Multi-culturalism v. Individual RightsGlobalization and the Future of Freedom

I believe that there are actually two problems currently present in our modern American dialogue:

1) What are the universal American Values that all would stand to defend?

2) Is the current enemy capable of changing those values through outright conquest (ie, are they in immediate danger)?

The concept of individual rights have taken on a new definition in the last 50 years as we have struggled within this country (and western civilization itself) to define "civil rights". The three original individual rights were "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". As what happens within law, happens with social reconstruction post upheaval, the more we think we know and understand, the more "laws" we tend to make that we think broaden and protect the original law. However, laws can only serve two purposes:

1) Protect the right and guarantee freedom
2) Take freedom away

It is inevitable that more laws take freedom away and thus, so do more politically correct social behaviors tend to limit social freedom rather than enhance it.

For instance, the new concept of civil rights of a group trumping individual rights began out of the civil rights movement of the 50's. While that was a necessary movement to address the rights of individuals with different skin color to equal education, protection under the law, etc, I believe that these groups understood that they could change laws, but they could not change society by these laws. For instance, Lincoln may have set the slave free, but doing so never changed people's minds about their inferiority; at that point, most of society still saw them as now free, inferior humans. To change society it had to create laws that recognized the rights of the group above the individual rights of citizens to believe as they wished. To do so, they instituted such things as quotas, trying to legislate discrimination out of existence when the final discrimination is at the level of individual thought and can never be controlled by the state, but is only changed through social or “peer” pressure.

Thus, a movement was born to enshrine the rights of groups above the rights of individuals in order to effectively change, not just the law, but society itself. The rights of the group included demands to recognize their cultural (what was determined as "cultural") idiosyncrasies and ability to practice them as a right, along with the basic concept of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". In reality, that right to practice cultural idiosyncrasies already existed within the three original "rights" and required no such protection, but the civil rights movement, with all their generated sympathy for the real oppression people had lived under, created the concept that is now called "multi-culturalism" where the individual rights of protection now extend to the protection of "group rights" that include the concept of protecting cultural practices even when those cultural practices completely trample on individual rights to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". This went even further in the sixties and seventies as university students discovered American Indian culture, as an example, as a culture that had been "trampled" by western culture and expansion along with many other cultures that had been irreparably changed by the expansion of western culture (such as Eastern Indian, Asian, etc). Although, it seems no one was concerned with the demise of Gaelic, Greek or Roman culture. Maybe because they were “western cultures” and it is fine to destroy our own culture and remake it in whatever image we desire, although, if one were to dig up a Roman, I am sure they would lament the demise of Rome.

While these folks pride themselves on being "cosmopolitan" and open minded, the reality is they closed their minds to the most important of all enlightened humanist liberalism: the concept of individual rights protection above all others. “ For me, my culture and for you your culture” is fine when there is no globalization and when cultures were confined within individual states with sovereign borders and little outside contact, but once those cultures come in contact or move within the borders of other cultures, such as the US, where individual rights are supposed to be paramount to the rights of "groups", then the issue becomes much more trickier and only one side can be right.

For instance, the US code of laws protects individuals from having their life taken away by anyone, including family members, for any reason beyond another individual’s right to "life" where an individual is threatened or in immediate danger of having their life taken away from (ie, self defense). If multi-culturalism (ie, accepting all concepts of group cultures as protected) were taken to its logical conclusion, then concepts of individual rights are subsumed to the group "culture" which includes things like honor killings, slavery for debt or by consequence of cultural conquest, etc, etc, etc.

What we see today is a war within the movement itself because even the modern "multi-culturalist" is torn between what they recognize as individual rights and protecting “group rights” or culture. We see this even more broadly in Europe where the immigration of groups of people from widely different cultures is even more extensive then within the United States when compared to percentage of population.

Many people point to the US and say that the reason we do not have similar problems with riots is because our concepts of individual rights are enforced thus forcing immigrants to adhere to the concepts more stringently than they do in Europe with their long history of studied multi-culturalism trying to protect entire cultures.

I believe that the real difference is in quantity, not quality. The US has not been really challenged on its "individual rights v. cultural group rights" because the mass of our immigration comes from cultures that are similar to our own in religion, social practices and even concepts of western law.

