Happy Fourh everybody!
And
๐บ๐ธ๐
The Declaration of Independence
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/02/national/the-declaration-of-independence.html
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.
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...
HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of the 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 the Convulsions within.
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:
Interesting how quite a bit of this is rather poignantly relevant to this day
My thoughts exactly. Eerily so even.
Tyrants are so knowable and banal. We have firsthand knowledge of many of these humiliations now, both enacted and attempted repeatedly and without pause until they too become realized and made โnormalโ, and perverted as โAmericaโ while the ignorant and greedy weasel sycophants sell out their souls for money, power and influence with a repulsive human.
This country has been brutally dumbed down.
Without specific defenses against Demagoguery such as Ostracization and a requirement for evidence-based decision-making and education to instill critical thinking skills... I fear any democratic system is doomed to eventually result in tyranny.
After 2016 and the unbelievable lies and appropriation of FB/Twitter by Cambridge Analytica, The Mercers, the alt-right and the Russian intelligence agencies running psy-ops operations on the American public, it hit home with me in a big way that education now needs to be an instrument to defend the country and therefore should be funded at the same level as the armed forces.
Hit the nail on the head...
But it would also make the general public that much harder to...
Hmm. Whatโs a good way to put it...
To herd.
I think it was implied a well-educated populace was necessary to protect and provide for a healthy country and take part in the political process.
@TheAbbotTrithemius
And then they made it so only white male landowners could vote because it was assumed that only THEY could possibly be a well-educated populace.
Thatโs the reasoning behind the electoral college, too, and why the electoral college isnโt bound to cast votes according to the popular vote.
It was never about educating the people.
It was about cherry-picking who qualified as โpeople.โ
Weโve been trying to fix that shit for over 200 years.