I am writing this letter to express my unabashed support for the effort of the people of the northern counties of California, including Sierra County, to separate from the State of California and form a new state, the State of Jefferson.
I believe the current economic state of Sierra County, the decline in population, the lack of jobs and the lack of opportunity for our children and grandchildren can be laid solely at the feet of the State of California and its policies and taxes. All of the rural counties are affected but none more so than Sierra County.
The State of California is awash in debt. Part of that debt is the State’s effort to subsidize Sierra County’s debt. It is a house of cards that will one day collapse.
The formation of the State of Jefferson won’t be quick, it won’t be easy and it won’t be painless. You and I may never realize the ultimate benefits of the formation of the new State. It is for our children and grandchildren that our efforts are focused. It is an opportunity for them to live and work and flourish here rather than have to leave. Some will leave by choice, but others will leave by necessity simply to survive unless we make an effort to change things now.
The following is an excerpt from The Declaration of Independence that in my mind is just as applicable today, here, as when it was first written.
When the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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 them these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed will dictate that Government long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity with constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to the world.
If you substitute the word “counties†for “colonies†and “statesâ€, and substitute “The State of California†for “The King of Great Britain†you are in the position to understand the thought processes, from my perspective, behind the movement to establish the State of Jefferson.