We know this must be true because the number of police and law enforcement officers across the country is about 1 officer to every 3 to 4,000 (if not higher) citizens. Thus, if a group of millions of immigrants with different cultural, social and legal concepts wanted to practice and maintain their ideas within the US and that group was as significant as say the Muslim population in France (6.3%?), then we would have the same kind of problems the Europeans have trying to enforce our laws, including individual rights above and beyond cultural concepts like forced marriage, hijabs and honor killings. Fortunately, even though we have approximately 6 million Muslims in the US alone, in comparison to our over all population, they are minimal (like 0.02%) and thus they are still held to our laws by both social pressure by the majority and an active and capable legal enforcement system that protects individual rights.

I believe that if our immigration was as significant as Europe's with such a different cultural make up, our own multi-culturalists would be struggling even more so with the question of individual rights v. group or cultural rights, just as such nations as France are doing.

Another problem is globalization. Multi-culturalists, who believe in protection of cultures and group rights, believe this is an evil concept that is somehow new to our world or, at least, seeing what cultures have done to each other in the past (usually one is destroyed and we are looking at their remains in archeological digs), they believe that all cultures should be preserved for some greater good. But, this concept goes against all of human history since the first man walked to the cave next door and traded his flint knife technology for a basket of fruits that was not available on his side of the valley. Immediately, both cultures were changed in diet, language, work distribution and politics. The group that used to pick berries and fruit for survival now had a knife and the main provider was the one that could use it to kill a wildebeest for food (and this guy usually became the leader instead of the guy that knew where to find the best berries because he was now the strongest and most capable provider).

In short, they are fighting a losing battle.

This is where globalization takes over as the great vehicle for conflict of civilizations, where the Islamists come into play, and where the left multi-culturalists become sympathizers with the very concept of group or cultural rights above individual rights, even their own, appearing to be espousing the same language and ideology of the Islamists.

Multi-culturalists believe that they can stem the tide of change. OBL as the head of a group that proclaims themselves Islamists protecting Islam as a culture not a religion (regardless of his other statements about world domination or destruction of other cultures which they ignore because this one statement fits into their own dialectic), becomes the ultimate anti-globalization and does what they have longed to do for decades now, attack their own culture outright in order preserve the status quo of cultures and protect cultural rights, even if that meant that the great anti-globalizer effectively trampled on the individual rights of thousands (if not millions) to do so (such as the primary right to “life”). Because cultural or group rights take precedence over individual rights in their minds, this was perfectly acceptable.

Now, when people talk about the great clash of civilizations, the reality is, this clash is not about hip-hop v. muezzins or jeans v. dishdash or mini-skirt v. hijab. This is not about Christianity v. Islam or Capitalism v. good of a collective. These are just recognizable and outward representations of the real conflict that boils down to two points:

Individual rights v. Cultural group rights

Does a culture have the right to mandate that all of its female citizens must wear the hijab in order to protect the virtue and culture of the group or is the individual right to choose to wear the hijab or not the valid and most important right? And does that culture have the further right to punish with death or imprisonment, thus taking away the first two unalienable rights of life and liberty, any individual that does not adhere to the group or cultural demand to do so (thus protecting that culture from extinction)? Can the state that believes in individual rights ban the wearing of hijab because it represents the repression of individual rights and, by recognizing it as a viable cultural representation that can be also chosen as an expression, allowing it to be worn, does it undermine the state’s ability to protect individuals from being forced to wear it? Can laws protecting individual rights from the repression or oppression of groups be strong enough and well enough enforced that it ensures the individual right to choose not to wear it and, further, be protected from others of their group from persecution for not doing so?

Do people have the right to choose what cultures they believe in, want to live in and want to practice, or does a culture have the right to stop them in order to protect the cultural purity of the group? How does the state, as the protector of individual rights, both protect the right to wear hijab and protect the right not to wear it?

These are the real questions that confront modern day governments.

