Freedom Of Self-Defense II Editor, Times-Union: The following is part II of my letter on the right of self-defense and its various aspects. Part I was printed in the Aug. 11 edition of the Times-Union. The first section of the right to self-defense is listed below, along with one of the lesser-discussed aspects of self-defense – the right to alter, abolish, petition, veto or leave the authority of one’s government. Freedom of self-defense is the inalienable right of each person whether alone or with others to take necessary and proper precautions and depending on the nature of the situation and the threat encountered measures of resistance by armed or unarmed means in order to protect one’s life, liberty, property, well-being, family, community and country from harmful, unlawful and unjust actions perpetrated by common criminals, the mentally deranged, criminal syndicates, rioters and insurrectionists, vigilantes and terrorists, corrupt or rogue public officials and personnel, demagogues, usurpers, warlords, domestic tyrants and foreign invaders; and for the people whether as individuals or in association with each other to be free from the deprivation of their personal or collective right by any part or whole of any local, state, regional, national, continental or world government... ... to alter, abolish, petition, veto or leave the authority of their government through the means of elections, referendums, a none-of-the-above option on ballots, courts, legislatures, lobbying, peaceful protest, constitutional amendments or conventions, emigration, group veto, constitutionally defined nullification, secession by peaceful, orderly and mutually agreed upon means; or if by necessity because of either the removal, denial or utter exhaustion of such previously mentioned democratic means, or a succession of unmitigated and repeated abuses of power or violations of liberty, or the permanent suppression of natural rights and abolition of constitutional guarantees for such rights; or the enthronement of authoritarian or totalitarian dictatorship by democratic or undemocratic means; or extreme and heinous acts such as democide among others directed against any part or whole of the population – the right to resort to one or more of the following depending on the nature of the situation: civil disobedience, a declaration of regimen super alias postestatem non, a convention for the dissolution of the union, unilateral secession, or force of arms on or off the battlefield in order to preserve one’s life, liberty, property and well-being from further harm to restore the rule of law for all. An explanation of the right to alter, abolish, petition, veto or leave the authority of one’s government section of the overall right to self-defense will follow shortly. Alexander Houze Leesburg
