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(I did this ten years ago under Bush/Cheney)
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 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, 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. 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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:
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 benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
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.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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. 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. 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.
My thoughts precisely.
Agree, time to resist.
Power to the people
Resist the Tyrannical Monarchy!!
Happy 4th
And as Moore said on Colbert
Revolution
Fiction- the whole line of crap. USA just another failed idea, propaganda strong in the followers. They line up to die for the rich people on the hill and call it glory. Fools the lot of them.
Well you know the whole thing began with the silly phrase
“All men are created equal”
They forgot the – “NOT”
And we just worked with it like the guy that came up with the idea to throw a ball and hit it with a bat then run. Hey it was a start.
We need to work it and never forget this form of government is a concept and needs constant attention or it will be lost.
Or as Churchill said,
“The worst form of government ever devised… except for all the others.”
The Founders were undoubtedly writing about “transcendent” ideas that were meant to apply to people like themselves – wealthy, half slave-owning, property owners and merchants. They were in no way meant to be universal and nobody with any common sense could conclude the signatories concept of equality was “eternal.”
I always get a kick out of the “Thomas Jefferson discovered hitherto undiscovered ‘eternal truths'” like he was Moses coming down from the mountain or something.
And the “strict Consitutionalists” are also an interesting breed of anti-intellectuals, wanting to look away from 17 post ratification Amendments, one of which abnegated another.
I still love this country, because I think of the Founding Fathers as having put into motion a structure that could always keep evolving and improving. And I think of the American Revolution as always ongoing.
It can be seen as an evident exercise in philosophical, pragmatic development without resort to supernatural gusts of spirit gas.
“The Founders were undoubtedly writing about “transcendent” ideas that were meant to apply to people like themselves”
Actually, I think they were just making an argument, largely designed to appeal to other people – most of whom would not be as elite as the signatories themselves, but whom they needed to convince in order to get them to put their lives, property, and prospects on the line.
“[I]t is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security” is no transcendent ideal, but a very specifically a call to action. Even slaveowners realized they needed help from all-comers for the fight ahead. Jefferson offered no ‘unknown truths,’ so much as a series of ‘unproven premises’ – will THIS set of truths serve to unite farmers and merchants for the fight? It worked fairly well indeed.
One could make the argument that Jefferson’s lofty rhetoric of revolution was abandoned by the men who wrote the Constitution – the ones who refused abolition but who wanted slaves to count as 3/5 of a white person for purposes of Federal representation Charles Beard did exactly that.
I never really bought the “Second Revolution” theory wherein the paper wealth replaces land wealth in the creators of the Republic.
But Jefferson’s deployment of the language of Enlightenment philosophy was not intended to sway ordinary Americans, people a good percentage of whom were barely literate. As he wrote himself: it was written with a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” The Declaration was written to announce the Revolution’s causes in the courts of Europe and particularly in the press of London and Paris.
Concur in part, dissent in part.
“The Declaration was written to announce the Revolution’s causes in the courts of Europe and particularly in the press of London and Paris.”
Concur – the signatories wanted to send a message that was interesting, novel, and distinctive to France, London (and the Netherlands in particular).
However, every semi-literate farmer or tradesman had literate neighbors, church elders, community leaders – they drank beer (which was usually safer to drink than water) and assembled broadly to spread and discuss the Declaration. While the courts of elites were one intended audience, the primary was always these American communities, with a hope of drawing them to support the Revolution…
https://declaration.fas.harvard.edu/resources/when-how
…of course, the horrific shortages at Valley Forge and other slow responses suggest support was frequently less than forthcoming, despite the flowery wording. Plenty of Americans, even then, dreaded the prospect that ‘oppressive’ British taxes might be replaced by oppressive American ones – and preferred just to be left alone – probably a much larger number than the 25% or so of Americans who actively sided with British oppressors. Oddly, American turnout in elections suggests that these factions remain, in one form or another even today…
We certainly do have our Tories in the OC, in both Parties.
Tories in both parties.
Yes, if Wordsmith were around in 1776 he would undoubtedly be with the Tories writing turgid essays on the “self-evident” Right of Kings as an eternal principle.
And the Business Democrats would be toadying up to the local British garrison commanders looking to sell something. Jobs, jobs jobs.
OK, yes we need to step up….little doubt. “Drain the Swamp”? NO, it goes much deeper than that. The fix has to be much bigger than that. We have never in our lifetime seen so many corrupt Cabinet appointees. The Supreme Court will now be worse. What we need to do is: Flush and then Flush again! “We need to use a Plunger on the Toilet they call Washington D.C.” We need to work hard in November and “Just Win Baby!”. We need to remove most of the Republicans that have sold out to The Trumpster! We do need a new birth of freedom, so that the people of the United States shall not perish from this earth! We sadly cannot understand why or how The Trumpster has hypnotized the so-called Base with ethnic, bigoted, anti-immigrant, anti-regulation which protects us all…….and of course…having to put up with his various vulgarities and repulsive looks and behavior. But hey…..we lived through Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, LBJ, GHW Bush and Harry Truman….so we suppose there is still a chance for our great Republic. Slim…but a chance!