These questions will continue to grow and be real instigators of conflict as globalization continues to place every culture in contact with every other culture. Even the smallest micro-culture in the jungles of Africa or South America have been in contact with and have been changed by, other cultures, the largest of which has been western culture and concepts of individual rights v. group rights have infiltrated even the smallest unit of people among us. Which, in the context of tribal groups, such as in the ME, Africa and South America, has not just changed the culture, but changed their security and viability of survival because it was once the group acting as a group and for the sake of the group that protected them against outside enemies and concepts of individual rights necessarily break those ties and weaken the security of the group.

It is this very concept of tribal security that OBL, Zawahiri and the Islamists wish to strengthen through appeal to the Umma or the great Muslim tribe with Islam being the aggregator, the umbrella under which this group or tribe as a whole can effect their security. With every Muslim or member of the Umma that chooses to practice Islam as they see fit, to wear western clothes, to listen to western music or to work through prayer time, the foundation of the Umma is cracked and the security, thus cultural existence remaining unchanged, is threatened. This is all without western culture firing a shot yet, Islamists such as OBL and Zawahiri, still see it as an act of war.

Here is where we meet the second question:

2) Is the current enemy capable of changing those values through outright conquest (ie, are they in immediate danger)?

Because multi-culturalism defends the concept of “for you, your culture, for me, mine”, sees the ability to defend cultures largely in context to their position within sovereign nations, protected by borders and states, seeing globalization as the cause of the demise of cultures and the current conflict, the way they see the defense of their own culture and laws is based on the defensibility of the nation state that they live in from direct, physical encroachment of this enemy never recognizing that their own culture can be irrevocably changed by the rise of another. Or, at least, believing that if it is destroyed, it is right and better than changing any other culture or encroaching upon cultural or group rights.

For instance, by necessity, believing that Islamists may have a justifiable cause to defend their culture, left multi-culturalists believe that the only enemy that can significantly change their own culture is an enemy that not only can strike them within their own borders, but has the capability to invade and hold the land, destroying their own culture through force of arms and the ability to implant radical change forces within the country itself. Because they cannot see an enemy army that exists and is large enough to do such clear and hold activities, however much he may have struck 3000 of their citizens dead, this enemy does not represent a significant threat to their culture or society and thus does not require the kind of armed defense that we are undertaking today, that requires offensive maneuvers, that, by their very nature will change the cultures that are attacked, becoming again the “evil” that precipitated the clash in the first place.

Multi-culturalists who buy into this concept are not as cosmopolitan and worldly as they believe. They are, in fact, quasi-isolationists that also refer to themselves as “realists”, though they are really rejectionists of all human history, believing that not only is it best to secure and protect cultures even against individual rights, it is best that these other illiberal cultures are viewed as if through a looking glass or water globe where they can admire them from afar, then withdraw to their own culture, far removed from the dangers, repression and dirty toiling, to enjoy “enlightened” conversation with their friends, congratulating themselves on their own advancement while leaving millions of others to suffer under often pre-historic conditions they themselves would not maintain for more than a few weeks and that only if they were able to do so from the comfort of a modern hotel with air conditioning, an armed guard provided by the less than enlightened government and a cell phone that they can use to call for airplane reservations out of that so enjoyable culturally secure dirt hole.

It’s all good as long is it is over there and they can return here. They may even see themselves as martyrs for the preservation of the history of man when it is the preservation of the future they should be worried about.

They pride themselves as “realists” who know that the world is full of many different cultures and laws; that no entity, particularly the US, but even the entirety of western civilization, can change or hope to change these cultures so we should learn to deal with it. When, in fact, I call them “rejectionists” because this concept rejects the entirety of human history over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution where contact with every other man has by necessity changed the other. More so in a world where communications zip around the globe at the speed of light, where man is continually inventing new ways to improve and expand this communication as well as his ability to move from one destination to another in hours instead of days, weeks and months. Even if men were somehow able to keep other men from meeting each other in all but a constrained space for trading (like a trade zone where no person that is not a citizen of the country can leave and mix with others in country, a concept many nations have tried and failed), the very act of trading raw materials and products changes society itself, just like the caveman changed his neighbor, by introducing new words, new concepts and new practices into the culture even if the man never speaks to another outside of this trading zone.

