I keep reading the Declaration over and over, and I wanted to share some passages from it and share my thoughts on it and how it's motivating me.
More below....
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.
Our current government is denying these rights to people we capture when we make war. Our current government is denying these rights to our own citizens. Our current government is denying these rights to legal residents of the United States. Our current government is torturing people. Our current government is detaining them indefinitely.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
The sole purpose of our government should be to secure and defend these rights for us.
Not protect us from a few Pakistani shitheads who want to take cowardly potshots. Not sell our ports and our security to foreign countries. Not make a shit ton of money for their buddies off oil and gas prices.
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.
It is clear that our current Form of Government has met the criteria listed here. Our current government from the elected officials in the House and the Senate, to elected officals and appointees in the executive branch, to a number of judges and wannabe judges, are no longer interested in securing and protecting our rights.
They are pissing our rights away and they are squandering them.
it is time to abolish our current government. I do not mean we should get rid of it and start with a clean slate, but it's time to throw the bums out.
It's time to vote other people in, other people we think will give us a chance to turn this train wreck around.
November 7th is our last best hope to do this. It may be our only hope to do this.
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.
Don't just vote for someone because they has a (D) after their name or KOS says they're cool.
Don't vote for an incumbent just because they have a (D) after their name (christ, I'd still be stuck with that jerk Lieberman as my senator)
Find out who they are. Find out what they believe. Find out what they say they'll do. Find out if they will take this country in the direction you believe we need to go in.
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.
We're at this poit. Thetrain of abuses is unbelievable and it stretches from everything to molesting children, sexual harrassment, stealing, rigging elections, forcing particular religious views on us, oppression of women, oppression of minorities, oppression of immigrants, oppression of dissent...we're at the point
where the choices we have are so stark, we either toss these bums out on thier asses on Nov. 7 or I really believe we will be stuck living by their rules for the rest of our lives.
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.
We've put up with this shit for the last five years. We've hoped and sometimes prayed and often believed it just couldn't get any worse.
Well guess what, kids, it hasn't stopped getting worse and it's not going to stop getting worse until we draw the line in the sand when we vote and make our voices heard.
Keeping our powder dry, indeed.
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.
OK...so President dumbass is not the King of Great Britian. But he definitely shares some things in common with the King of Great Britian.
His constant arrogance...his constant usurpation of our power...his constant abuse of the trust we've put in him...they have all served toward one end, and that's the subjugation of the American destiny toward the perverse ends of himself and his cronies.
I could talk about the Facts, but you guys all know them already.
I could talk about the individual offenses that George W Bush and his administration have made, but you all know about them already.
And nothing is going to stop the avalanche of truth that's starting to pour out now.
So here's the question.
What are we gonna do about it?
In my mind, it's crystal clear to me that we can beat our chests and holler for resignation after resignation, we can gnash our teeth and rail about scandal after scandal and lie after lie...and that's right and we should do it, but the real line in the sand is drawn on November 7th. Not just in how we vote, but whether we persuade others to do so as well.
Get people involved. Go get someone registered to vote. You gotta know one person who's not registered. Offer to take people to vote. Offer them a ride. Get one person or two people or five people you know are not gonna vote to go on Nov. 7th.
Make plans to all go vote together and then go out for dinner or something.
Encourage each other. Go out and canvass and just remind people to vote. Take voter registration cards with you. Leave them with people. Let them know where their local polling place is.
I hate to sound alarmist but this really is our last chance.
On November 8th, if we haven't siezed our own destiny, it's not in our reach any more.
I wrote yesterday in a comment that I keep thinking about how George W Bush stood on the rubble after Sept 11 and said "Pretty soon, the people that knocked these buildings down are gonna hear us all".
I keep thinking and hoping that on November 7th, the people who have knocked our greatness down are gonna hear us all.
Cross-posted on Progressive Historians