“I have nothing to declare, my dear man, except my genius!” – Babylon 5
Best breakup letter. Ever.
Despite the common opinion that Thomas Jefferson was a hockey player for the Saskatchewan hockey team, “Saskatoon Blades®” (who was remembered for scoring three hat tricks in one season against the “Prince Albert Raiders™” in 1986) there was another Thomas Jefferson that history also remembers.
This Thomas Jefferson was an author, a president of the United States, a founder of a university, and wrote a really great mandolin solo, which has sadly been ignored since the invention of the guitar. Sadly, this Thomas Jefferson was wholly unable to play hockey at all, probably because he couldn’t skate any better than my kid sister.
Regardless, Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he also wrote a document that has been long remarked upon and probably contains some of the most famous sentences in the English language: The Declaration of Independence. In a little bit of history, John Adams had to get Jefferson drunk to convince him to write it because Jefferson was a bit nervous (this is actually true). I’m sure that the next morning, Jefferson said, “I agreed to do what?”
I’m with you, Thomas.
Your eyes aren’t real – they’re just in your head.
About 25% of the original draft was deleted in editing. Apparently, Jefferson had gotten carried away and ended up writing several paragraphs about how he loved potatoes. The committee wasn’t pleased. They didn’t like the part where Jefferson waxed poetically about the way they made his chest glisten when they rubbed the buttery mashed potatoes into it.
In the end, Jefferson decided to hit the print button on the sheep the parchment came from, and the document went out.
A girl: “Hey, Stalin, come over tonight, my parents aren’t home.” Stalin replied, “I know.”
It was not at all in small print, like a car lease at a Mercedes® dealership. The Declaration was meant to be read – a copy of it was sent to King George III, though a bunch of sales fliers for hardware stores and Target® were also included, so George might have thrown it out thinking it was all just junk mail again.
The principles of the Declaration were in common discussion at the time in America, so Jefferson wasn’t making stuff up. Likewise, the people who got the Declaration understood what it meant: times were going to get spicy.
It’s been a while since I’ve read the Declaration, so I thought I’d review it. It’s good stuff, so I thought I’d share it.
For no reason. No reason at all.
The downside is that Jefferson didn’t have a good word processor, and that he didn’t have PowerPoint®. If so, he could have had it down to a dozen slides or so. I’ve made a few changes by adding bullet points and capitalizing the word “Earth”. If Boston is capitalized, Earth should be, too.
Stupid Jefferson.
I trained my dog to smell out fruit, but he doesn’t like doing that. He’s a melon collie.
Regardless, here it is:
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 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 Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 rest of the Declaration of Independence is an indictment – a listing of reasons why the Declaration had to be written, a “we told you so” section, and the “it’s not me, it’s you” breakup section. There was another section about how Jefferson would really, really, miss Great Britain and keep the big stuffed teddy bear they won him at the arcade, but the committee told him to “not be a wuss” and leave that out.
You never want to reach the end of the Y-axis on a plane.
In reality, when I re-read the Declaration, I was amazed at how, pardon me, revolutionary it was. The United States wasn’t founded by guys doing it “just because” – it was founded by guys who really thought about it, and who couldn’t check up on the Internet and find out about how Cardi B was upset about her hair care products.
They had time to think deeply through these issues. And they came up with this list.
To be clear, I love America. Thomas Jefferson, in 1775 said that he would: “rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon Earth, or than on no nation.” Jefferson loved Great Britain, dearly.
The thing that I came away with is these men cared deeply about those around them. But there was a limit to what they would take. That limit was simple: the idea that they couldn’t take part in any fashion in the determination of what happened to their State simply wasn’t acceptable.
- They demanded laws, laws that weren’t arbitrary and capricious. They demanded courts that were free of bias. How are we doing now? We have courts that turn a “thou shalt not” into a “thou shalt” within a half of a dozen decisions.
- They also demanded that their fate not be judged by bureaucrats who were beholden to government, but only be judged by a jury of their peers. How are we doing now? Administrative law puts people at risk of life and property and doesn’t allow jury trials.
- They demanded to be protected by those who would invade the country. How are we doing now? Fine, as long as a complete disregard for our laws is okay with you.
- TL:DR, also a bunch of other stuff.
The Federal government of the United States has crept up in size and power. The charter of the Federal government is (if you actually read the Constitution) very small.
- Foreign policy.
- Make naturalization laws.
- Run part of (not the full part, just part of) the military.
- Make sure there are independent Federal courts.
- Making sure that free commerce could happen between the States.
- Regulate commerce with foreigners.
- Borrow money and collect taxes for the stuff they do.
- Own the post office.
- Make war and all the stuff that goes with making war.
- Coin money and stop counterfeiters.
Anything in there about making sure toilets don’t use too much water? No. Anything in there about regulating what fuels your car uses? That your car must have an airbag? That the toothpaste you use meet FDA standards? That you pay someone a minimum wage?
Nope. Not in there at all.
Hmm. Does this sound like a long chain of usurpations? I could probably think of a few other things. You could, too.
Remember, if you start a revolution, aim for the tsars!
What is the last straw? Is it a tax on tea?
Or is it an election that may have been stolen?
So, think about what the future may hold. Don’t be Wayne Regretzky.
