I'm all for replacing God from the lips of our leaders but only with something cooler like Thor.

It's a subversive document, if you ignore the fact that it leans on The Creator as the origin of all of its precepts, surely the least subversive perspective our founding fathers could have taken. And therein lies its weakness, as its power draws precisely from its viability as Gospel.

Gospel, as we know, is accepted or rejected depending on the appreciation or disregard of the ruling (religious) class. One need look no further than the Gospel of Thomas to see how religious interpretations are at the mercy of ideas that appear more compelling to the religious majority.

Until these founding documents are stripped of their religiousity, they will always exist as apocrypha. They will always exist as interpretations of the intentions of a higher authority, interpretations that may be incorrect. As is, powerful religious zealots, such as George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, are known to entertain private audiences with The Lord, and frequently emerge from these meetings with personal scriptural interpretations of their own, ones that frequently contradict those of our founding fathers. The truth is, this is fundamentally not problematic, given our existing legal framework, because how is what God tells Ashcroft different from what God told Jefferson or Franklin? The only way for our society to make unalienable our human rights is to remove God from the texts, and remove our rights from the context of The Scripture. Finally, we may remove God from the lips of our leaders.

Two words : Guantanamo Bay

(a lot more words on this at http://dannyayers.com/archives/001485.html)

Some of the words are hard to understand. This site 'splains everything. http://www.founding.com/declare/index.cfm

Edited by author 07-05-2003 06:20 AM
Being a student of history, I'm able to distinguish between, say, Nazi Germany and modern America. For some reason, much of the left isn't able to do this, and tends to imagine tyranny where there is none. This ignorance of history leads to bizarre associations where anything you dislike = fascism, with no real understanding of the frame of reference. q.v. "Bush = Hitler," "King George" et alia. 'Starting before then,' spouting off rhetoric as if you currently lived in a repressive totalitarian hellhole, only shows you for the paranoid loon you are.

I have read enough to see that any supposed infringement of rights happening today is nothing - utterly nothing - compared to the injustices that spurred on the American Revolution. Until you can prove any of the grievances in the Declaration apply today - and I mean seriously prove, not just "Rumsfeld plans to send every dissenter who won't Sig Heil to secret death camps" as an example of depriving the right of trial by jury. You take your rights for granted, and despite what you may think, no one has taken them away from you in your lifetime. You don't know how good you have it - which is probably not a bad thing; it means no real tyrant, no goose-stepper, no Islamofascist freakjob has yet been successful in their attempts to destroy or conquer America. Need more, Mr. Ignorant?

And, William, you may want to check your statistics - while Liberia did originate in that manner, the numbers I've seen say its population of American birth or descent was never greater than about 5%. Today, it's 2.5% "Americo-Liberians," with 2.5% of Carribean origin, and the other 95% indigenous tribal populations. The freedman population that established it as a country has had influence, sure - but not that much.

It was never an American colony in any meaningful sense. It never belonged to the 'mother country;' there was never responsibility for it or administration of it, as, for instance, Puerto Rico or the Phillipines. It is no more an American colony at the moment than Tanzania is a German colony, or the Congo a Belgian colony. It's an African country that like most African countries has been a dictatorship to a greater or lesser degree for quite some time, and its citizens see themselves as oppressed Africans, not opressed African-Americans.

>Bitch and moan all you like. Until...

So no one is allowed to try and fix it Until
it starts falling apart completely?

Pardon me, but I'll start before then,

>...You may not appreciate it, but freedom is your birthright nonetheless...

I appreciate it so much that I don't like anyone taking it away.

>...You have no clue what real tyranny is.

and you do? Tell us more, mr. condescending.

-milo

As press releases go, it is second only to the 10 Commandments.

Paul Denton writes:

Think about who Liberians have begged to save them from ruthless dictatorship - not the UN, not France, not Germany, but the US.

There is less to that than you seem to think. Liberia is a former United States colony, founded by the American Colonization Society in 1821 for the purpose of settling freed slaves back in Africa. The capital of the new country was called Monrovia in honor of President James Monroe, who held office at that time. The African-American immigrants have dominated the country ever since.

In the case of African countries that were formerly colonies of European countries, those countries have often taken a very active interest in their former colonies' affairs. The French are right now doing peacekeeping missions in Ivory Coast, a former colony, and the British recently intervened in Sierra Leone. Liberia has no friends in Europe to turn to. I hope we do something for them this time rather than let them fall apart, like George Bush Senior did when the civil war began in 1989.

"a decent respect to the opinions of mankind"

I love that bit. The anger and indignation comes later, in the list of grievances, but the introduction is masonic idealism manifested in print.

* * *

Lifted from Patrick Neilson Hayden's blog:

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
(James Madison)

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
(Benjamin Franklin)

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
(William Pitt)

"Today, all companies who live under regimes that don't let them do whatever they want, and all fundamentalist Christians who yearn to wage holy wars in the guise of freedom, place their hopes only in the United States of America."

--sean

*sits up straight for once, blinks back tears, solemnly hums national anthem*

"--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"

Are we there yet?

Edited by author 07-04-2003 01:45 PM

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.

Doh! We don't like to quote that bullet item anymore....who's got the white-out?

On that note, Bush's Independence Day speech is on.

"Today, all who live in tyranny, and all who yearn for freedom, place their hopes only in the United States of America."

Truth, I think. And it illustrates the power of the Declaration of Independence, as the blueprint for a society based upon liberty and personal freedom. You who would whine and complain about supposed wrongs done to evil men, who make specious allegations of despotism and conspiracy against the current administration, remember what the country stands for. Remember that acquiescing to the demands of foreign tyrants was precisely what the founding fathers refused. Think about who Liberians have begged to save them from ruthless dictatorship - not the UN, not France, not Germany, but the US.

Bitch and moan all you like. Until every federal and state bill is vetoed, Congress is called in random places across the country then subsequently dissolved, elections are cancelled, population growth is forbidden, martial law is imposed, troops are quartered in private homes, taxes are arbitrarily raised (say, didn't I hear something about a tax cut? No?), interstate commerce and movement is restricted, the judiciary is subverted to the executive, and German mercenaries are imported to keep the proles in line...you don't have a leg to stand on. You have no clue what real tyranny is.

To you, sirs, I say Happy Independence Day. You may not appreciate it, but freedom is your birthright nonetheless. For that we should all be thankful.

Yow!
Click on the link to get the full list of complaints. It's
impressive. I wish our current King George were more mindful of it in his madness.

Beautiful. Absolutely brilliant reading for the Fourth of July.

Thank you!.

Nice to see some love for that old Christian-infused document.

Nice document, but I'm waiting for the musical version. Oh, wait...

This nation has come a long way from its origins, 227 years ago today, when our rights were being violated by an unelected, mentally deficient, hereditary dictator named George.

Fly your flags proudly!

I wish you had posted the rest. About 50% of the list of complaints against the King could be levied against our current government.

"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...
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures...
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us...
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..."

I love the ideals this country was founded on, and wish they were lived up to more often.

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, 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 are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, 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 guys.