THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - RESISTANCE IN ITS HIGHEST FORM

The Declaration of Independence as both the nation’s birth certificate and its cure. Founded in Truth, Forged in Freedom.

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/todays-firestorm-and-the-declaration/

As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, two forces collide: a renewed assertion of constitutional self-government and a furious resistance that rejects the very idea of enduring truth. This collision has produced a national firestorm over whether America is governed by timeless principles—or by whoever shouts loudest through unelected power.

On one side stands a presidency that openly embraces the Declaration’s meaning. Under Donald Trump, executive power has been used to shrink the federal apparatus, weaken ideological bureaucracies, enforce borders, challenge DEI orthodoxy, confront foreign adversaries, and reassert the purpose of government as action—not apology. Whatever one thinks of the man, Trump understands that the Declaration matters, displays it prominently, and insists it be celebrated without embarrassment.

On the other side is a self-described “resistance” that rejects consent, tradition, and nature itself. Its ideology teaches that there are no permanent truths, no moral limits, no fixed human realities—only power, history, and will. This philosophy fuels mobs, censorship, antisemitism on campuses, political violence, and the grotesque inversion of law whereby unelected bureaucrats rule while elected representatives are sidelined. It explains why radicals on the left embrace Marx, why extremists on the right flirt with nihilism, and why figures like Nick Fuentes revel in unreality and moral collapse.

This rot has metastasized inside government itself. Congress passes a few thousand pages of law per session while federal agencies—never elected, rarely accountable—impose hundreds of thousands of pages of binding rules. This flatly violates the Founders’ understanding, articulated by John Locke and embedded in Article I of the United States Constitution: legislative power cannot be delegated. Yet today, the real lawmakers are faceless administrators who answer to no voter and fear no ballot.

The Declaration was written to prevent exactly this outcome. It begins with the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, grounding liberty in reality, not ideology. It affirms that all human beings are equal in kind, not interchangeable with animals or objects, and therefore possess inherent rights that no government grants and no government may revoke. It defines government’s sole purpose as the protection of those rights—and declares that when government abandons that purpose, it loses legitimacy.

Just as importantly, the Declaration prescribes how we must be governed: by consent, through representation, under limits, with divided powers, and never by permanent rulers. Today’s bureaucratic state violates every one of those requirements. The “No Kings” crowd, in a bitter irony, defends the very unelected authorities who now wield kingly power.

The remedy is not radical reinvention but faithful remembrance. Institutions like Hillsdale College are reclaiming the Founding by teaching that things are real, truth exists, nature matters, and liberty requires moral restraint. This same realism inspired generations who fought slavery, preserved the Union, and defended freedom abroad. It shaped leaders like Charlie Kirk, who understood that two plus two equals four—and that men are not meant to be ruled like beasts.

The Declaration of Independence founded the United States by asserting eternal truths against arbitrary power. Today, it can save the country by stripping legitimacy from unelected rulers, restoring self-government, and reminding Americans who they are. To commemorate it properly is not nostalgia—it is resistance in its highest form.