In one sense, the dismissal of the Texas suit by SCOTUS is a declaration of independence – your State can run its elections any way it wants, including unconstitutionally, independent of any considerations of how your actions affect the citizens of other States. All in all, not a bad fig leaf to use in avoiding making a ruling that would cause the country to boil over. So the simmering continues.
The problem to me is that it is impossible to be independent from 70+ million people who (often literally as well as figuratively) live just next door. This time around there is no Atlantic Ocean or Mason Dixon Line to be the buffer enforcing independence even if it were declared. Everybody gotta go to the same WalMart and Target for access to the life-giving cardboard boxes, at least until BLM loots it and Antifa burns it to the ground.
The eventual alternative is reeducation camps and mass graves. As far as I’m concerned, the former has already begun. The ongoing MSM Party Line is now There Was No (Significant) Election Fraud. Any dissenter is ridiculed and any attempt to show dissenting facts or analysis summarily dismissed.
Jefferson was lucky. Back then, he got to take a stab at writing immortal lines, then bear arms to back them up and take a stand to say it was over. Today, we mortals with no say get to stand in line to take a stab in our bare arms, then come back to do it over.
Ironically, on Monday SCOTUS told Kansas that they’re not allowed to demand proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.
Wow – missed that. So Kansas can’t choose its own manner of election???
SCOTUS: “Turning thou shalt into thou shalt not for 220 years.”
If it helps, the Tories lived right next door to the would-be USAians.
I think having Britain’s allies and foes across the Pond, as well as multiple escape hatches: The West, Canada, etc. were more to the point. Not to mention a completely different mix of people.
Either way, it’s going to be quite different!
What a bunch of heroes – Jefferson was only in his early 30’s. And they came from a population of only 2.5 million people – that’s all there were in the colonies at that point.
Where is our Washington?
Who to send any modern Declaration of Independence to:
https://gen.medium.com/tagged/how-i-got-radicalized
And tell ’em to get off your lawn, too – all 96K Followers. See the ending of Gran Torino for a preview of how that’s gonna go.
Wow. You know, she could go to Vietnam anytime she wanted to and live in that paradise?
John – – Here is the original passage condemning slavery that Jefferson wrote to be included in the Declaration. This is from “blackpast.com”. And these idiots want to attack Jefferson?
When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson’s passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George’s incitement of “domestic insurrections among us.”
Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson’s original passage on slavery appears below:
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
Perhaps, if our schools actually taught history as it was, instead of the way the DemonicRats want all to perceive it, we would have a more inclusive, civil, and unified society……..
Whoa! The relevant passage quoted here, and some of the surrounding explanation, needs to be copied and re-posted in a thousand places. And we can note that a movement against slavery was already bulding in Great Britain, motivated by sincere Christians. Nowhere else on earth, except in Europe and its colonies, has there ever been a movement against slavery per se, against slavery for all human beings.
Well said – both you and Mr. Jefferson . . . .
What always strikes me about the declaration is how relatively trivial their grievances were compared to ours but also that we find ourselves in a similar situation. We are back to taxation without representation. Sure we are allowed to have token Congressmen and in states like mine a couple of Senators but the actual power is unaccountable to the people like us who make this country work. We are required to fund a government that works at odds with our wellbeing and that takes those funds and distributes them to people who hate us.
Perhaps we will see some serious talk about dissolving the Union before it is too late but I doubt it.
We live in consequental times. I don’t think it will be boring . . . .
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Consent? Ha ha ha ha ha! Taxation Without Representation is fine if we do it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
The charter of the Federal government is (if you actually read the Constitution) very small.
Small? Why do you want to subjugate yourself to an organization which can tax, get into debt, raise armies, make war, block free trade in labor, counterfeit money, and rule on its own disputes?
The Federal government of the United States has crept up in size and power.
Nope, all of that power was claimed right there in the beginning; it just grew big enough to exercise it.
We read (and in my case re-read) the so-called Anti-Federalist (and was not that name change a neat switch) papers this year for school.
Brutus was right.
So I came late to the party, but the Daughter Product got the straight story from the get go.
Go and do likewise with the young un’s for which you are responsible. God willing we may save our Republic, but even if not we’ll need a generation who knows the score to revive it.
Well, not really. There’s a reason it took a Constitutional Amendment to make booze illlegal, but now the FedGov feels that they can make certain sizes of toilets illegal. It has crept.
Fact Check: We rate all the above claims to be both TRUE and HILARIOUS.
tl;dr:
NO TRUMP, NO JUSTICE!
NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!
There’s a post coming up that discusses this, if I can get the words right.
America is dead.
Trump made a grand effort to save her, but his efforts came too late and lacked the backing of far too many cowards and grifters on the Right to ever have a real chance of saving the Republic.
The sound you hear is not just Biden mauling another teleprompted word, it’s the Death Rattle of our nation.
In truth, even a second term for Trump would only have postponed the inevitable. We’ve (collectively) become indolent, intellectually vacuous, and saturated in excess. The heinous age that has come calling is our just desserts.
I wish I could summon some optimism, but all I can see is a future dominated by super rich authoritarian plunderers and perverts, pecking at the carcass of a once great nation like vultures gorging on food they didn’t grow, seizing treasure they did not earn, and destroying lives because… they can.
Maybe I need to get drunk off my Axis as well.
It’s interesting, because a strongman always realizes (at some point) that he has an army, so he cand take over the wealthy. It always leads to Stalin – through bloodshed.
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Ha! It’s Hole Foods for me!