(no subject)
Last night, I got pissy about the whole government shutdown and Tea Party thing.
So I re-wrote the Declaration of Independence for the modern day, for your viewing pleasure.
IN CONGRESS, October 4, 2013.
The Declaration of the Citizens of the United States of America on the Tea Party and the recent governmental shut down . . .
When in the course of American History, it becomes necessary for the American people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a minority faction of one political party, and to assume as their Founding Fathers wished, the separation of church and state to which the Laws and Amendments thereof guarantee them, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation from this political group.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all Americans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain human rights, that among these are Life and its caretaking; Liberty of thought, religion, speech and person; and the pursuit of Happiness without judgment of color, creed, sexual orientation, or any other identifying factor. That to secure these rights, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were created these eleven score and seventeen years ago, to create in turn our government, voted in by the consent of the governed.
Yet our government, hijacked by a minority of a political Party, has become destructive of these ends. Therefore, it is the right of the American citizens to alter or to abolish that minority, voting it out of office, prosecuting it for its crimes against our government and our people, and to reiterate the proper way of governing taught in Civics classes across the nation, one based on the two founding documents of the nation. We shall lay its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a way as to seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness as a Country and as Citizens.
While logic and critical reasoning will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, experience has shown that our fellow citizens are more disposed to suffer in disbelief while evils are committed in the name of twisted conservatism that is nothing of the sort. Perhaps this is because we are too unsure about how to alter or abolish the forms to which we are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations by this minority, who invariably pursue the same obsessive goal, seems to show a marked lack of concern for the American People? Well then it is their right, even their duty, to throw off such governing, and to provide new guardians for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of the Citizens of the United States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former system of government. The history of the Tea Party sub-group of the Republican Party 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:
They have refused their assent to Laws, such as the passage of the ACA, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good and vetted by both chambers of Congress, signed by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court.
They have forbidden their members to pass Legislation of immediate and pressing importance, such as the Continuing Resolution, unless suspended in their operation till their assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they has utterly neglected to attend to them.
They have gerrymandered and re-draw their districts to their satisfaction, forcing American citizens to relinquish the right of proper representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to those Americans and formidable to tyrants only.
They have refused to call together their legislative body of the House at the usual place to vote on clean and favored legislation critical to the operation of the country, causing distress and anguish to the citizenry of American and other governmental officials for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures.
They have threatened to shut down the government repeatedly and have recently accomplished this, for opposing their wishes in imposing on the rights of the American citizenry.
They have refused to negotiate in full faith to end the shutdown crisis, crippling the Legislative powers, depriving government workers of their livelihoods, causing the United States to become an object of ridicule not only within their border but without and exposing the nation to dangerous instability by their acts that could be construed as domestic and economic attacks on the United States itself.
They have endeavored to prevent the citizens of this country from working on the problems of immigrant reform, thereby preventing the influx of new people and ideas into our country, forgetting our history and that our country is a nation built by immigrants who became citizens.
They have obstructed the administration of the law and of justice, by refusing to acknowledge the law of the land and the Supreme Courts’ upholding of those laws, such as with the ACA
They have made the governmental workers of the United States dependent on their will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the payment of their salaries.
They have erected a multitude of restrictions on our female citizenry, and effected swarms of restrictive laws to harass women and control their lives and reproductive capacity, according to their narrow political and religious worldview, a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, as well as the Liberty clause of the Declaration of Independence.
They have kept the military of our nation at war for long years, without justification or proper care or compensation, and fought against those both within and not in their Party who sought ends to these wars.
They have used the deaths of our ambassadors and our embassy staff for political gain and misdirection, all the while refusing to acknowledge their hand in removing funds for protective purposes from these American citizens in untenable situations and locations.
They have combined with others to subject us to concepts foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their assent to legislation:
For declaring corporations as people;
For planning the undercutting of the President of the United States since 2010:
For attempting to suppress voter registrations around the country, especially among minorities and women and those registered in different parties:
For imposing a governmental shutdown on the American citizenry, against popular opinion and against probable voting in the Congressional House of Representatives;
For depriving US Armed Service members and veterans of their pay, benefits and medical service;
For attempting to sabotage the potential for access to affordable healthcare for many American citizens, simply because of the disdain for the sitting United States President;
For attempting to circumvent the system of American legislative process by economic paralysis of the nation instead of a following the established repeal process;
For attempting to codify as law one narrow set of religious beliefs not held by the particular faith nor the United States population at large, thereby violating the First Amendment of the Constitution;
For attempting to abolish our most valuable Laws, and trying to fundamentally alter the forms of our Government;
For causing economic paralysis at the Federal level that will also affect State funding, including major programs that assist women, children and others in need..
