intent to form an independent nation, citing the rights that had been endowed to them by their Creator, and violated by their King, 56 brave men affixed their names forever to a call heard all around the world. With their brave stand, a new nation was born in liberty and prosperity. This is a tribute to those often-forgotten, but hightly influential men - the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

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PolitiChicks - America's 4th Of July Declaration

For many, the Fourth of July is a day for barbecues, baseball and fireworks. The ritual ceremony performed in this episode of PolitiChicks is designed to help us remember every year what the Fourth of July is really about, and to remind ourselves how fortunate we all are to be Americans, free to celebrate of the birth of our exceptional country.

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American History Condensed - Learning About The Constitution

The Constitution was drafted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and ratified the following year. The Constitution divides governmental powers between the National and State governments in a system known as Federalism. It also divides the National government into three independent branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial which serves as checks and balances upon one another.

In addition to listing the powers of the National Government; which include the power to collect taxes, regulate trade, and declare war - the Constitution enumerates the powers forbidden to the States and to Congress; and the procedures for electing and appointing government officials as well as procedures for Amending the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was ratified in 1791. These amendments, are intended to protect individual liberties from the power of the National Government, guarantee freedom of speech, the press, religion, petition, and assembly; and specify the rights of the accused in criminal and civil cases.


American History Condensed - Defending Liberty - The 2nd Amendment Today


Remembering The 56 Signers Of The Declaration Of Independence



Introduction To Original Intent - What The Founders Envisioned



American History Condensed - The Preamble To The Constitution



American History Condensed - Legislative Powers and Limitations (Congress)



American History Condensed - The Executive Branch



American History Condensed - Judicial Powers and Limitations (Supreme Court)



American History Condensed - Limited Government


American History Condensed - Constitutional Amendments 1-5 (Bill Of Rights)


American History Condensed - Constitutional Amendments 6-10 (Bill Of Rights)



American History Condensed - Constitutional Amendments11-18



American History Condensed - Constitutional Amendments 19 - 27

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Star Parker - The Declaration of Independence Defines Our Principles

It is encouraging news that the Supreme Court has decided to consider the constitutionality of key provisions of Obamacare.

By the end of next summer we’ll know if the federal government can force individuals to buy health insurance and if they can force states to comply with a newly expanded Medicaid program.

Professor Walter Russell Mead blogs that in the debates to ratify the Constitution, it was considered a weakness “that important laws could be passed and would operate for some time before people knew whether they were legal…”

He points out that there are more clever ways that forced purchase of insurance could have been constructed by Obamacare drafters that would have made it less vulnerable to a constitutional challenge.

But is that really the point?

Is it not sad that the most fundamental aspects of our ability to live as a free people boil down these days to how nine Supreme Court justices choose to read and interpret a word or phrase?

Is it not sad that most basic violations of individual liberty are not intuitively obvious to so many citizens and members of Congress?

Or perhaps even sadder, that liberty may no longer be the objective?

It so happens that this is the anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered November 19, 1863 – one hundred forty eight years ago.

Lincoln opened the address with his famous “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty…..”

His point of reference defining the vision of the nation was 1776 – The Declaration of Independence.

One hundred years after the Gettysburg address, Dr. King stood in front of Lincoln’s statue and gave his most famous speech, and the words he chose to quote also were those of the Declaration, about the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to review Obamacare, a lot of jokes are circulating recalling how cavalier then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats were regarding the constitutionality of what they were doing.

But regardless of how they may or may not have thought about how the words of the Constitution might justify what became Obamacare, it would be impossible to justify such actions through the lens of the ideals of liberty stated in the Declaration.

To suggest that a nation “conceived in Liberty” can tolerate a handful of Washington bureaucrats telling several hundred million citizens what health insurance is and forcing them to buy it is beyond absurd.

Perhaps what the ongoing saga of American history is about is the struggle to understand and apply our operating manual – our Constitution – in a manner consistent with the principles of our nation’s founding.

We, of course, began day one off track by rationalizing slavery into the Constitution.

The evidence today is we have a long way to go to align with those founding principles. A good start would be to even think about them and see them as relevant.

If we did, there is no way Obamacare would have passed.

Nor would we have concluded that our financial crisis was caused by too much freedom rather than too much government. Now we’ve hamstrung our whole financial services sector with ill conceived new laws while the government backed entities that caused the whole thing – Fannie and Freddie – remain standing unscathed, still sucking up billions of taxpayer funds and paying their executives million dollar bonuses.

How about a government that wastes hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds in uneconomic “clean energy” ventures and then rejects a pipeline project that would deliver millions of barrels of oil, create tens of thousands of jobs, and their only request from government is a permit?

It’s obvious what’s wrong today. We’ve either forgotten what being American means, or we no longer care.

Star Parker

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Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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Larry Arnn on the Declaration and Constitution: Chapter 5 of 5

Larry Arnn discusses how the Declaration of Independence and Constitution enrich our public life.

October 2011

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Larry Arnn on the Declaration and Constitution: Chapter 4 of 5

Larry Arnn discusses why he feels that, to protect individual liberty, the government must uphold national security.

October 2011

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Larry Arnn on the Declaration and Constitution: Chapter 3 of 5

Larry Arnn discusses the four pillars required to reform the structure of government so that it is faithful to the Constitution.

October 2011

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Larry Arnn on the Declaration and Constitution: Chapter 2 of 5

Larry Arnn discusses Woodrow Wilson and the founders of modern liberalism and how they gave more power to government.

October 2011

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Larry Arnn on the Declaration and Constitution: Chapter 1 of 5

Larry Arnn, who earned his graduate and doctorate in government from the Claremont Graduate School, is the president of Hillsdale College. He discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, what the founders gave us and how the Declaration of Independence mattered at the time.

October, 2011

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