In America, we have some level of protection through the Constitution, but even that is quickly failing due to an inability of the people to enforce it, let alone a majority caring enough to. A federal government is a recipe for oligarchy at best, and Soviet-like tyranny at worst – theirs is an interesting historical example, as individual freedoms were relatively protected until the Soviet councils were made subservient to the central government. In theory, today’s strong federal government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, but if that were true we wouldn’t have a concept of parties, nor would we see unpopular candidates like Clinton being pushed around various offices. Although it may succeed, even for many years, the sheer distance and lack of accountabiltiy make preservation of such liberties impossible. A confederacy is also explicitly limited in scope – if the national government cannot impose laws onto citizens without the consent of the smaller state government, it is effectively rendered impotent and only capable of making suggestions, rather than impositions,Ī larger republic is inherently unable to permanently protect individual liberties. Obviously, a confederation of small republics is the most likely to protect individual liberty - for one, politicians are held directly accountable, as elections can be swung much more easily by small groups of people and they are more likely to personally know their subjects. He further states that should the state overstep these limitations, Americans would cease to be free. He makes his strongest argument in asserting that rights are God-given, rather than granted by the state, and that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men.” This is a pretty clear statement in our nation’s founding document, and especially coupled with basic Enlightenment concepts such as governments deriving power from the people, Jefferson effectively rebuts any counter-argument. Jefferson defines the role of government to be very limited in its duties, essentially just securing our rights, maintaining a defense of the nation, and to be accountable the wishes of the people. Therefore, we must conclude that a declaration of independence and a declaration of war are necessarily distinct and neither mutually exclusive nor inclusive. For example, India, Costa Rica, and arguably South Africa all issued declarations of independence in some form and never fought a war or even had widespread violence during their period of gaining independence. This is mostly a position of semantics - I believe a declaration of war needs to be explicit, or at the very least threaten violence, which the Declaration does not. The Declaration of Independence should not be considered an actual declaration of war, although it is very close. Jefferson’s key arguments for independence consisted primarily of the Crown’s imposition of taxes and trade restrictions onto the Colonies, but was quite clear about the issue not being the severity of the offense but much more in that the Crown had overstepped lines of mutual respect and consent, ie “No Taxation Without Representation.” The Colonists, at the end of the day, took issue primarily with the King’s open disrespect for them, forcing all trade to go through Great Britain and forcing them to provide quarter for soldiers.
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