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scarfman and his posting of the Declaration of Independence; I want to focus on the part most people leave out of recitals, but which DEFINITELY should be recalled today. - Kris)
". . . 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.1
"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 distand 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 endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.2
"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice,3 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.4
"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislature.5
"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.6
"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:
"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 and 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 Bretheren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.11
"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.12
"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. . . ."
Despite my nickname for Dubya- "King George the Third"- things are nothing near as bad now as they were then, at least not by the list of grievances the Founders used to justify their rebellion. Still, it's worth noting how much as changed, how much has come back, and how much is in parallel...
(1) - Presidential signing documents. Bush has written nearly 800 of them in response to legislation, most of them boiling down to, "I don't have to obey or enforce this law if I don't want to."
(2) - Oh, how very much things have changed in America...
(3) - Military tribunals, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus for "enemy combatants," disregard of the Geneva Conventions, the USA-PATRIOT Act.
(4) - Growth of the Federal government and its bureaucracy is approaching 30% under Bush, as opposed to only 7% under Clinton.
(5) - It's been a very long time indeed since we HAVEN'T had a standing army- with the Congress' consent and cooperation.
(6) - Military investigations into Abu Gharaib and other atrocities are limited to low-ranking noncoms or privates; investigations into higher levels are ruthlessly blocked by Bush, Rumsfeld and their aides. Access to Guantanamo and other detention facilities, despite court orders, is impossible for investigators to get.
(7) - See (6).
(8) - Military tribunals again, plus warrantless domestic espionage, USA-PATRIOT, and claims that the President has the power to strip any person of American citizenship on his own authority.
(9) - Rendition to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and black ops CIA bases in eastern Europe for torture, kangaroo courts, and probable execution.
(10) - USA-PATRIOT; warrantless spying on domestic phone calls and bank accounts; virtual demolition of the Freedom of Information Act; denial of the power of any authority to act as a check on executive power or to investigate executive activities.
(11) - Bush isn't at war against the people of the USA, no. However, he HAS conscripted thousands of people who had fulfilled their service to their country as soldiers and officers, who owed no further service, on the grounds that their skills were indispensable to the war effort. He did this without any authorization of Congress and without any legal authority. He has also held soldiers in service indefinitely whose enlistments have expired as part of the "stop-loss" program to prevent the disintegration of the Army.
(12) - Yep, it sure was. They learned that method of war from the Pilgrims.
scarfman and his posting of the Declaration of Independence; I want to focus on the part most people leave out of recitals, but which DEFINITELY should be recalled today. - Kris)". . . 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.1
"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 distand 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 endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.2
"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice,3 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.4
"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislature.5
"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.6
"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 punishments for any Murders which they should commit7 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 benefits of Trial by Jury;8
"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses; 9
"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 taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government;10
"For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatever.
"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 and 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 Bretheren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.11
"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.12
"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. . . ."
Despite my nickname for Dubya- "King George the Third"- things are nothing near as bad now as they were then, at least not by the list of grievances the Founders used to justify their rebellion. Still, it's worth noting how much as changed, how much has come back, and how much is in parallel...
(1) - Presidential signing documents. Bush has written nearly 800 of them in response to legislation, most of them boiling down to, "I don't have to obey or enforce this law if I don't want to."
(2) - Oh, how very much things have changed in America...
(3) - Military tribunals, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus for "enemy combatants," disregard of the Geneva Conventions, the USA-PATRIOT Act.
(4) - Growth of the Federal government and its bureaucracy is approaching 30% under Bush, as opposed to only 7% under Clinton.
(5) - It's been a very long time indeed since we HAVEN'T had a standing army- with the Congress' consent and cooperation.
(6) - Military investigations into Abu Gharaib and other atrocities are limited to low-ranking noncoms or privates; investigations into higher levels are ruthlessly blocked by Bush, Rumsfeld and their aides. Access to Guantanamo and other detention facilities, despite court orders, is impossible for investigators to get.
(7) - See (6).
(8) - Military tribunals again, plus warrantless domestic espionage, USA-PATRIOT, and claims that the President has the power to strip any person of American citizenship on his own authority.
(9) - Rendition to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and black ops CIA bases in eastern Europe for torture, kangaroo courts, and probable execution.
(10) - USA-PATRIOT; warrantless spying on domestic phone calls and bank accounts; virtual demolition of the Freedom of Information Act; denial of the power of any authority to act as a check on executive power or to investigate executive activities.
(11) - Bush isn't at war against the people of the USA, no. However, he HAS conscripted thousands of people who had fulfilled their service to their country as soldiers and officers, who owed no further service, on the grounds that their skills were indispensable to the war effort. He did this without any authorization of Congress and without any legal authority. He has also held soldiers in service indefinitely whose enlistments have expired as part of the "stop-loss" program to prevent the disintegration of the Army.
(12) - Yep, it sure was. They learned that method of war from the Pilgrims.
