A Declaration of Independence in Thought and Expression and Action

Iconic 1851 painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware
Emanuel Leutze, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with their government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s creator entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of their fellow citizens requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are each individually endowed by their creation with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, and Responsibility towards their fellows—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted by the People, deriving their just powers only from the continuing consent of the governed,–That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to express their beliefs and rights in the restoration of a government subjugated to the rights and will of the People, the foundation of which once again will effect the Safety, Happiness, and Authority of the People.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light, transient, or newly popular cause, and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that a nation’s people are more disposed to suffer, while evils grow within, than to right themselves by returning to the forms and founding principles that defined and sustained them.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, namely the subjugation of the People to their government or other forces domestic or foreign, it is their right and responsibility to disavow such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security and inborn rights.—Such has been the patient sufferance of the citizens of our States and Nation, and such is now the necessity which compels them to alter their current System of Government which actions have drifted far from its established foundations.  The recent decades of Government are a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the People.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid nation.

Government has refused to Enforce Laws, most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

Government has refused to change or retract laws whose enforcement is forbidden by that same government, despite the rightful demands of the citizens.

Government has forbidden States and their Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance to those individual States or suspends their operation until its Assent should be obtained.

Government has abdicated the Peoples’ authority to make and enforce Laws of immediate and pressing importance to an unelected and invisible bureaucracy which is wholly irresponsible to the People and its elected government.  As this unfounded fourth branch of government has eroded many of the inalienable rights and freedoms of the People without their Assent, the Government has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Government has refused to accommodate large groups of people who have been required to relinquish the fruits of Representation in the Legislature for the sake of Government’s defined “common welfare”.

Government has repeatedly repressed through law, regulation, and censorship, those opposing with firmness the invasions on the rights of the people.  Others who actively and violently seek to tear down the foundations of the Nation’s and its Peoples’ liberties are favored with benign neglect of any law breaking or public endangerment.

Government has refused for a long time to cause the duly passed laws of elections to be obeyed and enforced and has refused to investigate irregularities in those elections.  These elections thusly remain in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Government has endeavored to prevent and obstruct enforcement of the Laws of Immigration and Naturalization of Foreigners; actively encouraging and abetting their migrations hither against the will of the People, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of entitlements and privileges without the consent of the governed.

Government has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing Assent to prosecution of many crimes both violent and non-violent.

Government seeks to make Judges dependent on its Will alone, through control of the Supreme Court, and refusal to ensure the physical safety and political insulation of that Court.

Government has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sends hither swarms of Officers to harass the People and be supported by the Peoples’ substance.

Government has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Militaries unlimited in expense and used in foreign conflicts without the Consent of our Legislatures.

Government has affected to render the Military-Industrial-Political complex independent of and superior to the Civil power of the People.

Government seeks to combine with other nations and supranational authorities to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws or the People; giving Assent to their acts of pretended Legislation:  For Quartering large bodies of illegal immigrants among us: For protecting them from punishment for any violations they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For controlling our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us via the bureaucracy without our Consent: For depriving us in  many cases of the benefit of Trial by Jury of those who have victimized us: For allowing and supporting public censure of us for pretended offences of newly invented and ever expanding intersectional civil rights: For abolishing our free System of American Laws in favor of executive and bureaucratic fiat, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing absolute rule over all aspects of our private and public lives: For taking away or abolishing our most valuable Laws by gradually altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending the authority and actions of our own more local Legislatures, and declaring itself invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Government has abdicated its responsibility to us and declared us subject to its authority rather than subject to our authority.

Government through its overreaching intervention in our lives has plundered our livelihoods, divided our people, allowed our towns to be burnt and become war zones, and destroyed the lives of many of our people by promoting governmental replacement of personal responsibilities and liberties.

Government continues to transport our large Armies as Mercenaries of its foreign policies to continue without defined end the works of death and desolation in foreign lands already suffering in circumstances of Cruelty, perfidy, and corruption scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, totally unworthy of our civilized nation.

Government has acquiesced to domestic insurrections by certain groups amongst us, while vigorously pursuing, investigating, or prosecuting as insurrection other citizens passionately engaged in voicing their opinions, often disregarding those citizens’ fundamental rights of privacy, speech, assembly, representation, and speedy trial by jury, or entrapping them into potential violations of Law, while ignoring other groups’ blatant violations of said Laws.  Government itself has acted immune to such laws.

Government has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our borders known criminal immigrants merciless in their treatment of human trafficking victims and marketing of deadly drugs.

In every stage of these Oppressions, We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms in voting, in public expression, and in media of all kinds.  Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated denials, neglect, or censure.  A Government whose character is thus marked by many and increasing acts which may define a Tyranny, is unfit to govern on behalf and under the authority of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our American brethren.  We have warned them from time to time of attempts by our Government to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over our every thought, word, and deed.  We have reminded them   of the circumstances of the founding of our Constitutional Republic and the supremacy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, regardless of race or ethnic origin, to disavow these usurpations, which, will inevitably interrupt our connections to and correspondence with our fellow citizens.  Yet many have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity embodied in the intentions and aspirations of the United States of America.   We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which announces our Separation in Thought and Expression, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Friends in Peace and Persuasion.

We, therefore, privileged and righteous citizens of the United States of America, under the original intents and aspirations of our Constitution, appealing to the Supreme Judge of creation for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these United States who choose to agree, solemnly publish and declare, That our People are and of Right ought to be Free and Independent citizens of these United States under that Constitution retaining all rights and powers recognized therein, and agreeing only to the granting of the limited authority and power to Government both State and Federal as specified in that Constitution’s original intent. We the People retain full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Peoples may of right do through the limited powers granted by that People to their government.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protections of Natural Law and Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our thoughts, expressions, actions, and personal Honor.
 

© Nik Bednarski, M.D. 2022