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:
NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence.
@TheAbbotTrithemius Thanks Abbot! That's a huge deal, all that posting. Much appreciated.
@TheAbbotTrithemius #cosoconfession
This is the first time I have read the Declaration of Independence in full.
Thank you Abbot.
I really didnโt read it properly until way into adulthood and Iโm blown away by what a truly revolutionary document it is, in identifying and condemning tyranny and declaring a (still) visionary reality for humanity.
Itโs amazing how relevant it remains. This is not the work of fear and ignorance and dogma. Itโs the complete opposite. Itโs steeped in a deep understanding of power, politics, ethics, philosophy, reason, logic, art and enlightenment.
And youโre totally welcome Stuey! ๐
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.
And unfortunately, our government was never TRULY founded on the idea of the GENERAL public ACTUALLY governing THEMSELVES.
So a well-educated public, capable of defending itself against what can best be described as fuckmothering psyops was never a goal.
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.
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.
And lead further down the road of mindless, self-destructive consumerism.
Capitalism neither needs or wants a well-educated populace. IN fact the opposite is true.
And once the Cold War was over it stopped having to pretend it cared about human rights or even humans for that matter, insofar as they provide slave-labor and artificial appetites driven by non-stop marketing and media control.
@GlytchMeister
I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Somebody is behaving a lot like King George! @TheAbbotTrithemius
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 Rules into these Colonies: