And Shall It Be The Law Of The Town?

That is the nub of the issue upon which, more than any other single one, hangs our modern dilemma: How do we, the people, administer the law when the administrators abrogate their duty? Don't ask the town attorney. Bob Fisher doubts putting such an article in the town charter would make a difference. According to Fisher: * "It is an absolutely unenforceable type of question. The people in Brattleboro do not have authority to impeach. I don't have the authority to indict the president, nor do the police have the ability to arrest him based on such a vote." It's remarkable, given the gravity of the question, an American lawyer, and one in public service too, would consider the American Declaration of Independence not weighty enough an instrument to address tyranny. More than two hundred and thirty years ago, Thomas Jefferson put forward a few lines for the consideration of the framers of the constitution that addressed a similar occasion when a government failed to represent the best interests and aspirations of the people it "served." I'm certain lawyer Fisher is familiar with at least a line or two of Jefferson's efforts. It starts like this: * "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Thomas Jefferson was a president unlike the current incarnation, he being freely and fairly elected (albeit from "caged" voter lists), but he knew the potential damage a future president could do should the checks and balances on absolute power be weakened, or removed altogether. Jefferson, a curious scholar, scientist, and philosopher, product of the enlightment that is the foundation of modern western civilization, was also a prolific reader, and writer. He chose his words carefully, and we can assume the order of his complaints against the injustices suffered the American colonists at the hands of the British occupation were reflected in the Declaration. Jefferson based much of his essay on the writings of the English philosopher John Locke, who maintained "man" was possessed of "natural" rights; that is, he believed the individual embodies a representation of the whole. Therefore, injustice done to one was also done to all. He called these rights "unalienable," which means they cannot be separated from the individual. He also argued that it was the government's duty to protect said individual rights, and that a government could only gain power through the free consent of the citizenry, who forever hold the right to abolish any government deemed unjust. These principles are inherent to the Declaration of Independence and integral to the just functioning of a democratic America. http://pacificfreepress.com/content/view/2082/81/

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