Some thoughts on the 230th birthday of Our Country
Every year, NPR has some of their people read passages from the Declaration of Independence, which then gets mixed into a montage. Throw in some dramatic music and it's really kind of cool. This year, I swiped it by copying it from Windows Media Player into Audacity.
As I was doing this, the text of the DoI made me think about that in light of the current political situation here in the Good 'Ol US of A. Most of you know that I am fairly liberal in my political leanings and as far as I'm concerned, Bush has a special place in hell waiting for him. But juxtaposing the current situation against the DoI makes me think the Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves at what their brainchild has become.
What follows is the text of the DoI along with some commentary. You are not only free to disagree, but the debate is welcome.
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.
No argument from me here.
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.
Bush presumably believes in a Creator; he bangs that drum constantly. Obviously, he disagrees with the concepts of Life (witness his record as Governor of Texas and his jokes about Karla Fay Tucker and the 15 minutes he gave to each capital case that crossed his desk), Liberty (just ask the people currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay without trial or counsel), or the pursuit of Happiness (his opposition to stem-cell research on purely religious-pandering grounds is depriving many millions of Americans of their happiness by putting a cell before a living, breathing human being who wants a shot at a normal life).
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Or the "signing statements" which he thinks give him the right to ignore what he doesn't agree with or what he doesn't want to enforce. Or the military tribunals which, fortunately, got slapped down by the Supreme Court.
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
Vote the bastards out in '06 and '08. You've got the ballot, USE 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.
I repeat: VOTE! Complaining doesn't accomplish anything if your vote doesn't back it up.
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 don't know is sometimes better than the devil you do know. It's too dangerous right now to let apathy take over.
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. (emphasis mine)
The Founding Fathers and subsequent generations made sure we have the tools at our disposal to do that. We can vote our consciences and speak out without fear of arrest. Unless we're tied, however tenuously, to an organization that the government thinks is related somehow to terrorism. Then all bets are off.
--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 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 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.
Okay. This paragraph, not so much. As of December, 2005, Bush has refused his assent to exactly zero laws Congress has passed. In fact, thanks to the aforementioned "signing statements" and other Executive-branch "national security" programs, he's had a hand in legislation that doesn't belong there.
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.
Hm. I don't know about Representation in the Legislature, but it looks like the people of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were deprived of the right to vote.
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 Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
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.
These two don't apply. It's hard to dissolve a legislature when they're in full agreement with you, and when they operate by inertia.
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.
Hmmm... immigration debate, anyone?
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. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
Wow. This is a biggie. It seems like the Founding Fathers were foretelling the existence of the Department of Homeland Security, whose job it is to peek under our collective (and individual) bed for the bogeyman. To do this, they inspect our telephone records, financial records, and personal belongings including personal communications, whether they have a court's permission or not.
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.
Ask a Guardsman how he feels about rotating from Iraq to Afghanistan to hurricane zones to border patrol. For that matter, just think of the servicemen who stand accused of committing murders and rapes while stationed in Iraq. But it's okay. They're doing their jobs. Oh, and torture is OK because the Geneva Convention is "quaint". (Memo from Alberto Gonzales, 2002) I guess things are different when their skin is brown.
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:
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 Iraq:
Nothing more needs to be said.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
So much for the FISA courts and the poor schmucks at Gitmo. And thanks for imposing future taxes when the bills for Bush's tax cuts and the Iraq war debt come due.
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:
Sucks to be Canada.
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.
Maybe not all cases, but where it counts.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
This definitely applies to Iraq. How's that new puppet government working out?
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.
See above. If their skin is brown, then a new paradigm is involved, so torture is okay. Gotcha.
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.
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. 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.
Right. Unless the Indians had the good fortune to be able to afford Jack Abramoff's services.
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 Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
Nah, we're too chicken to warn anyone about anything.
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.
A-bloody-men!
Let's not piss on the graves of the people who fought and risked their lives so we could live freely. Speak out and VOTE.
As I was doing this, the text of the DoI made me think about that in light of the current political situation here in the Good 'Ol US of A. Most of you know that I am fairly liberal in my political leanings and as far as I'm concerned, Bush has a special place in hell waiting for him. But juxtaposing the current situation against the DoI makes me think the Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves at what their brainchild has become.
What follows is the text of the DoI along with some commentary. You are not only free to disagree, but the debate is welcome.
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.
No argument from me here.
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.
Bush presumably believes in a Creator; he bangs that drum constantly. Obviously, he disagrees with the concepts of Life (witness his record as Governor of Texas and his jokes about Karla Fay Tucker and the 15 minutes he gave to each capital case that crossed his desk), Liberty (just ask the people currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay without trial or counsel), or the pursuit of Happiness (his opposition to stem-cell research on purely religious-pandering grounds is depriving many millions of Americans of their happiness by putting a cell before a living, breathing human being who wants a shot at a normal life).
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Or the "signing statements" which he thinks give him the right to ignore what he doesn't agree with or what he doesn't want to enforce. Or the military tribunals which, fortunately, got slapped down by the Supreme Court.
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
Vote the bastards out in '06 and '08. You've got the ballot, USE 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.
I repeat: VOTE! Complaining doesn't accomplish anything if your vote doesn't back it up.
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 don't know is sometimes better than the devil you do know. It's too dangerous right now to let apathy take over.
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. (emphasis mine)
The Founding Fathers and subsequent generations made sure we have the tools at our disposal to do that. We can vote our consciences and speak out without fear of arrest. Unless we're tied, however tenuously, to an organization that the government thinks is related somehow to terrorism. Then all bets are off.
--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 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 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.
Okay. This paragraph, not so much. As of December, 2005, Bush has refused his assent to exactly zero laws Congress has passed. In fact, thanks to the aforementioned "signing statements" and other Executive-branch "national security" programs, he's had a hand in legislation that doesn't belong there.
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.
Hm. I don't know about Representation in the Legislature, but it looks like the people of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 were deprived of the right to vote.
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 Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
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.
These two don't apply. It's hard to dissolve a legislature when they're in full agreement with you, and when they operate by inertia.
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.
Hmmm... immigration debate, anyone?
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. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
Wow. This is a biggie. It seems like the Founding Fathers were foretelling the existence of the Department of Homeland Security, whose job it is to peek under our collective (and individual) bed for the bogeyman. To do this, they inspect our telephone records, financial records, and personal belongings including personal communications, whether they have a court's permission or not.
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.
Ask a Guardsman how he feels about rotating from Iraq to Afghanistan to hurricane zones to border patrol. For that matter, just think of the servicemen who stand accused of committing murders and rapes while stationed in Iraq. But it's okay. They're doing their jobs. Oh, and torture is OK because the Geneva Convention is "quaint". (Memo from Alberto Gonzales, 2002) I guess things are different when their skin is brown.
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:
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 Iraq:
Nothing more needs to be said.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
So much for the FISA courts and the poor schmucks at Gitmo. And thanks for imposing future taxes when the bills for Bush's tax cuts and the Iraq war debt come due.
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:
Sucks to be Canada.
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.
Maybe not all cases, but where it counts.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
This definitely applies to Iraq. How's that new puppet government working out?
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.
See above. If their skin is brown, then a new paradigm is involved, so torture is okay. Gotcha.
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.
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. 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.
Right. Unless the Indians had the good fortune to be able to afford Jack Abramoff's services.
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 Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
Nah, we're too chicken to warn anyone about anything.
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.
A-bloody-men!
Let's not piss on the graves of the people who fought and risked their lives so we could live freely. Speak out and VOTE.