It’s this same rejectionist idea that leads to the belief that the small enemy cannot change their own culture or society unless that culture or society LETS the enemy change it (ie, create new laws under which to ferret out the enemy that may endanger their own ideas and concepts of individual rights), thus, the real enemy is the close “enemy” who, through power and “government for the people by the people” can more quickly and more likely change their culture and possibly limit their enjoyment of individual rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) than the far enemy who is small and largely “over there” even if they can reach within this country to take away other’s individual right to “life” it is better to suffer those “small” losses than to possibly change the protection of their own culture.

This is the conflict within multi-culturalism. Conversely, a similar conflict exists for those who reject the protection of cultural group rights and believe that individual freedoms are sancro-sanct, above and beyond the group. In trying to protect the individual rights of every citizen from attack by this small enemy (particularly the right to life), they must struggle against a natural inclination to enact laws that may well override specific individual rights in order to secure the right to life of a group. How do you and can you balance these rights?

Here is where other questions regarding both globalization and sovereign states begin to take shape; questions that the charters of the United Nations were supposed to answer, yet never truly did. As a matter of fact, some charters of the United Nations seem to directly contradict others.

For instance, the Declaration of Human Rights seem to mirror the Bill of Rights as well as the declaration of Independence for the United States that protects individual rights of individual people. Yet, at the same time, we have UNESCO charters that seem to insist on protection of cultures and group rights as well as other charters that demand the protection and recognition of sovereign borders above and beyond the treatment of individuals within those borders. It’s the confusion mirrored within the policies of free nations.

In order to reconcile these concepts, we have developed, over the years, what is referred to as “realist geo-politics” or “real politics” where we lay out our “hopes” for humanity, but never expect to attain them, working instead for the least painful and disruptive contact between nations while simply insuring our own limited scope of “national security”. So long as we pretend to work towards these “hopes for humanity” it is good, but only as long as it does not interfere with anything else or any idea under multi-culturalism, such as unchanging cultural centers. Recognition and expansion of individual rights can only occur under the pained and limited auspices of protecting cultures as a whole. If it happens outside of this construct then it is no good and may in fact be “evil”. Which brings us the last great fear of the multi-culturalist.

A new doctrine was stated that directly threatens multi-cultural concepts of “for you, your culture, for me, mine”. This doctrine declares that the universal rights of man are the individual rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”; that every man desires these rights; that it is not a matter of culture that decides who may have these rights, but a matter of nature, if not “endowed by the Creator”; that cultures who deny these rights to its people are in fact, wrong and should, in fact, change whether through dialogue, or economic and political pressure if necessary and finally, if it threatens the individual rights of citizens of a nation (ie, this nation and other free nations and the right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”) it will change through war. Worse, this was not evinced by a humanist enlightened liberal neo-isolationist, but a Christian “fundamentalist” who is supposed to be the most dangerous kind of individual on the planet since believing in the existence of a non-existent God is irrational and thus unenlightened.

Even more scary, if you read editorials and listen to the dissidents within these other less free (if not totally held hostage) countries, there are voices coming from within these cultures that actually agree with the doctrine of individual, unalienable rights for all men, particularly themselves.

This has shaken the very foundations of multi-culturalism to its core, creating the very loud, vociferous and, sometimes, hostile debates, not only between the two groups, multi-cultural “realists” and neo-conservatives (ie, neo-global liberals), but within the multi-cultural left itself who are trying to reconcile cultural survival and liberal concepts.

Today, the enemy cannot change the US through outright conquest. That is why the multi-cultural neo-isolationist reject war as the correct attitude towards the enemy particularly when that war is bound to change countries and cultures; totally anathema to multi-culturalism. It was this belief that also insisted that the spread of Communism could not be a danger to the US since none of the countries converting to Communism could, in their mind, directly threaten our shores, thus could not directly threaten our social, legal and cultural existence. They did not recognize this spread as a war tactic of pre-positioning the “troops” nor the threat of economic reliance on non-free nations poses to our survivability.

