Self-evident truths
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been a while since I’ve felt particularly patriotic. The passing of the administration’ sweeping domestic policy bill yesterday was like pouring acid in a gaping wound. All of which tends to make for an awkward Fourth of July.
I will never support depriving individuals of healthcare and food assistance or raising taxes on the poorest to cover tax cuts on the wealthy. I don’t want my energy bills to go up and really don’t believe that ICE should have more funding than many countries militaries. And all while our schools go under-funded and our citizens go hungry.
It is hard to fully express the helplessness I feel as I recognize what is happening to our country and the playbook our administration is following. I do believe that without action to stop it, we are watching the end of the American experiment. That left unchecked, this administration would happily create an authoritarian-style government led exclusively by wealthy, white men.
I know I’m not alone in my fear and frustration but was struggling with what I could possibly add to the discourse. There are certainly other individuals far better versed in our current events than me. But here I am with a platform, as small as it may be, and I can’t pretend that what we are experiencing is ok.
Inspired by the document that this holiday celebrates, I decided to go back and read the Declaration of Independence. We learn about it in school. We recite the words about self-evident truths and how all “men are created equal” – even though that wouldn’t be legally true until the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation (and even then…). But it’s been a long time since I sat in AP American History.
For those with memories as fuzzy as mine, the bulk of the declaration is actually a list of offenses that the King of England had committed against the thirteen colonies. While some of the offenses do not apply (yet?), others hit entirely too close to home. I decided to list them all here with hyperlinks to recent news articles that show our current administration committing similar offenses against the American people.
And with that, I hope your Forth is filled with the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, just as our founders intended.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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:
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:
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 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.
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. 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.”
-Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776
ID: Six children laying on their bellies in the grass looking up at fireworks in the sky above them.
