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So, yesterday National Public Radio live-tweeted their annual reading of the Declaration of Independence, causing some Trumpians to think it was an attack on their Glorious Leader.
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and decide that they were out sick with the mumps... all five or six years they would have had the Declaration of Independence in school.
Or, possibly, they didn't understand it, since the English used in the document is almost 250 years out of date, and moreover of a very posh and high-toned form which ordinary red-blooded Real Americans don't use.
With that in mind, here follows an interpretation of the Declaration of Independence into that parlance spoken by the inhabitants of America's trailer parks, in the native tongue of NASCAR, in words that Larry the Cable Guy and people who find him funny can easily understand.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Hey, y'all. This is the Congress of the Thirteen United States of America speakin'.
We're breakin' away from England, and we think it's only decent that we tell y'all why we're doin' it.
We think it's just dang obvious that everybody's born equal, with th' same God-given rights as anybody else to life, to liberty, and to try to find whatever makes you happy. Not everybody agrees, so people make governments to keep those other people from messin' with our rights. But sometimes government's more trouble than it's worth, and when that happens folks got th' right to tear it all down and start over. But that's hard work and it don't always go right, so most folks will put up with one hell of a lot before they say, "Screw it, anythin's better than this." But when ya got a king who wanst ta get all tyrannical, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, you know how it is?
That's where we're at now, us Colonies. Just look at all the stuff bad ol' Bug-Eyed George and his Parliament done did to us.
He won't let us pass the laws we need to keep us and our kids safe unless he signs off on 'em, an' when we send 'em to him, he never does nothin'. He says he'll start lettin' th' laws go through only if we give up our right to make our own laws, an' no honest king would be afraid'a that.
He keeps on movin' our government from place to place, jerkin' our chain an' wearin' us out, tryin' to get us to do what he wants. And that's when he ain't just goin' an' abolishin' our government entirely, leavin' us with no way to enforce the law or protect ourselves.
He keeps blockin' people from movin' here, and God knows we need all the people we can get to fill up this great big land.
He won't let us have our own courts and judges; he makes his own and makes sure they do what HE says instead'a what's right.
He hires his buddies as government workers who don't do anythin' 'cept cash their paychecks and sneer at us "provincials," and he makes us pay for it.
He's put his soldiers in our cities, even in our houses, when we don't want 'em, an' lets 'em do whatever they want, an' our cops and courts can't touch 'em.
He's set up Parliament in charge over us, when we never agreed to that and ain't never been run by them before, and he's signed off on all of THIS bad stuff they done: sent in more troops, put 'em above th' law, cut off business with th' rest of th' world, raised taxes when they ain't got th' right, took away our right to trial by jury, shipped our folks overseas to be tried in foreign' courts for made-up crimes, turned our next-door neighbor Canada into a dictatorship an' expanded its borders to surround us, abolished our governments, an' said they's gonna be our only government from now on- even though we got no voice at all with them.
Lessee, where was I? Oh, yeah, King George. As if all that other stuff wasn't bad enough, he's done declared war on us. He's burned our cities, sunk our ships, stole our stuff, raped and killed our women and children- well his soldiers, not HIM exactly, but he's responsible for it all so it might as well have been him.
He's hirin' foreign mercenaries to do his dirty work. He's takin' our sons an' brothers outta ships an' forcin' THEM to fight against us, and that just ain't right. He's even gettin' th' Indians and our own slaves to try to kill us, so that it ain't safe in our own homes.
Now, we tried to tell y'all this was goin' on, an' y'all didn't listen. I mean we have tried EVERYTHIN'. We told y'all about Parliament dickin' us over. We told y'all how we got here in th' first place. We asked y'all to mind th' law. We asked y'all to remember we was cousins. We asked y'all to do th' right thing, and you done ignored every last word we said.
Well, if y'all ain't gonna listen, then we're done talkin'. We are done with y'all, England. We're disownin' you. We gonna treat you jus' like any ordinary stranger on th' street, an' if you don't start none they won't be none.
An' all y'all who ain't England, listen up: from now on we're th' United States of America. We ain't part of England no more and ain't never gonna be again. We're a country, and we can do all th' stuff countries do. And if anybody got a problem with that, bring it on.