This is why they rejected the whole concept of the Cold War. They rejected the idea that a coalition of Communist nations would seek to control our economy, thus weaken us for destruction or invasion (economic destruction being what occurred to the mega-communist nation of the USSR in the end). They believed that we could and should do business with these nations, allowing them to adopt whatever cultural or political construct they chose as part of their cultural group right not comprehending that doing so would be tantamount to financing our own destruction. Going back to the theory that each of these nations only wanted to exist, as they wanted to and had no imperialist notions themselves.

This same rejection of reality, accepting the Islamists want to “protect” their culture yet rejecting their statements regarding ruling the world as impossible, is what leads them to reject this war and allows them to maintain their illusion that cultures should and will remain unchanged by the expansion of man and information, that protection of cultural or group rights supersedes the protection of individual rights. In short, it is why they at least appear to sympathize with this enemy.

The truth of the matter is, they cannot stop cultures from changing. They cannot stop the expansion of man and ideas. They cannot stop cultures from being so irrevocably changed that they might actually disappear. “They” being both the Islamist and the multi-culturalist.

Even here, in the United States, our own culture has changed. Ten years ago, if you asked someone who “Allah” was, it’s very likely that barely one of twenty might have known the answer. It might have even been greater than that. They probably didn’t even know what “Islam” was. Now, it can be safely said, that our culture has changed. Such words as “Islam”, “Muslim”, “Imam”, “fatwah”, “mujihadeen” and “Allah” have entered the common lexicon. Other words float around the edges like “hajj”, “Mecca”, and “mosque”. More people probably know that Muslims pray five times a day and read the Qur’an, than at any other time in American history.

Recognition of this other culture and the political realities of dealing with nations that have this culture, including dealing with attacks by citizens of these nations, have irrevocably changed, not just our culture, but our politics. The minute that the first plane flew in to the towers, it was inevitable, regardless of who had been President, whether they belonged to the “realist” multi-culturalists or the neo-conservative, neo-liberals.

In the same manner, when President Bush announced his doctrine of global advancement of individual rights and freedom for all, he was not really voicing a “new” concept, but giving voice to a concept that was alive long before he said it. In fact, this very advancement is what created the current crop of Islamists. Not any war between Israel and Palestine, or propping up dictators or “forcing” any cultural changes. It was the gradual and inevitable cultural changes brought on by inevitable globalization, increased communications and economic interaction that created it. It was exchange students, which multi-culturalists tout as their invention in order to create acceptance of other cultures’ differences, which actually created the vehicle for this cultural change to acceptance of individual rights. In other words, multi-culturalists have created the demise of their own ideology and contributed to the rise of Islamists.

The only thing that occurred when President Bush stated the doctrine of global freedom and individual rights was that all those who thought that they were alone, struggling by themselves for their freedom, discovered that they were not alone. And, every time that a new revolution for freedom and democracy is televised, the message gets stronger and louder; more people hear it and more people begin to struggle for it.

This will mean that the status quo will change. It will mean that every culture not just cultures “over there” will change. It will mean language; clothing, diet, economics and even politics will change. Change of this magnitude is the most unsettling to people largely because not every person is equipped to handle this change and move forward. But, as science and evolution has proved and so has the advancement of man across millennium, time waits for no man. You can go with it or you can become irrelevant. You can survive and become part of the new world or you can become extinct like the dinosaurs, the Aztecs or the worship of Zeus.

This is what is facing both multi-culturalists and Islamists alike. For that matter, the knowledge that they are quickly becoming irrelevant and extinct is what is creating this war both within our own body politic and with this group of “extremists”. There is nothing like the possibility of total destruction that will make a cornered man fight.

In the same respect, the free state liberal cannot be assured that his world and culture will exist forever, either. The same inevitable change from history stands true for liberal, democratic peoples that believe in protection of individual rights as it has for every other culture, political or economic idea. In fact, the very ideas that a global liberal espouses and supports, including not only individual freedom and rights, but free trade and expansion of economy to all peoples and states, will inevitably see the rise of nations with larger populations and bigger economies that can and will overtake first nations (ie, the modern, large, free, powerful democratic nations that exist today). The question will be whether the rise of a new power will be the rise of a free nation or some hybrid or even worse, totalitarian state that does not protect individual rights, does not see the need to protect mutually free states and may insist that their own ideology or type of governance is the right way, the only way, seeking to change all those they come in contact with. We can only assure our own future as a free state and people when the future of all men is freedom.

