Posted by
A Right Brainer on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 7:27:08 PM
Ever wonder what the founders might say if they looked in our the current state of their creation?
I have taken the liberty of editing the venerable Declaration of Independence, may the founders forgive my tampering, and may they know it was done in the same spirit in which they undertook to exprees their disatisfaction with and resolve against those who governed them.
There is a link at the bottom to the actual document. Suprisingly, (or not) I edited very little content wise.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to evaluate the political bands which have connected them to their nation and their government, and to assume the powers of citizenship, which, not only the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, but also the Laws of their nation, a decent respect to the opinions of citizenry requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the reevaluation and remembrance of that which has been lost
We STILL 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.--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 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. 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. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism by manifestly bankrupting them morally and financially, 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 the citizens of this great nation; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the past and present President and Congress 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.
The President and the Congress have refused their Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good, instead relegating their Executive and Legislative responsibility to judicial fiat.
The President has failed to use his power of obtained Assent to require that Laws are of immediate and pressing importance to the citizenry of this nation
The Congress 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. They have done this through the manipulation of voting districts, wherein large swaths of the citizenry are left under or un-represented.
The Congress has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant behind closed doors, and unwittnessed by the public, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures.
The President and the Congress have dissolved the trust of the people in the Executive and Representative Houses repeatedly by ignoring calls for a return to their enumerated powers, despite the citizenry opposing them with manly firmness their invasions on the rights of the people.
The Parties have refused for a long time, after such dissolution of trust, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for with their excess; the citizenry remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
The President and the Congress by allowing the judicial branch to govern have endeavored to prevent the population of these States to self govern; for that purpose obstructing the Laws which the states have deemed to be right and appropriate unto themselves.
The President and the Congress has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by relegating their executive and legislative responsibilities to Judiciary powers.
The Congress has made Judges dependent on their Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
The President and the Congress have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
The President and the Congress has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
The President and the Congress has affected to render the Military a laboratory in which social experimentation is conducted, while continuing eat out its substance and failing to provide for the common defense of these several states.
The President and the Congress 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:
For affording the rights of citizens to terrorists
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 reducing our ability to Trade with all parts of the world by policies that restrict the growth and investment in domestic companies:
For imposing and increasing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For abolishing the free System of Constitutional Law, establishing therein an Arbitrary government of judicial diktat, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states:
For taking away our self governance, abolishing our most valuable rights, and altering fundamentally the Form of our Government:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
The Congress has abdicated its responsibility to the people here, by declaring us out of their Protection and waging fiscal War against us.
The Congress has sought the detrimental restriction, through legislative action and administrative policy, the free and reasoned use of the nation’s resources to the benefit of the citizenry, destroying the lives of our people.
The Congress is at this time exporting large amounts of Domestic Capital, through its legislative action or inaction to those who would complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, this action by our legislators is totally unworthy the governing body of a civilized nation.
The President and the Congress has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive by economic and social disaster brought about by failed socialist policies to, to become the executioners of their own futures and their children’s futures.
The Congress has excited foreign insurrections against us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our nation, the merciless Islamic Fascists, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
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 Governing Body 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 state Governing Bodies. We have protested from time to time of attempts by the legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our grievances. 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 result in further degradation of the rights of the people. 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 citizens 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 granted us as a self governed people, solemnly publish and declare, That We are, and of Right ought to be Free and governed responsibly; that We are Absolved from all Allegiance to the current Congress, President and political Party, and that all political connection between Us and the Government of the United States, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and self governed individuals, We have full Power to change our Government, by election or petition, an will now exercise that right in full. 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.
The real Declaration.