Citizens of Illinois, let us throw off our chains

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.—From the Declaration of Independence

Sounds like governance as practiced by “progressives,” when, in fact, it was referring to King George III. Eating out our substance was one of only a couple dozen complaints against the British crown that were cause enough for these 13 colonies to declare themselves to be “Free and Independent States.”

A multitude of offices hardly seems to be a fit enough description of what Washington D.C. and Springfield, Illinois have sent our way to eat out our substance. The only break we have received is a temporary reprieve provided by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Dancing Egos inhabiting Springfield because they’d rather suck each other’s blood instead of ours, at least for the time being. When they tire of clubbing each other, they’ll most assured turn to clubbing us.

Every time we turn around, there’s another “desperately needed program” being proposed to drain our creativity, initiative and life-blood, to be enforced bureaucrats and the offices they occupy. At this, the tyrant, In Rod We Trust Blagojevich, is most adept, usurping our own elected legislative body to appropriate to all himself the power of the purse and the creation of ever more “programs.”

So, on this Day of National Indpendence, let us turn to another relevant section of our nation’s birth certificate:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, 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.

Can there be any clearer statement of why Illinois citizens ought to convene in a state constitutional convention to inventory and redress the many grievances they have against the established political order and to dissolve the political bands that tethered them to an oppressive and corrupt form of government?

To this purpose, in the face of the united forces of graft and corruption, and with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, let us mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.