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What is the absolute best Dear George letter of all time? Our Declaration of Independence.
https://twitter.com/JusticeWillett/status/881902694620966912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E881902694620966912&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Freason.com%2Fvolokh%2F2017%2F07%2F04%2Fdear-george-the-declaration-of
Justice Don Willett is absolutely correct. In an incredibly well written memo signed by some amazing Patriots, citizens of the 13 Colonies told the British to go pound sand.
The famous "it's not us it's you" document.
— middle man (@secondof3) July 3, 2017
Yes indeed. It wasn’t us. It was definitely Britain. Here they were slapping tax after tax on the 13 colonies. Taxes involving anything and everything that King George and the Parliament could think of, including stamps and tea.
Thomas Jefferson, just 33 years old at the time, crafted with the assistance of John Adams, a document that continues to resonate around the world today.
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.
Leadership ONLY with the consent of the governed. What an amazingly novel concept! A concept that reverberates around the world still today. One that far too many haven’t been taught these days, have forgotten, or try to censor. Those in Congress are our REPRESENTATIVES. They are NOT our leaders. A Republic we most definitely are.
The Patriots who pledged their lives and sacred honor to this endeavor understood the risks. They understood that FREEDOM comes with a price. They also understood that FREEDOM is a responsibility that must never ever be ceded to government control.
Those who crafted our Declaration of Independence and those who voted to approve it fully understood the momentous undertaking they embarked upon. They told one of the most powerful monarchies in the world to go pound sand.
Representation OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people. What an amazing and wonderful concept. That concept ladies and gentlemen is exactly what we are enjoying today.
“Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
― John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
Our Founders, as Ronald Reagan stated in 1981, were brave geniuses willing to give their all to the cause of FREEDOM and the formation of this troubled yet so very unique Republic.
What makes our revolution unique and so exciting, then, is that it changed the very concept of government. Here was a new nation telling the world that it was conceived in liberty; that all men are created equal with God-given rights, and that power ultimately resides in “We the people.”
We sometimes forget this great truth, and we never should, because putting people first has always been America’s secret weapon. It’s the way we’ve kept the spirit of our revolution alive—a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good. It’s the spirit of Fulton and Ford, the Wright brothers and Lindbergh, and of all our astronauts. It’s the spirit of Joe Louis, Babe Ruth, and a million others who may have been born poor, but who would not be denied their day in the Sun.
Today, on July 4th, let us salute the courage and wisdom of our Founding Fathers. Most especially let us raise a glass to the best breakup letter ever, The Declaration Of Independence
America? Fuck Yea! Let’s hear it for the representative republic model of government and free market capitalism! I thank my ancestors every day for getting out of the land of world class dental care and fine cuisine such as spotted dick. As they say in Londonistan…allahu ackbar. Thank you ancestors and thank you for the EPIC win known as America!
Well said Nina! and might I suggest that readers here take a min or maybe a few to read the Declaration and maybe even get a start on the Constitution… seems like an appropriate day to do so, and probable more important, have your CHILDREN read it, because they sure as HELL won’t do so in school anymore..
I think you should have posted the whole text. But, here’s the grievance portion. You tell me if there’s not more than one of these currently visited on us by our supposed betters in the national gov’t, today:
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 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 harass 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 benefit 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.
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, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
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