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and decide that they were out sick with the mumps... all five or six years they would have had the Declaration of Independence in school.
Or, possibly, they didn't understand it, since the English used in the document is almost 250 years out of date, and moreover of a very posh and high-toned form which ordinary red-blooded Real Americans don't use.
With that in mind, here follows an interpretation of the Declaration of Independence into that parlance spoken by the inhabitants of America's trailer parks, in the native tongue of NASCAR, in words that Larry the Cable Guy and people who find him funny can easily understand.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Hey, y'all. This is the Congress of the Thirteen United States of America speakin'.
We're breakin' away from England, and we think it's only decent that we tell y'all why we're doin' it.
We think it's just dang obvious that everybody's born equal, with th' same God-given rights as anybody else to life, to liberty, and to try to find whatever makes you happy. Not everybody agrees, so people make governments to keep those other people from messin' with our rights. But sometimes government's more trouble than it's worth, and when that happens folks got th' right to tear it all down and start over. But that's hard work and it don't always go right, so most folks will put up with one hell of a lot before they say, "Screw it, anythin's better than this." But when ya got a king who wanst ta get all tyrannical, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, you know how it is?
That's where we're at now, us Colonies. Just look at all the stuff bad ol' Bug-Eyed George and his Parliament done did to us.
He won't let us pass the laws we need to keep us and our kids safe unless he signs off on 'em, an' when we send 'em to him, he never does nothin'. He says he'll start lettin' th' laws go through only if we give up our right to make our own laws, an' no honest king would be afraid'a that.
He keeps on movin' our government from place to place, jerkin' our chain an' wearin' us out, tryin' to get us to do what he wants. And that's when he ain't just goin' an' abolishin' our government entirely, leavin' us with no way to enforce the law or protect ourselves.
He keeps blockin' people from movin' here, and God knows we need all the people we can get to fill up this great big land.
He won't let us have our own courts and judges; he makes his own and makes sure they do what HE says instead'a what's right.
He hires his buddies as government workers who don't do anythin' 'cept cash their paychecks and sneer at us "provincials," and he makes us pay for it.
He's put his soldiers in our cities, even in our houses, when we don't want 'em, an' lets 'em do whatever they want, an' our cops and courts can't touch 'em.
He's set up Parliament in charge over us, when we never agreed to that and ain't never been run by them before, and he's signed off on all of THIS bad stuff they done: sent in more troops, put 'em above th' law, cut off business with th' rest of th' world, raised taxes when they ain't got th' right, took away our right to trial by jury, shipped our folks overseas to be tried in foreign' courts for made-up crimes, turned our next-door neighbor Canada into a dictatorship an' expanded its borders to surround us, abolished our governments, an' said they's gonna be our only government from now on- even though we got no voice at all with them.
Lessee, where was I? Oh, yeah, King George. As if all that other stuff wasn't bad enough, he's done declared war on us. He's burned our cities, sunk our ships, stole our stuff, raped and killed our women and children- well his soldiers, not HIM exactly, but he's responsible for it all so it might as well have been him.
He's hirin' foreign mercenaries to do his dirty work. He's takin' our sons an' brothers outta ships an' forcin' THEM to fight against us, and that just ain't right. He's even gettin' th' Indians and our own slaves to try to kill us, so that it ain't safe in our own homes.
Now, we tried to tell y'all this was goin' on, an' y'all didn't listen. I mean we have tried EVERYTHIN'. We told y'all about Parliament dickin' us over. We told y'all how we got here in th' first place. We asked y'all to mind th' law. We asked y'all to remember we was cousins. We asked y'all to do th' right thing, and you done ignored every last word we said.
Well, if y'all ain't gonna listen, then we're done talkin'. We are done with y'all, England. We're disownin' you. We gonna treat you jus' like any ordinary stranger on th' street, an' if you don't start none they won't be none.
An' all y'all who ain't England, listen up: from now on we're th' United States of America. We ain't part of England no more and ain't never gonna be again. We're a country, and we can do all th' stuff countries do. And if anybody got a problem with that, bring it on.
