There was positive feedback from our July Fourth editorial,
in both written and verbal comments. Apparently there are readers who share our
belief that July 4 and the Declaration of Independence have profound
significance to this day.
But independence from Great Britain was just one example of
the overall human need for independence from an overbearing government. That
need continues to this day, even if the mainstream news media ignore the
situation.
Ken Sturzenacker, the former chairman of the Libertarian Party
of Pennsylvania, recently wrote a column for The Future of Freedom Foundation
in which he traces a modern day move toward independence to California in the
1990s.
In Declaring
Independence from the Federal Government, he said the 1996 passage of the
proposition allowing for medical marijuana was the first shot in the movement.
Since then, 13 other states have passed similar measures.
Mr. Sturzenacker further cites that 25 states have acted to
denounce the Real ID Act pushed for by former President George W. Bush. Two
other states have passed laws that exempt from federal control any weapons and
ammunition made entirely within those two individual states, in direct
opposition to how the interstate commerce clause is interpreted.
It’s more than just colonies and states that have stood up
to government. Jurors also do this, at least in the past.
Several of our guaranteed freedoms—speech, press and religion—can
be traced to the process of jury nullification, where jurors vote on the law as
swell as the facts of the case.
William Penn was arrested and tried for preaching the Quaker
faith to an unruly assembly in 1670. Penn was guilty of the charge, but four
jurors voted to acquit, even after being jailed without food for four days.
In 1735, John Peter Zenger was tried for seditious libel
after he was critical of New York’s royal governor. Zenger did write what he
was accused of writing, but the jury voted to acquit because jurors judged the
law to be wrong.
Over time, jurors also voted to acquit people charged with
violating the fugitive slave laws during slavery. As a result, northern states
simply stopped charging people with the crime, refused to prosecute. Other
juries, later in history, acquitted defendants charged with violating the
Volstead Act during prohibition and, in time, the era of alcohol prohibition
was brought to an end.
Independence works. Keep it. It does some good things.
