On this night, our country sparkles.
On this day, 248 years ago…
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.
Typical. Can’t just quit and be done with it. Got to write out a whole long thing first.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” -Bart Simpson, tapping his head
that all men are created equal
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
Even the “creator” who kicked them out of a garden and drowned them in a flood? Or… a different one? Do the modern day so-called “originalists” know that?
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
“This is totally a thing we believe in.” -the slaveowners who wrote and signed this thing
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men
Well, there’s your problem right there.
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Were you saying something? I was just thinking about that debate the other night and about how our “consent” amounts to choosing between them this November.
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.
PSA: Your favorite orange racist loudmouth fairly losing his reelection bid does not amount to “destructive of these ends”. Quite the contrary, in fact.
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.
The devil you know…
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.
You go girl!
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. 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.
Who’d have thought a man ruling over you completely because everyone believes he has some inherited God-given right to do so would turn out to be such a bastard?
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
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.
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.
Clearly George III’s to-do pile is a mountain. I’m sure he’ll appreciate you taking these colonies off his hands.
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.
Is it a windowless white van with “LEJESLATIV SESHUN” painted on the side? Seems legit.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
Try womanly or non-binary firmness. Report back.
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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
“Convulsions within” is underlined.
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.
“Immigrants make America great!” -the founders
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
His royal guards and staff wouldn’t happen to be anthropomorphic playing cards, would they?
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
I take it Ben Franklin wrote this one.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
Militarized police forces are a bitch.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
Were you saying something? I was just thinking about all the patriotic songs and salutes honoring the military industrial complex at basically every major sporting event.
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
Pretend laws are made to be pretend broken.
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
“Fuck the police.” -Thomas Jefferson
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
Cuba, I see you have your hand raised…
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
Feel that? That’s DC and everyone under 18 glaring at you.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
“Le jury c’est moi.” -George III
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
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:
Anakin: “I’m opposed to the Quebec Act. It’s an affront to the Thirteen Colonies.”
Padme: “Because of the land grab and not because it gives more freedom to non-Protestants, right?”
Anakin: …
Padme: “Because of the land grab and not because it gives more freedom to non-Protestants, right?”
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.
I think Hawaii is glaring now.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
When the Protector has absolute power (give or take Magna Carta), it’s anything but protection.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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.
But it’s okay! It’s a “War on Terror”!
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.
Impressive.
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.
…
Could we maybe circle back to that “all men are created equal” thing? And perhaps also the bit about being subject to a foreign jurisdiction? And the abuses and usurpations? I have… questions.
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.
Tell that to two thirds of the current Supreme Court.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. 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.
And yet they are “brethren” rather than “merciless savages”. Curious.
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.
If they were friends in war, would there be any war at all?
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
We were declaring independence from Great Britain before it was cool!
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.
Any ambiguity here may come to a head in about 85 years and be spouted by apologists ever after.
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.
I now pronounce you state and state and state and state and state and state and state and state and state and state and state and state and state.