This may seem totally heretical - but ...
If you believe the Declaration of the United States is a living document - then read it with an eye towards today. Writing this is started me thinking of Thomas Jefferson as a Nostradamus.
I am throwing my commentary in where it seems interesting. I am not advocating overthrow of any government institutions here other than King George III.
Keep in mind this is a tirade against George III.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
Probably the LAST time they agreed on anything.
When in 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 Nature's 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 cannot separate by law. It is treason to try. Lincoln made sure of it.
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.
All Men are equal to Corporations, but those not born here or looking Northern European - well maybe you get some rights we feel like giving you - especially in AZ. Got a Turban - Forget it.
-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
When did we say it was OK for George Bush Jr to run the country into the ground?
-- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Who wants to go first and take a shot at this? (can we get a camera in your holding cell?)
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments 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.
What Causes are rational today to enact change?
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 which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
Are we still living by these precepts?
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 a candid world.
Just for fun, let's change some characters around - Put Bush Jr or Obama or John Boehner or the Supreme Court in as MadLibs.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Hey Boehner and McConnell - you were predicted !
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
Bush's incompetitence with 9/11?
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
750,000 people per Congressman?
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
Jefferson predicted my local school district!
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
Today, manly firmness is really used all that often; especially with respect to the Representative Houses. Wet noodle flailing may be a better term.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
We aren't there yet...
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
Interesting given Immigration Policy
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
How's that Kagan Confirmation going?
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
Dick Cheney was alive back then too?
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
BP owns the Gulf - right?
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
What war and how to pay for it do you want to talk about?
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
Patriot Act
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
Gitmo
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
What a laundry list !
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
BP BP BP BP BP BP BP BP BP BP
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe Xe
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
I could get into bringing this one back. Invade the Cayman Islands?
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Fox News ?
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.
Soccer?
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
-- And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Ahhh, for the good old days...
Do you think this crew would be considered terrorists today?
If my snarky running commentary got you to read this document for the first time in decades - it did what it was supposed to do.
Think about our founding documents as living documents.
Grab a Beer and a hot dog - have a great 4th of July.
