Liberty: A Letter By Jack Wilkinson

April 2021

By

Jack Wilkinson

Jack Wilkinson 2021-22 Chair, Marin County Republican Central Committee

Liberty is the state of being free from control or oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

This nation, The United States of America, was created as a grand experiment in self-governance. The founders stated that it would require men of goodwill, integrity and faith to maintain. However, recognizing those limitations, they designed a system that would also compensate for the foibles of human nature. And the primary foible is man’s tendency to want to control his fellow man. The Constitution was written to limit the power of government to be a negative impact on man’s behavior not limited by specific laws. Each of our states is a separate experiment in government with its own constitution. Throughout the nation’s history there have been men willing and eager to subvert the Declaration’s second paragraph and the limits of our Constitution for their own self-aggrandizement and power. Today we are witnessing the most voracious grab for power and total control of this nation by the Democrat party since our nation's birth in1776.

Once again, we are straining at the yoke of tyranny. Only this time it is not a king on a distant shore, but right here, within our own shores. Right here against our own fellow citizens. There are those, they call themselves Democrats, who believe they are the chosen ones to tell the rest of us how to live. And by that very idea they are abrogating the very basis of this nation and its founding.

They are rewriting the idea of the United States of America as set forth in our Declaration of Independence. They are overriding the tenets of our Constitution. They dishonor the First amendment and thwart, even deny, Free Speech by allowing private companies, (protected by government, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, against lawsuits) to ban opinions they do not like. In addition to telling religious groups that they cannot gather in houses of worship, thus denying “…the right of the people to peaceably assemble.”

As Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.” This statement was written in response to Shay’s rebellion, 1786, and the exercise of Executive (Massachusetts Governor) power, taxes, exceeding what Free Men had fought against in 1776. We seem to be at a very similar juncture in history where the tree of Liberty is being attacked by both the executive power of the state, primarily federal, and the “administrative state,” euphemistically called The Deep State. Those are the myriad government agencies of unelected bureaucrats writing rules and regulations that have the full force and effect of law. These are acts of legislation for which they are not held accountable by the people. Those unelected bureaucrats are throttling the neck of Liberty and we, those who hold dear “…Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness…” our Declaration of Independence from that tyrant King of England must now fight the tyranny of the elected and unelected on our own shores.

At the present time the only people who appear to be fighting back are a growing Republican Party composed of those who hold dear the stirring second paragraph of the Declaration of independence, what I call, The essence of the United States of America.

“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, 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, --…”

The Constitutional Convention held from May 1787 to September 1787, labored to achieve a government that both supported and protected these words. The last 245 years attest to their success. Most important, our Constitution was written to tell the government what it could NOT DO!

As a republic we who believe in Freedom must FIGHT. We must elect those who share our vision of the Declaration's words. We must find and elect those who will be strong and fight for the very Idea of the United States of America.

Will you be part of the rescue of this idea and fact of Liberty? I invite you to join the growing Republican Party of Marin as a registered Republican voter.

If not you, who?

If not now, when?

I do not want to lie on my death bed and lament that I did not participate, at any level, in the rescue and survival of this Great, Unique in history, Nation of Individual Liberty.