Guest Column: Newland Sees Tyranny in Attack on Amendment A

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.

—second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

Is it self-evident that all men are created equal? Are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness just among our unalienable rights? Or are they just about the sum total of our unalienable rights? If, indeed, ANY “right” is unalienable.

In the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, “unalienable” is synonymous with “inalienable.” Its definition: “impossible to take away or give up.”

I love the language of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an opening brief in a kick-ass lawsuit, one nation v another. As in all lawsuits, violence or the threat thereof wins the day, the money, the kid, the money, the war. It’s also a testament to hypocrisy. Where would we be without it?

The following is the first in a list of particulars, the basis on which the plaintiffs (the signers of the Declaration) base their complaint against the defendant, the King of England:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

This is the first in 26 specific complaints contained in the Declaration which constituted the political (and, now, legal) justification for trying to defeat a schoolyard bully. Schoolyard bullies (and plaintiffs) shall be defined herein as Kristi Noem, governor of SoDak; Kevin Thom,  Pennington Co. sheriff; or Rick Miller, SoDak HiPo Supt.

Kristi Noem’s straw man attack on a constitutional amendment—which will, eventually, approach being some sort of “legality” for possession of a vegetable, possession of which is already taken for granted by anyone who cares—falls within the definition of “refusing Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

I think that Noem, Thom, and Miller (Supt. of SoDak HiPo, a plaintiff in his official capacity, law fees paid by YOU) have all run up against a fence that they had some reason to believe would fall down in front of them. Noem can be forgiven. She now views SoDak as flyover country. Thom and Miller were seduced by actually being able to talk to the governor on the phone, along with promises of maybe being able to actually have a personal audience with, say, Stephen Miller (Trump’s Goebbels). The promise doesn’t mean much if you can’t deliver, anyway.

It’s hard to say whether Miller’s career is in danger. What constitutes “danger” to a superintendent of a powerful state police in the USA, anyway? They serve at the considerable pleasure of the governor. Noem and Thom, however, must face voters in a couple of years. Noem won’t survive a primary against anyone with a pulse. Thom very well could survive. It’s hard to arrive at a successful campaign slogan to challenge him in Pennington Co. SoDak. “Thom thinks voters don’t understand stuff” just doesn’t roll off the tongue with vote-changing authority.

For fifty years, I have watched the entire justice system of the United States become consumed in the legislative/judicial complex, punishing people for trying to feel better. Now, that complex is using money extorted from the Voters to prosecute a lawsuit by the State of South Dakota against the Voters of South Dakota because the voters had the audacity to disagree with the People Who Control the Public Checkbook.