On this day, July 4th, 1776, our founders gave birth to a democracy through great strife that other societies have envied and about which they have dreamed. Today, that democracy is under attack.
Thomas Jefferson had lifted some words from John Locke to declare that-
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
The Declaration of Independence
Embedded in the very notion of democracy is that there should be strife, in terms of choices voters may have. It was this choice the founders made, and it was this choice the founders gave us. Its basis was and remains consent of the governed. Back then, white male landowners could vote. It took more strife, The Civil War, to establish that all men could vote; where America turned in on itself, but ultimately reaffirmed that government must be, as Lincoln so aptly said, “of the people, by the people, for the people”. And it took yet more strife for women to achieve the right to vote, and yet more strife to those rights.
With false claims of “voter fraud” one party seeks to silence people’s right to vote. This has been tried before. The dreadful Supreme Court decision this past week amounts to license for Jim Crow Laws to rise again. Consent of the governed means that all who are governed must have a vote, in order for the government to be legitimate and accepted.
By imposing more and more voting restrictions, governments of such states such as Arizona, Texas, and Georgia are doing nothing more than removing their own legitimacy. This too will not stand. A tyranny cannot stand, as England discovered.