They have abdicated governing here by shutting down the US government system and waging economic and political war against the American citizenry.
They have plundered our economy, ravaged our legislative system, ruined our reputation among nations, and destroyed the livelihoods of our Citizens.
They are at this time depriving veterans of our wars, current soldiers in the field and at home, and their families of proper care and financial support, in violation of the sacred trust between soldier and country, in a manner unbecoming leaders of this nation,
They have furloughed our fellow American citizens who work for the government of the United States causing them to lose precious pay and causing them to fall behind in their duties, while still drawing pay for themselves despite their lack of work and lack of a resolution,
They have excited domestic insurrections among us, ignoring the proper workings of the three branches of government and their checks and balances, ignoring the proper steps of law creation and passage, presenting falsehoods about new governmental programs to the American public and committing economic terrorism on the Citizens of the United States through their refusal to pass a clean resolution over a law created three years ago.
In every stage of these oppressions American citizens have petitioned for redress in the proper manner and terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury and refusal to negotiate. A Party whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the governors of a free American people.
Nor have Americans been wanting in attentions to our fellow Americans who believe the Tea Party’s rhetoric. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their Tea Party to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us all. We have reminded them of the circumstances surrounding the shutdown and the causes thereof. We have appealed to the Tea Party’s sense of justice and responsibility, and we have attempted to show our fellow Americans that the Tea Party’s goals and deeds interrupt our lives and our livelihoods. They too have been misled by lies and misinformation.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity of declaring the Tea Party not only hypocrites cloaking themselves in false patriotism, but also wearing a veneer of false religion. Their supporters follow not the Christ they claim to cling to, as they refuse to uphold the Seven Christian Principles of Social Justice.** They are not the vanguard of the future, but rather religious hypocrites and domestic terrorists intent on sabotaging the United States from within.
We, therefore, the citizens of the United States of America, appealing to the Creator by the many Names we use to call upon Them do in those Names, and by authority of the good people of these States, solemnly publish and declare, that these citizens of the United States are, and of right ought to be free to pursue their Life, Liberty and Happiness; that they are absolved from all allegiance to extremist political parties, and that all political connection between them and the Tea Party, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent thinking Americans, they have full power to alter or abolish the current ineffective government in a peaceful and productive manner. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of our Creator, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our future together and our sacred duty as Americans to truly be E pluribus unum . . .: “From the many, One”.
** see http://www.stjohnwilderness.org/Voice2/Seven-Principles.PDF
So I re-wrote the Declaration of Independence for the modern day, for your viewing pleasure.
IN CONGRESS, October 4, 2013.
The Declaration of the Citizens of the United States of America on the Tea Party and the recent governmental shut down . . .
When in the course of American History, it becomes necessary for the American people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a minority faction of one political party, and to assume as their Founding Fathers wished, the separation of church and state to which the Laws and Amendments thereof guarantee them, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation from this political group.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all Americans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain human rights, that among these are Life and its caretaking; Liberty of thought, religion, speech and person; and the pursuit of Happiness without judgment of color, creed, sexual orientation, or any other identifying factor. That to secure these rights, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were created these eleven score and seventeen years ago, to create in turn our government, voted in by the consent of the governed.
Yet our government, hijacked by a minority of a political Party, has become destructive of these ends. Therefore, it is the right of the American citizens to alter or to abolish that minority, voting it out of office, prosecuting it for its crimes against our government and our people, and to reiterate the proper way of governing taught in Civics classes across the nation, one based on the two founding documents of the nation. We shall lay its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a way as to seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness as a Country and as Citizens.
While logic and critical reasoning will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, experience has shown that our fellow citizens are more disposed to suffer in disbelief while evils are committed in the name of twisted conservatism that is nothing of the sort. Perhaps this is because we are too unsure about how to alter or abolish the forms to which we are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations by this minority, who invariably pursue the same obsessive goal, seems to show a marked lack of concern for the American People? Well then it is their right, even their duty, to throw off such governing, and to provide new guardians for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of the Citizens of the United States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former system of government. The history of the Tea Party sub-group of the Republican Party 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:
They have refused their assent to Laws, such as the passage of the ACA, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good and vetted by both chambers of Congress, signed by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court.
They have forbidden their members to pass Legislation of immediate and pressing importance, such as the Continuing Resolution, unless suspended in their operation till their assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they has utterly neglected to attend to them.
They have gerrymandered and re-draw their districts to their satisfaction, forcing American citizens to relinquish the right of proper representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to those Americans and formidable to tyrants only.
They have refused to call together their legislative body of the House at the usual place to vote on clean and favored legislation critical to the operation of the country, causing distress and anguish to the citizenry of American and other governmental officials for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures.
They have threatened to shut down the government repeatedly and have recently accomplished this, for opposing their wishes in imposing on the rights of the American citizenry.
