It was during the late winter of 1774 in London the House of Lords argued what to do with the American colonies after they were informed anonymous men dressed as Mohawks had boarded ships loaded with the Crown’s tea and dumped it into Boston Harbor. The British government knew they had to answer this heinous destruction of private property and answer they did. School children learn today the method of punishment used was to impose a series of acts designed to make an example of Massachusetts Bay Colony for their flagrant disobedience to King George the Third. The Intolerable Acts stripped the colony of their ability to govern themselves or control commerce, and they worked so well the rest of the colonies in America feared the same acts could be extended to them. One year later the American Revolution began.
The Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act of 1774 substituted government officials appointed by the king for the council elected by the people. This act also greatly extended the power of the crown-appointed governor: the governor could make and alter judicial appointments entirely at his own discretion; in addition, Boston town meetings could not be convened without the governor’s prior consent and were limited to once a year. They even moved the seat of this new government from Boston to Salem. The final result was the people of Massachusetts Bay Colony no longer had the authority to govern and were forced to do whatever the Crown’s appointed royal manager decreed and the only person these royal managers answered to was the king.
You may be thinking, “but what does this have to do with us now? We fought a war over intolerable laws imposed by an overbearing monarch; this kind of thing could never happen in the greatest nation on Earth ever again!”
Only except it has.
Michigan Public Act 4, or the Emergency Manager Law does exactly what the Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act of 1774 did. It gives the governor of our state the power to appoint a manager to a local community or school and grants all power to rule that community. The manager has the authority to seize assets, close down meetings and nullify any legislation voted on by the elected officials of that community, thus stripping the elected officials and legal representatives of all legislative power. What this means is the people of that community are denied their constitutional 15th amendment rights.
What has changed in us as patriots that we would tolerate this repugnant law in Michigan in the 21st century, yet our founding fathers found so intolerable they bore arms against their own government in the 18th century? Patriots in Michigan last year recognized the emergency manager law for what it really is and rose up to fight against it. We collected signatures and despite every effort of Republicans to stop us, we put this law up for a vote so the people of Michigan will have the opportunity to rid the state of this unconstitutional law. The governor who appoints these un-elected overseers meanwhile has used our tax money to illegally campaign against the people of Michigan. He’s using the taxpayer funded government website to campaign against Proposal 1 and even has a bus rolling around our great state also at taxpayer expense to tell people that the emergency manager law is saving communities, and it doesn’t cost the taxpayers anything – except for that six figure salary.
So today in Michigan we have a governor who lies to his public, uses our tax money to stump for a law that strips us of the inalienable rights our founding fathers fought and died for, and even has plans to draw up a new intolerable emergency manager law in 2013 once the old unconstitutional law is voted down next week.
You may be asking right now, “Don’t we have a group of people calling themselves the Tea Party who would see this law for what it is and fight against it?” Unfortunately no, because this new Tea Party is in name only, they are a front for the British East India Company of modern times. Attach enough anti-union rhetoric on a law that would demand we fly this planet directly into the sun however, and the Tea Party would be in favor of that.
The choice for patriotic Michiganians is obvious. We are the guinea pigs in an experiment that billionaires, ALEC and Republicans of the nation are watching closely. If this law can survive here, it will spread to the other states and erode the constitutional rights of all Americans. Next week on November 6 we must vote NO on Proposal 1 and save our state from the tyrants who want to deny us our citizens’ rights.