LIBERTY, NEW YORK
JULY 4, 1995
A REMONSTRANCE BY THE CITIZENS OF NEW YORK STATE
PREPARATORY TO THE CALLING OF A TAXPAYERS' PROTEST
When it becomes necessary for a free people living under a constitutional or republican form of government to respond proactively and nonviolently in a mass movement to protest unjust and uncivil behavior on the part of government, to which protest they have a natural right, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to their level of civil disobedience.
We still 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, property 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, that whenever any form of government, including that which is the source of our grievances, 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by altering or abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw-off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the people of New York State; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to regain a greater measure of control over their system of governance, in order to achieve a healthy discipline of the system.
The history of the present government in New York State is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an insidious tyranny over the people whose liberties the system was designed to protect and enhance. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid and interested body politic.
It (the present government) routinely ignores the will and intent of the people as expressed in the New York State Constitution.
It routinely denies people their fundamental right to petition the government for a redress of grievances; we are deprived in some cases of the benefit of trial by jury; we are not always allowed to face our accusers.
It has rendered the vote meaningless.
It conducts much of its legislative business in secret, passing unconstitutional laws, ordinances and regulations with regularity.
It uses public funds to sway the results of elections.
It routinely ignores the merit system when hiring civil servants, becoming rampant with nepotism and cronyism.
It has ignored the constitutional principle of separation of powers; the judiciary does not view its primary role as applying the Constitution to the other two branches - to bind them down with the chains of the Constitution.
It has ignored fiscal responsibilities by: failing to have a complete fiscal plan in place before the start of the ensuing fiscal year; spending money before it has approved a complete fiscal plan; using public funds to pay the debt obligations of public corporations, without voter approval; engaging in "corporate welfare" by using public funds to socialize the risks and the ordinary costs of private businesses without any corresponding public benefit; borrowing money long-term to pay its current operating expenses.
It is attempting to take from the people's power of control over the public purse, including the level of public debt.
It has ignored its fiscal responsibilities by allowing local governments to incur long-term debt to fund current operating expenses and by allowing local governments to use public funds in aid of private undertakings.
It has ignored the fundamental right of the people to "Home Rule".
It has authorized and encouraged public officials to establish local development corporations for economic development purposes and to sit on the managing Boards of those corporations.
It has failed in its duty to see that the children of this state receive the best education at the lowest possible cost; it pays to educate children from other states; it has removed the study of the New York Constitution and of civic duty and responsibility and eternal vigilance from the curriculum of public education.
It tolerates conflicts of interest and unethical behavior by its public officers.
It ignores its own environmental laws but views private property rights as a "quaint anachronism" in its process of trampling on the people's fundamental right to private property.
It imposes taxes on us without our consent, often based on subjective value assessments, and political considerations and sometimes based on hypothetical future developments.
It has caused us to unwittingly allow some of our power to create constitutional principles to be shifted to the government, which has manipulated the constitutional amendment process, under color of law, and has misrepresented in public language the true meaning of the amendments.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only be repeated injury. A government, whose character is thus marked by every Act which may define tyranny, must be disciplined by popular pressure from its free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to those in government power. We have reminded them of our status as free men and women under the Rule of Law, not the Rule of Whim. We have appealed for justice and magnanimity. We have respectfully requested the disavowance of these usurpations.
They have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.
We, therefore, representing the ordinary, non-aligned citizen-taxpayers of the state, assembled for the purpose of considering this remonstrance, being convinced of the righteousness of our cause, given our national heritage, do, in the name of these ordinary, non-aligned citizen-taxpayers, solemnly publish and declare, that these people are and of right ought to be free and protected from wrongful acts of those in governmental power, through the maintenance of existing constitutional principles and the clarification of its language, the better to define its intent and make it a stronger shield against the erosion of liberty.