Because we have not yet seen this day and the triumph of global freedom has as yet to manifest itself, every true democratic liberal must re-affirm the natural, unalienable rights of man and advocate for them whenever and however he or she can:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,”

No cultures, religion, political structures, or economic structures are equal, but men as in mankind as in all men including women as part of mankind, regardless of ethnicity, creed, gender or religion.

“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”

These rights do not exist by the will of any man, government, ideology, law or religion, but by nature through a Power not governed or created by or for earthly beings that are fallible and often take or give rights as benefits their own desires; a Power that is beyond the reach of man to effect change and thus, the rights provided by such a Power are unchangeable and unassailable.

“…that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

These are the chief rights provided by the Creator, the Power, Nature above and beyond what man can give. The fact that these are rights “among” others validates that other rights which fall within these boundaries, not enumerated here, but still in effect rights “endowed by their Creator”, exist and cannot be taken away arbitrarily by governments or other men, not even in the guise of religion professing to hold the only truth or word of the Creator and, as such, declare themselves the arbiters of the law and rights. These rights “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are the primary rights of individuals and no state, no sovereign national border, no culture, no law, no religion, no man may take away these rights, particularly if destruction of those rights are for the enrichment and empowerment of the government, a select few or individual men even if the dissolution of these individual rights would insure the existence of a culture, its values or practices. There is no culture that equals or is more important than theses individual’s rights.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

Any government that is derived by the selection of an individual or a few individuals without the consent, direction or creation by all of its citizens, is not “just”; is likely the oppressor, not the guarantor of individual rights, is even more likely to take away these rights, particularly the three “chief rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” without the consent, direction or creation of law by its citizens.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,”

We will support through all means available, whether peaceful or by force, with word, money or deed, whatever is most viable and likely to attain the development of Governments, for the people, of the people and by the people, which guarantee individual rights, chief among them the rights to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”. These rights include the basic rights to practice as they see fit without interference, direction or punishment, religion, speech (including books that criticize government, laws or religion), the right to bear arms to defend by their individual rights, to be secure from unreasonable search or detainment. Thus theocratic or autocratic rule, even with “councils” drawn from specific parts of the body politic but no elected among the general populace, do not represent free governments, for the people, of the people and by the people, protecting individual rights, but in fact are governments that serve to protect the supremacy of specific individuals, small groups or concepts of cultural groups at the expense of its citizenry.

“…and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

We will support the creation of democratic nations through word, economy and deed, including extending to it as a member of international democratic nations, the protection of our military, diplomacy, and economy.

“ Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

We will not support the dissolution of governments in order for a more repressive and dictatorial regime to come to power. We will use "prudence" and limit the use of force as a tool in order to insure that any change is fruitful and to insure that the new government does in fact meet the primary goals of insuring freedom, democracy and the protection of individual rights. If that means that the government created for and by the people will not match in all forms and organization the government we exist under as each culture may have requirements that they deem necessary “to effect their Safety and Happiness” then we will accept it. Yet this balance and support will lean to and insist on the protection of the rights of individuals above and beyond the rights of cultures and groups.

Should any dissolution of government take place and the resultant government, even claiming to be the voice of the people, institute laws or take actions that demean the rights of individuals, we will reserve the right to withdraw or amend our support from the new despotic government and seek out and support within the body politic, individuals and groups that support, work towards and demand these individual rights and continue to do so until such a time as a truly democratic and free government, for the people, of the people and by the people, protecting individual rights of all the people, exists.

Such are the values of the United States of America that are worth defending, not just for the citizens of these states, but for every person in every nation. We must resolve to provide assistance and protection of these citizens and every free state as if it were our own. To do less is to abrogate our history and reject our inheritance as a "First Nation" and the heirs of the true enlightenment.

The enemy indeed can change us by forcing us to change within; by forcing us to retreat and give up protection of our fellow free states and citizens; and by eventually posiitoning their forces through take over of states and territories where by they may control our economy and thus, control our survivability. It is not only the present that we must defend and protect, but the future.

“…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”