Whats Ironic here, is after fighting the Revolutionary War, The Civil War, WWI and WWII, we have thrust upon us again, the tryanny of King James I of England, where-by prisoners are again held without being charged.

What follows is the English Bill of Rights. I have interjected some of the actions of George W. Bush just to show, how regressive we have been in hte last five years. I say we, because if we really wanted George W. Bush out of office, he wouldn't be there now. I should mention here, that King James II the grandson of King James II only ruled England for 2 years after which he was forced to flee to France.

• Whereas the late King James the Second, by the assistance of divers evil counselors, judges and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom;
• By Assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws and the execution of laws without consent of Parliament.
• By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power;
• By issuing and causing to be executed a commission under the great seal for erecting a court called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes;
• By levying money for and to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament;
• By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace without consent of Parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law;
• By causing several good subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when papists were both armed and employed contrary to law;
• By violating the freedom of election of members to serve in Parliament;
• By prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for matters and causes cognizable only in Parliament, and by divers other arbitrary and illegal courses;
• And whereas of late years partial corrupt and unqualified persons have been returned and served on juries in trials, and particularly divers jurors in trials for high treason which were not freeholders;
• And excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in criminal cases to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subjects;
• And excessive fines have been imposed;
• And illegal and cruel punishments inflicted;
• And several grants and promises made of fines and forfeitures before any conviction or judgment against the persons upon whom the same were to be levied;
• All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws and statutes and freedom of this realm;
• And whereas the said late King James the Second having abdicated the government and the throne being thereby vacant, his Highness the prince of Orange (whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious instrument of delivering this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power) did (by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and divers principal persons of the Commons) cause letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being Protestants, and other letters to the several counties, cities, universities, boroughs and cinque ports, for the choosing of such persons to represent them as were of right to be sent to Parliament, to meet and sit at Westminster upon the two and twentieth day of January in this year one thousand six hundred eighty and eight [old style date], in order to such an establishment as that their religion, laws and liberties might not again be in danger of being subverted, upon which letters elections having been accordingly made;
• And thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled in a full and free representative of this nation, taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties declare
• That the pretended power of suspending the laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal;
• That the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal;
• That the commission for erecting the late Court of commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all other commissions and courts of like nature, are illegal and pernicious;
• That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer time, or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal;
• That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;
• That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;
• That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;
• That election of members of Parliament ought to be free;
• That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;
• That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;
• That jurors ought to be duly empanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders;
• That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void;
• And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.
• That for the invasion of the helpless country of Iraq and the subjugation and oppression of its people for lies told to the American people concerning the production of WMD’s by those people is ILLEGAL.
• That invading the privacy of the people of America by listening to their phone calls is ILLEGAL
• That offering the lands designated to the public good for sale by the sovereign to his associates is ILLEGAL.
• That destroying the environment upon which the people of this country depend for their livelihoods is ILLEGAL.
• That using influence in the companies that manufacture voting machines to usurp the will of the people by fixing elections is illegal.
• That faith based programs that undermine religious tolerance and the separation of church and state are ILLEGAL
• That prohibiting the country of Iran and it’s people from doing fundamental nuclear research while ignoring the education of people in America and the advancement and recognition of science in America is ILLEGAL.
• That arresting people of the world and America and detaining them in prisons in Cuba and other places around the world is ILLEGAL.
• That using the great resources of the executive to promote and disseminate false news reports is ILLEGAL.
• For the taking of the monies of the people for project enriching both himself and his confederates to the impoverishment of the people is ILLEGAL.

