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#declarationofindependence

1 post1 participant0 posts today

Great discussion. I could listen to this exchange all day. In 7 short minutes Ken Burns and Ryan Holiday are like two skilled forensic detectives tracing back lines of essential American virtues and sins. Wonderful.

Jefferson had the vision of democracy but lacked the will to embody it. Washington was a rare "strong man" with the strength of character to relinquish his power.

#democracy #july4th #declarationofindependence

youtube.com/watch?v=EWdcDjzOgq

*Looks around at America*

So...what are your plans for the 4th of July?

I'm getting ready by sharing the Declaration of Independence. If people read it, they might get ideas.

archives.gov/founding-docs/dec

How many of these apply today?

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, 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 distant 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 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 Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, 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 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.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil 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 large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, 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:

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:

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 Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

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 & 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 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 Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

National Archives
National Archives · Declaration of Independence: A TranscriptionNote: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Mastodon Post

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.

Google AI modernized it and put it this way:

The Declaration of Independence states it is a people's duty to throw off a government that abuses its power and attempts to reduce them under absolute despotism. When a government continually violates the rights of the people and is clearly intent on exercising absolute control, it is both the right and the duty of the people to change or abolish that government and establish a new one to ensure their future security.

People in 1854, in the midst of forming the new Republican Party, stated, in their first widely-circulated document, the intention to "call on the People to come to the rescue of the country."

It may be a matter of personal opinion as to when this time will come, if it is not here already. It is starting to look as though it may not be a matter of opinion as to whether it will come.

: #declarationofindependence #democrats #uspol #uspolitics :

Replied in thread

@GottaLaff
History repeats.

‘They descended on Philadelphia from all over, determined to act against a king and his “establishment of absolute tyranny over these states.” Their long list of grievances included:
“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;
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;"


‘But actually these are quotes from the Thomas Jefferson-penned Declaration of Independence, reminding us of the tragic irony that America under President Donald Trump has, in many ways, become the kind of tyranny that citizens on this soil rebelled against in 1776.’

#DeclarationOfIndependence
#ThomasJefferson #HandsOff #USPol
#TRumpTheTyrant

March 18, 2025

#RachelMaddow reports on yet another bad day for #DonaldTrump as he was made to restore jobs his top campaign donor, #ElonMusk, had slashed, and was similarly made to restore #USAID, another victim of #Musk's #DOGE, and lastly, had his #AntiTrans military policy rejected and was given a lesson in the language of the #DeclarationOfIndependence for good measure.

youtube.com/watch?v=jO8V1iE82x

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Replied in thread

@VeroniqueB99
More examples of how #DonTheCon couldn't be more different from the other presidents on #MountRushmore:

Jefferson WROTE THE #DeclarationOfIndependence and fought (but lost) to include slaves as "equal".

Doubled the size of the US by PURCHASING the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon.

Cut the National Debt by 1/3.

Served as Secretary of State and VP before becoming president.

Supported public education (founding the University of Virginia.)