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Ken DeGraaf
State Rep HD-22
“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. ... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.
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Our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing; they understood the concept of “inalienable Rights,” “Natural Law,” and individual sovereignty, and they understood that the latter could only be maintained with limited and accountable government. As your advocate, my objective is to return the power over your life, and make government accountable to you. We need quality, not quantity legislation, and that legislation needs to roll back the power of government and restore the liberty that has been quietly and continuously stolen from us.
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Our Rights are not given to us by man, but are entitled to us by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”, and the role of government is not to bestow these Rights, but to secure them.
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We are “Entitled” (we have the legitimate claim) to individual sovereignty as the image bearers of a Sovereign God. Not as something earned, negotiated, or granted, but Entitled. The role of government is not to bestow these Rights, but to secure them.
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I am Ken DeGraaf, and that is why I am running to be your representative for House-District-22.
Principle 1:
INDEPENDENCE
Our Declaration of Independence remains the most revolutionary document in history by establishing our government as servant to its sovereign individual citizens. As specifically stated, the role of government is “to secure” our Creator endowed Rights, among which are “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Not to grant as privileges, but “to secure” them as bestowed by God, and to preserve them against the winds of adversity, not brush them aside in a crisis.
Principle 2:
LIBERTY
Liberty is not the way of world; it was only obtained by blood sacrifice, and it will only be maintained through eternal vigilance. The tension between the god-State and the God-image pulls ever downward; it is only by unifying as individuals that we have the strength to resist being pulled over the edge. This is why the god-State works to continually factionalize and fractionalize–to divide & conquer.
Principle 3:
Individual Sovereignty
Individual sovereignty can only be maintained in an environment that allows and encourages individual responsibility. A government can only resist its tendency to usurp both by continual attention and exertion. Like a ball perched at the top of a slippery slope, if we are not diligent the ball will quickly roll down into the mud where it will remain mired. We must always remember that "Any government powerful enough to give the people all that they want is also powerful enough to take from the people all that they have.”
We have been conditioned to believe that being a Republican is merely about being “conservative,” which in our thinking might mean “holding on to good-old-fashioned-family values,” but to the Left it means “grasping to maintain the old power structures” for our own benefit. Ironically, it is the political Left looking to return to the “feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations...that bound man to his natural superiors,” while our Constitution is truly revolutionary in declaring the individual as sovereign to the State.
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Sometimes, we equate “republican” as meaning merely “capitalist,” or “pro-business,” while allowing the Left to lay claim to being “pro-people,” even though the free-market is the most successful means of lifting people out of poverty, and dependence-inducing handouts of the Left steal dignity with a greasy smile.
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Other times we latch on to “law and order,” as our identity, forgetting that the State tends towards abuse of any power given to it, and allow it to trample our Rights, while the Left promises to cast off all restraints and is met with expected destruction.
Yes, Republicans are “family values,” “pro-business,” and “law & order,” but beneath that, the foundation of our Republic and of Republicans is “individual sovereignty,” as contrasted to the totalitarian sovereignty of the State, of any brand.
Trojan Horse
Trojan HorsesEvery year, our elected officials create hundreds of constraints on our liberty and drains on our pursuits, with each cent irrevocably extracted from our lives.
The Liberty Scorecard, reveals our elected democrats as waging an unrelenting assault on individual sovereignty, and many of our elected Republicans are either complicit, compliant, or even cooperative to those ends.
As the beast consumes, the beast grows, as does its appetite, and “we the people” are the menu.Our State constitution clearly delineates its purpose as being “to form a more independent and perfect government; establish justice; insure tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
Contrary to the adage, it is not the intention that counts, but the result. As Karl Marx observed in his dream to destroy humanity, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
We need statesmen to halt the progression, not serve as the road crew.
“The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.”
Thomas Jefferson
