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An Interesting Look; at the Declaration of Independence
Topic Started: Jul 4 2006, 07:09 PM (85 Views)
Colo_Crawdad
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Lowell
Grievances from 1776 ring a bell

Quote:
 
King George brought it all on himself. The founders of the United States of America outlined their grievances in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and changed the world. It's a brilliant document, written mostly by Thomas Jefferson and sure to inspire pride and patriotism in every American.

The signers of the declaration were fearless radicals who knew full well they were risking their lives in the cause of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." They were unabashed idealists and revolutionaries, sure, but they were not impulsive.

"... All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed," they said.

They wanted the world to know that they had tried to suck it up, but they were on their last nerve.

The king had "a history of repeated injuries and usurpations." To let him go unchallenged would be to allow "the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states."

Clearly, they knew they'd be called traitors, but they published their stunning exposé anyway. "Let facts be submitted to a candid world," they said.

These were the facts:

"He has refused his assent to laws."

Big problem.

King George didn't veto laws or challenge them in court. He simply defied them. It was arrogant. He behaved as if he were above the law.

It was not their only complaint.

"He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power," they said.

OK, let's look at it from George's point of view:

For the throne, this was a matter of national security. The belligerents in the colonies, obsessed with liberal notions of freedom and social justice, were just a bunch of subversives. If order was to be restored, the military needed to be agile and proactive, unencumbered by the constraints of naive civilian oversight.

King George would never cut and run. He chose to stay the course, no matter how impassioned the resistance.

But the revolutionaries remained steadfast. They didn't flip-flop or triangulate.

The list of grievances continued:

He is "depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury."

Suspected terrorists were imprisoned indefinitely without due process. Charges were never filed, hearings were never held. For anyone
who truly cherished democracy, it was an outrage.

"He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers."

It was King George's answer to activist judges. In fact, he didn't like the idea of an independent judiciary at all, they said. "He has made judges dependent on his will alone."

Furthermore, he had no respect for human dignity. He was "transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation."

Even 230 years before Congress banned cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners, the laws of common decency did. And King George blew them off.

Then, so he would not have to face a disapproving public when he chose to torment his political opponents, George was "transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses."

They didn't call them black sites back then, but it was rendition just the same.

Maybe worst of all, George had no real appreciation for this vast, beautiful country and its headstrong inhabitants.

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns and destroyed the lives of our people," they said.

New Orleans was fine, though. Louisiana was a Spanish colony back then.

And King Charles III was doing a heckuva job.
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." --- Pogo
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