The past couple of weeks have confirmed what we've all suspected for some time: our democracy is under attack from within, and we’ve been suffering a declination of independence. This Independence Day, we should celebrate the courage and intelligence of those who made our independence possible and those who have sustained us to this day, but we must also commit to doing whatever we can to preserve it for future generations. That requires us to choose our words and deeds wisely, and chart a course carefully.
While we are still reeling from the incomprehensible rulings from the Supreme Court, revelations from the extreme right's Project 2025, Felonious Trump's incessant bald-face lies, President Biden's abysmal debate performance, and the cacophony of calls from nervous Democrats for President Biden's retirement, we cannot surrender or relent, nor should we cede any ground.
Until such time as President Biden decides to step aside, he is the de facto Democratic Party nominee. Forcing or publicly encouraging him to do so is both destructive and demoralizing. It also plays into the hands of those who would end democracy and hand the country to Felonious T to do with as he sees fit. As frightening as his residency [sic] from 2017-2021 was, emboldened by his hand-picked and bought and paid for Supreme Court majority’s unconscionable rulings, and guided by the now-unharnessed authors of Project 2025, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Democrats seem very shortsighted. While some would argue that sticking with President Biden is a myopic move, the fact of the matter is that they aren’t thinking clearly about the “What next?” Instead, they’re beating themselves silly and making the Party and the president look weak and in disarray. I have advocated giving the president a little time to restore the confidence of his supporters. He is obviously wounded at the moment, but the wounds of disloyalty and betrayal are far deeper than the wounds he inflicted upon himself during the debate. He will be making his case to the American people over the next several days, and we should listen carefully. We should also recognize that “it is difficult to be upbeat when you’re gettin’ beat up,” so we should expect a blend of humility and defiance, and judge him accordingly.
The task of preserving our democracy has gotten harder over the past couple of weeks, but the stakes have become much clearer. Either we can come together as a team and rally behind a president who demonstrates by his every action that he is president of all Americans, or we can allow the dark forces lurking beneath the so-called MAGA movement to march us over the edge into the abyss of authoritarianism. I say we should declare our independence and drive the MAGAlomaniacs from our shores.
p.s.
I’ve taken the undeserved and perhaps sacrilegious liberty of editing the original Declaration of Independence to reflect the current state of affairs. It’s admittedly amateurish and incomplete, but it made me read the original document and consider the conditions that drove our Founders to make such a bold move. The parallels with the current political climate are stark, and I didn’t need to change much to make it fit (more or less). It also made me appreciate the enormous task of forging such a document without the benefits of spell-check, digital editing, and file sharing. Consider it an early draft, but the timeliness of it demands(?) its release.
Below is a redline (actually crossouts and italicized additions/replacements) version so you can see what I changed (yet another benefit of technological hindsight). Please forgive any disjointedness or awkwardness as an attempt to avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good enough.
Enter at your own risk! Also, have a great and safe holiday weekend.
In CongressCongruous, July 4, 17762024
The unanimous anonymous Declaration of the thirteen fifty united States of America, 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 persons 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 MenPeople, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form Party of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolishabandon it, and to institute encourage a new GovernmentParty, 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 Parties 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 GovernmentParty, and to provide welcome new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of the majority of these ColoniesPeople; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their discount the former broken Systems of GovernmentParty. The history of the past and possible future President of the United States, Donald Trump, nominal head of the Republican Partypresent 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 Congressional enablers 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 Legislatureloyalty to anyone but him, 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, some of which he likely still possesses (e.g., Mar-a-Lago and Trump National Golf Course Bedminster), for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative’s careers 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 largefell to him 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 LandsFunds.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to acknowledge 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 and other innumerable and nonremunerable perquisites.
He has erected selected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept threatened to keep among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures for the purpose of quelling dissent.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior subordinate to the Civil his 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 giving quarter to large bodies of armed troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock Trialpromised pardons, 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 from which he cannot personally profit;
For imposing relieving Taxes on the richest among us without our Consent;
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of his own Trial by Jury;
For transporting threatening us beyond Seas any reason to be tried for pretended offences;
For abolishing the a woman’s freedom to choose how she creates her own family System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing imposing therein an Arbitrary government threshold on fetal viability, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule intosetting lower limits by these ColoniesStates;
For threatening to taketaking away our ChartersConstitution, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments;
For suspending upending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us his benefit in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring any among us who do not demonstrate fealty to him out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He and his actions and inactions havehas plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting encouraging 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 castigated our fellow Citizens who had the temerity taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms witness against their Countryhim, and coerced them to become the executioners betrayers 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 SavagesProud Boys, 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 souless maniac 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 Brittish Republican 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 majority and settlement rightful election 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 their kind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friendsenmity.
We, therefore, the Representatives People of the united States of America, in General CongressCongruence, Assembled or Otherwise, 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 States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British CrownDonald Trump and/or the Republican Party, and that all political connection between them him and the State of Great Britainpresidency, 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.
Thank you Bob, excellent, I agree with Dave & Martha - Brilliant! Well Done! . Hope you had a happy 4th, fireworks still ongoing here in CA, it’s about 10.30 pm. Sharing this article by history facts.com “John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe all died on July 4th.” It’s quite interesting, I thought.
Brilliant Bob.