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Editor’s note: For your convenience, I have left visible each URL provided by the author to substantiate his claims so as to show the source rather than hyperlinking the related phrase to the source.
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In the spring and summer of 1776, a group of 56 colonial dissidents gathered to draft an explosive, unprecedented document declaring their right to self-governance we have called The Declaration of Independence. It comes in three parts:
First, an explanation of their decision process. Second, a list of grievances against the relatively new monarch, King George III, and finally a summation of their intent to separate what Jefferson termed “the political bonds which have connected them with another…”
While the grievances within directly point to George III, their concerns do not begin with his accession, but with the very concept of autocratic rule. They state that the signers “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” That the very concept of men holding power by virtue of their circumstances of birth was so abhorrent, it’s opposition requires no further evidence than its explanation. Self-evident.
And while there is certainly valid argument to be made from our retrospective examination on what constitutes their qualification of “men”, I think all Americans can now agree that the interpretation should be that all human beings are created equal in the eyes of the law, regardless of qualifier. That people have been endowed by their Creator the right to consent to their governance.
At the time, it’s believed that the colonialists fell into three groups on the issue. The 20% Loyalists, who wished to remain controlled by the Crown of Britain, the somewhat larger 35% Patriots who desired as Patrick Henry, to achieve liberty or death, but the largest group of all were the people who sided with neither group. The “fence-sitters” who were maybe dissatisfied with the crown, but also didn’t desire to break away from traditions, culture, and stability of the British Empire.
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We find ourselves again in an eerily similar place, only 250 years later. Our loudest voices argue vehemently for their perceptions of truth and justice, seemly tearing apart the Republic, while the larger majority of Americans would rather continue about their day unburdened by affairs of State.
Among self-identified political activists, the loudest political speaks among us, the numbers suggest we sit on the edge of complete collapse. Of Democrats, 95% disapprove of President Trump’s performance and agenda leaving only the margin of error for approval, and of Republicans, 85% approve, leaving only 15% disapproving. However, according to an aggregate of polls from FiveThirtyEight, President Trump averages a 54% disapproval rating, and a 39% approval rating, 161 days into his Presidency among all polled voters, suggesting that the majority of Americans, (while starting to trend towards historic disapproval rates), are still fence-sitting.
As an exercise to explore the malleability of the American Experiment, I have returned to the Declaration of Independence as a living document and changed somewhere near 10% of the words to reflect our current political climate. I have bolded every change, with the exception of several grievances which did not translate to our times.This is meant to highlight the monumental disruption that document would have been in the politics of 1776, which I believe to be similar to our times, and is not in any way an endorsed call for revolution by the Good Men Project, it’s editors, or this article’s author. Instead, it’s meant as a reminder that no matter our circumstances, no matter our past execution of the lofty ideals within, America was founded on the idea that our citizens have a right to their destinies.
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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 hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people 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, 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 we the people of the United States, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 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.
He has refused his consent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
[http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/06/09/Trump-on-Comey-accusation-I-didnt-say-that/8601497035953/]
He has forbidden his legislators to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his consent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trumps-legislative-agenda-slows-crawl-congress/]
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.
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.
He has dissolved the Freedom of the Press repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/journalists-barred-from-recording-white-house-press-briefing]
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to acknowledge attacks to our right for self governance by a hostile foreign power, […] the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
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.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769]
He has obstructed the Department of Justice by refusing his consent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Investigative Independence.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html?mcubz=0]
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 combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his consent to their Acts by pretended ignorance of its occurrence:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections]
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/15/donald-trump-police-need-better-protection/]
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
[http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/philando-castile-trial-verdict/index.html]
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/us/politics/nafta-renegotiation-trump.html?mcubz=0]
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us […]
[http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/02/23/donald-trump-nevada-rally-ted-cruz-is-sick-sot.cnn]
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 Politician, 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 Elected Representation. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend these intolerable failings upon us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our Constitutional rights and established decorums 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 51% of Americans who disapprove of the agenda of the President of the United States, and of his party, Assemble to appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the founding documents of these United States, solemnly publish and declare, That we reserve the right to review our consent of governance. That as a nation of free people, do in the spirit of our nation’s founding, reassert our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and do hereby declare a statement of no-confidence in our appointed government to achieve those means.
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