They have refused to negotiate in full faith to end the shutdown crisis, crippling the Legislative powers, depriving government workers of their livelihoods, causing the United States to become an object of ridicule not only within their border but without and exposing the nation to dangerous instability by their acts that could be construed as domestic and economic attacks on the United States itself.
They have endeavored to prevent the citizens of this country from working on the problems of immigrant reform, thereby preventing the influx of new people and ideas into our country, forgetting our history and that our country is a nation built by immigrants who became citizens.
They have obstructed the administration of the law and of justice, by refusing to acknowledge the law of the land and the Supreme Courts’ upholding of those laws, such as with the ACA
They have made the governmental workers of the United States dependent on their will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the payment of their salaries.
They have erected a multitude of restrictions on our female citizenry, and effected swarms of restrictive laws to harass women and control their lives and reproductive capacity, according to their narrow political and religious worldview, a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, as well as the Liberty clause of the Declaration of Independence.
They have kept the military of our nation at war for long years, without justification or proper care or compensation, and fought against those both within and not in their Party who sought ends to these wars.
They have used the deaths of our ambassadors and our embassy staff for political gain and misdirection, all the while refusing to acknowledge their hand in removing funds for protective purposes from these American citizens in untenable situations and locations.
They have combined with others to subject us to concepts foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their assent to legislation:
For declaring corporations as people;
For planning the undercutting of the President of the United States since 2010:
For attempting to suppress voter registrations around the country, especially among minorities and women and those registered in different parties:
For imposing a governmental shutdown on the American citizenry, against popular opinion and against probable voting in the Congressional House of Representatives;
For depriving US Armed Service members and veterans of their pay, benefits and medical service;
For attempting to sabotage the potential for access to affordable healthcare for many American citizens, simply because of the disdain for the sitting United States President;
For attempting to circumvent the system of American legislative process by economic paralysis of the nation instead of a following the established repeal process;
For attempting to codify as law one narrow set of religious beliefs not held by the particular faith nor the United States population at large, thereby violating the First Amendment of the Constitution;
For attempting to abolish our most valuable Laws, and trying to fundamentally alter the forms of our Government;
For causing economic paralysis at the Federal level that will also affect State funding, including major programs that assist women, children and others in need..
They have abdicated governing here by shutting down the US government system and waging economic and political war against the American citizenry.
They have plundered our economy, ravaged our legislative system, ruined our reputation among nations, and destroyed the livelihoods of our Citizens.
They are at this time depriving veterans of our wars, current soldiers in the field and at home, and their families of proper care and financial support, in violation of the sacred trust between soldier and country, in a manner unbecoming leaders of this nation,
They have furloughed our fellow American citizens who work for the government of the United States causing them to lose precious pay and causing them to fall behind in their duties, while still drawing pay for themselves despite their lack of work and lack of a resolution,
They have excited domestic insurrections among us, ignoring the proper workings of the three branches of government and their checks and balances, ignoring the proper steps of law creation and passage, presenting falsehoods about new governmental programs to the American public and committing economic terrorism on the Citizens of the United States through their refusal to pass a clean resolution over a law created three years ago.
In every stage of these oppressions American citizens have petitioned for redress in the proper manner and terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury and refusal to negotiate. A Party whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the governors of a free American people.
Nor have Americans been wanting in attentions to our fellow Americans who believe the Tea Party’s rhetoric. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their Tea Party to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us all. We have reminded them of the circumstances surrounding the shutdown and the causes thereof. We have appealed to the Tea Party’s sense of justice and responsibility, and we have attempted to show our fellow Americans that the Tea Party’s goals and deeds interrupt our lives and our livelihoods. They too have been misled by lies and misinformation.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity of declaring the Tea Party not only hypocrites cloaking themselves in false patriotism, but also wearing a veneer of false religion. Their supporters follow not the Christ they claim to cling to, as they refuse to uphold the Seven Christian Principles of Social Justice.** They are not the vanguard of the future, but rather religious hypocrites and domestic terrorists intent on sabotaging the United States from within.
We, therefore, the citizens of the United States of America, appealing to the Creator by the many Names we use to call upon Them do in those Names, and by authority of the good people of these States, solemnly publish and declare, that these citizens of the United States are, and of right ought to be free to pursue their Life, Liberty and Happiness; that they are absolved from all allegiance to extremist political parties, and that all political connection between them and the Tea Party, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent thinking Americans, they have full power to alter or abolish the current ineffective government in a peaceful and productive manner. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of our Creator, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our future together and our sacred duty as Americans to truly be E pluribus unum . . .: “From the many, One”.
** see http://www.stjohnwilderness.org/Voice2/Seven-Principles.PDF