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GUEST COLUMN
6/20/2006
On HB 1215: An Open Letter to the Citizens of South Dakota
By Gary C. Velder Newell, SD When the Founding Fathers of this great republic signed the Declaration of Independence, it was the first time in recorded history that a nation was founded on the principle that rights come from God. ". . . 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." The Constitution that followed was carefully worded by the most brilliant statesmen in all history. It established a limited government that allowed the greatest freedom for the common man yet seen in our world and it made these "self-evident Truths" [that rights come from God] the law of the land. It restricted government to the limited purpose of protecting those rights and it enumerated its powers to only those listed in the Constitution. This was not some vague concept to be forgotten in our modern society. This fundamental principle of law was respected for 197 years, until the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The Supreme Court in effect, overturned this part of the Declaration thus granting government the power to decide when life begins and declaring the unborn to be "non-persons." (In the Roe v. Wade case, the federal courts declared they would protect a woman’s decision to end the life her unborn child with the help of a so-called "doctor." Thus, they granted a new "right" - making willful murder legal, until the child is born.) They also essentially eliminated the ninth and tenth amendments, unraveling all state laws prohibiting abortion. This made a mockery of our system of checks and balances and made law subject to the whims of whoever is in power in Washington. Are we not then just like the dictatorships of the world in which only government can grant rights? When a government assumes for itself the power of life or death over its citizens it has the ultimate power of oppression and tyranny. The author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, faced the tyranny of the all-powerful King of England and knew too well what happens when government reigns unchecked. In 1821, he wrote the following: "It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression. . . that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body - for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow-working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." This very prophetic statement certainly describes what has happened to America today. As a result, we are in the midst of our greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. Our State Legislature and the Governor have all taken an oath to support and defend the state and federal Constitutions. When they gave their overwhelming approval to HB 1215, being guided by their oaths, they were simply reaffirming allegiance to the fundamental principles of Thomas Jefferson and our freedom documents. If approved by the voters in November, the natural law of "life begins at conception" will become codified state law. All those who are promoting abortion or complaining that HB 1215 "violates their rights" or imposes a "religious philosophy "or "think this bill is too extreme;" are they also ready to scrap our "extremist" Declaration of Independence and Constitution, too? Has the moral decay of our nation so crippled our thinking, that we have forgotten the lessons of history? Consider the following: In the 1930's, the people of Germany voted to elect Adolph Hitler, because he seemed to be the lesser of two evils. They did not get to vote again (in a free election) - until after WWII. Once in power, Hitler declared certain classes of people to be "non-persons." History has recorded what followed next. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!" In essence, our Right to Life, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, is going to be on the ballot in November. A vote to support HB 1215 is a vote for our American system. A vote against, is a vote to continue judicial tyranny! Consider the stakes, fellow voters - become informed and make the right decision on November 7. May God Bless You and May God Bless the United States of America!
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