Peter C. Earle: The American Revolution Redefined Freedom Itself

When the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, its immediate purpose was practical: to justify severing ties with Great Britain and explain to audiences both foreign and domestic why rebellion had become necessary. Yet the document’s historical importance extended far beyond the thirteen colonies. The American declaration not only created a new nation, but helped establish a new political language: a language rooted in natural rights, popular sovereignty, and the legitimacy of political self-determination. It was a language that would reverberate across continents for centuries.

John Robinson: A constitution enshrining racial apartheid in NZ is coming

There is a move afoot to rewrite the basic constitution of New Zealand, unsurprisingly to set in place racism and apartheid.

A meeting has been organised at The University of Auckland’s Business School this month to develop a new constitution. This is announced as a ‘Constitutional Conference Korero’, a national hui “to provide the technical and legal support for constitutional transformation in Aotearoa New Zealand — a ‘national wananga’ to bring together experts from around the world and within Aotearoa to present arguments and options for constitutional transformation to ‘realise Maori rights’.

This is a minority effort, excluding the majority of New Zealanders. It will cause considerable harm and deepen existing divisions between the two racial categories enshrined in existing law, overturning the belief in equality and implicit refusal of race-based separation. The country will be torn apart, as the process of writing a constitution is among the most wrenching any nation can go through, even a nation at peace. It brings every tension, rivalry, prejudice and latent grievance to the surface.

Bruce Moon: Stuff publishes Jade Kake’s historical nonsense: a response

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. –Shakespeare, “Macbeth”, Act 5, Scene 5.

A decimated Maori economic base?

An article in Stuff, 10 February 2022 by Jade Kake, an architectural designer in Whangarei of Dutch and Maori descent, purports to address “the tribal economic base that has been decimated through the widespread and large-scale theft of land.” She ignores, one notes, the fact that the “tribal economic base” — of $9 billion as at 7.2.2019 — has never been higher than it is today. Ngai Tahu, the richest tribe on the back of “Waitangi Tribunal” settlements described by several authors as “a swindle” and “a fraud” (for which references are available), possessed $1.5 billion at 4.10.2021.

Inaccurate sweeping statements on land ownership

Mike Butler: Talking up Maori sovereignty

Two Far North elders used the commemoration of the signing of the 1835 Declaration of Independence at Waitangi, on October 28, to talk up a separate Maori government. What’s wrong with that? The only reason anyone outside the little commemoration knew about this was because a Maori TV reporter covered it, and that reporter did so without questioning the mixture of half-truths spouted by the elders.

Elder Nuki Alridge, according to Dean Nathan in a Maori Television report titled “Maori Government Challenge Before Ngapuhi”, described the 1835 Declaration of Independence as “a sovereign covenant bequeathed to their descendants” that the Crown “continues to trample”.