Gents, we've drifted off my indented purpose for this thread. That's OK though because the discussion has been good.
Let's get specific. Please give some focused responses to the following questions. Be specific. Please, no general statements that don't take us anywhere.
1. Were the founding fathers justified in their revolution? Define why you believe what you believe.
2. When is any people, a general look at a body of people, justified in defining the right to self rule?
Here are some Thomas Jefferson quotes that apply to the questions:A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
(Do you know what rights you are supposed to have?)
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
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.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.