As you can see it is extremely easy to amend the list of grievances from the 1600’s England with those of the present because the abuses of those times so closely resemble those of our own time. The actions of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice are illegal in terms of the definition of an ordered society. They exclude the participation of the Muslim world, which wasn’t considered when the constitution of The United States was written. Because of that, what the Bush administration calls liberating the people of Iraq is no more liberation than the laws of King James I and II or William and Mary afforded Catholics in 1600’s England. In order to bring freedom to Iraq, Iraq would have to be included in the writing of a new constitution that would be enforceable in America as well; otherwise the whole operation is just conquest and subjugation. John Lock also talks about what freedoms should be given up to form a union and what freedoms shouldn’t be given up. The freedoms that shouldn’t be given up form our Bill of Rights. The rules by which we live allow us significant peace to pursue the advancement of our culture. The rules constrain our action so that we are able to develop an ever more intricate, perhaps sometimes complicated, but ultimately a subtle, delicate and beautiful expression of ourselves. War destroys the delicate subtle expression of our work. War tears down the hard work of the many millions who struggled to build. War is always a giving up our enterprise because of our refusal to make additional effort to expand the level of understanding so that we can grow beyond the boundaries of our fathers. We need energy in this country, and the global corporations need oil to sell to the world to maintain their dominance in the world. They also neEd to inhibit anyone who wishes to develop alternatives to their oil, as that to would threaten their dominance. They need oil because they have for many decades built the refineries and factories that process the oil into all the products we buy in the corporate retail stores worldwide. And George W. Bush sits in the white house delivering the only country that could possiblY stand up to the dominance to those corporations. Remember, the corporations aren’t required to include a Bill of Rights to their employees in their charters. And since these corporation have usurped the normal operations of government, they are unrestrained from visiting any abuse on any people they so desire. We here in America look to the middle east and somehow believe that they are being punished for not believing in Jesus Christ. If that is what you think, your are terribly mistaken. They are being punished because they dare to wish to compete with the global corporations, which want universal dominance. Once these corporations get universal dominance, then they will be able to suspend the rights of all people where those rights conflict with their financial ends. Don’t for a moment believe that what you see happening in the middle east won’t be visited upon yourself. Always have compassion in you heart for everyone else that shares this planet with you, or compassion just might be withdrawn in your case as well. While the Bills of Rights shown above are noble and limit the authority of the King they apply to only Protestants and not just any Protestants, but Protestants of the Church of England Protestants. Along with the Bill of rights came the Tolerance Act of 1689, which allowed Trinitarian Protestants the right to participate in society as long as they gave an oath to the protection of The Anglican Church. I will not include the Toleration act here, but only wish to include an introduction given by Amber Golding & Hofstetter, Indiana Lawyers, “Cases & Materials on American Federalism,” at:

The Church had the power to punish those whose thoughts, deeds, and/or religious loyalties suggested dissent from official Church doctrine. As a result, the Toleration Act of 1689 was passed in Parliament, but it did not repeal either the laws relating to religion, or exempt persons from the obligation to tithe (give money for the use of the Church), but the Act did require that certain practices be "tolerated." The limited access to toleration under the Act was not available to all dissenters. At best, the relevant "toleration" was only available to Trinitarian, Protestant, Christians who were willing to sign loyalty oaths and able to have their practices Certified."

The history of England is replete with numerous instances of people one branch of the Christian church cruelly abusing their fellows who interpret the scriptures differently. Whenever one flavor of a religion gains power, the magistrates of the particular religion in power tend to always persecute all those who have differing opinions. It was these very events that obviously gave rise to our own egalitarian form of government where no religious body would wield the guns of government. These events also prompted many of the thinkers of the time to consider alternatives to the English monarchy. John Locke was probably the one writer responsible for the form of government that was to take shape in the American Colonies. Locke differed from his predecessors and contemporaries in that he believed that a monarch is a man with all the weaknesses of any man. He then reasoned that no man no matter what position he occupied in the administration of a union of people could be above the law, because if he was, then since all people that would had given up there right to act in their own behalf in all matters would be at a severe disadvantage in terms of injury from the one who did not relinquish his rights to the union as did the others. Because of this, submission to the rules of the union by all, even the executive was absolutely necessary for the stability of the union. If this condition wasn’t upheld by the executive, then all the rest then would have the right to defend their lives property and possessions in any way they could because the entire union had reverted to the natural state of nature where all men had a right to protect themselves and punish those that threatened there lives. Here are a few paragraphs from John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government” this is really something that George W. Bush should have memorized before comming to office

Of the State of Nature

• Sect. 4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.
• The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.

Of Political or Civil Society

• 87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offences of all those of that society, there, and there only, is political society where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, and by understanding indifferent rules and men authorized by the community for their execution, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of right, and punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society with such penalties as the law has established; whereby it is easy to discern who are, and are not, in political society together.
• But though every man entered into society has quitted his power to punish offences against the law of Nature in prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of offences which he has given up to the legislative, in all cases where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given up a right to the commonwealth to employ his force for the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth whenever he shall be called to it, which, indeed, are his own judgments, they being made by himself or his representative. And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws how far offences are to be punished when committed within the commonwealth; and also by occasional judgments founded on the present circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are to be vindicated, and in both these to employ all the force of all the members when there shall be need.
• 89. Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society as to quit every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political or civil society. And this is done wherever any number of men, in the state of Nature, enter into society to make one people one body politic under one supreme government: or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any government already made. For hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him as the public good of the society shall require, to the execution whereof his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of Nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on earth with authority to determine all the controversies and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth, which judge is the legislative or magistrates appointed by it. And wherever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of Nature.
• 92. For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary. He that would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America would not probably be much better on a throne, where perhaps learning and religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that dare question it. For what the protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of fathers of their countries it makes princes to be, and to what a degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, where this sort of government is grown to perfection, he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon may easily see.

The entire text can be read at: