Tag: Declaration of Independence

Freedom or The Hive – Anarchy or Society – Are there Any Ways to Get the Best of Both Worlds?

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Are our only two choices to be either a drone in the global hive that our tech masters are quickly creating or a Hobbesian natural man whose life will be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?”  The Founding Fathers tried to thread that needle by building a state that guaranteed certain “inalienable rights.”  As we have lived to see, these guarantees have been abrogated by the elitist class that runs our government and all the corporations that control the livelihoods and material resources that we depend on for existence.

But what we shouldn’t forget is that those things existed for a very long time in this country.  There is nothing theoretical about living free in a law-based society.  What has changed is the thinking of the elites who control so many levers of power.  They have over time decided that they are the rightful rulers of this country and by extension all of Western civilization and that they have a better understanding of what we should be allowed to be.

They’re not interested in inalienable rights.  After all they don’t believe in God so they can’t believe that there are rights given to us by God.  Without God we are all just animals that happen to exist here on this spinning rock somewhere in the meaningless depths of a universe that increasingly seems to make no sense.  So, if they find that they have control of us then in their minds they are gods and we have little to say about it.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  And I think he was right.  Human social arrangements cannot be made static.  They change over time as the customs and character of the people change too.  We are not the British colonists.  This is not the world that they lived in.  But we are human beings.  We have very similar minds and bodies to theirs.  Our world is very different but people living together, men and women still want and need the same things.  We want to enjoy life and we want to keep what we work for and we want our families to enjoy these same things after us.

So, what it comes down to is this.  We’ve let the people in charge take back the things that were agreed to be ours.  We’ve been cheated.  But if we want to get them back, we’re going to have to do more than complain.  So, the choices available to us are:

  • Fold
  • Flee
  • Fight

Those are the choices.  Fold means give in.  Join the hive and become a drone.  It’s not much of a life but at least you don’t have to do much thinking.  They’ll find a small cell for you to inhabit until the winter comes and they push you out of the nest into the snow.

Flee means leave.  Find a better place either in a red state that has maintained some independence from the hive.  Florida looks promising.  Maybe Idaho.  Or maybe find a foreign land that will take you in and hasn’t been absorbed by the hive.  Are there good places in the world?  Yes.  Will they take us.  Maybe not.  But it’s worth exploring.

Fight means taking the country back.  How that can be done is anyone’s guess.  The oligarchs have control of power that is virtually infinite.  The resources of the federal government.  The reserve currency of the whole world with an almost limitless ability to print money.  The largest and most potent military that has ever been.  Even thermonuclear weapons if the reason for using them ever appeared.   They have almost complete compliance from every corporation and entity with any power, from the media outlets to the universities to the manufacturers and commercial giants.  And finally, the information resources of the Silicon Valley billionaires.  They know so much about us that they think they can predict our every action.

The idea of fighting all that seems like a bad joke.  But by the same token we have at least eighty million living human beings on our side.  If a constituency that large can be organized it will have resources and capabilities that could accomplish a lot.  Even in the complete absence of violence or even protest a force that large could change things very significantly.  But what we currently lack is organization, leadership and a plan.  And of those three things what is most lacking is leadership.  Someone strong and smart has to step forward and take control of organizing.  Who knows, the decision might be that what we need to do is flee.  Maybe we can organize a program to allow us to emigrate together to some place that we could call our own.  Perhaps several of the red states could become our reservation.  But we’ll need to get organized to accomplish any of this.

And getting back to the original thesis of this post, it is possible to live in a free society.  But it’s not possible to keep it if you’re not willing to defend it.

When in the Course of Human Events – Part 3

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In the second installment of this series, I looked at the Declaration of Independence and tried to show the similarities between the grievances that existed in 1776 and our own.  But I did indicate briefly that the difficulties we face in trying to throw off our oppressors are extraordinarily more difficult than what the colonials faced with George III’s England.

The United States federal government is the single most powerful organization that has ever existed in all of human history.  It has the sole control of the most powerful conventional armed forces on the face of the earth and also the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in existence.  It has the ability to unleash weapons that very probably could obliterate human life from the face of the planet.  Compare that to a fraction of the 18th Century British Navy and Army and some Hessian troops.

Granted, without the willing support of the American people, the federal government is not fully in control of this vast juggernaut of military power but there has never been a time in the last two hundred years when another power has existed on this continent that could threaten that government.  And I include the period of the civil war into that statement.

In addition to the military might, the US federal government controls the de facto reserve currency of the global monetary system.  They can literally write a check for a quadrillion dollars and it would be accepted as cash.  That’s a thousand trillion, a number that up till now was just a way to count the gas atoms in a jar but now as we’ve headed into ludicrous debt territory has becomes a real thing.  So, this is the government that pays for your elderly relatives’ social security and maybe even your medical coverage.  And they collect your income tax and send you your refund check.  Imagine if they told your bank that your accounts aren’t really yours anymore.

And through the FBI and the NSA and their loyal lackeys in Google and Facebook and Twitter they control all your personal information and all your electronic correspondence.  They know who is organizing against them before the organizers do.  In fact, they actually are the organizers.  The FBI sets up these rebellious cells and looks to see who is willing to join them.  These are just fly traps that they set out to gage the temperament of the population.

Does this mean I think rebellion is impossible?  No, not at all.  What it means is that the men who decide to rebel will have to be powerful, smart and very brave.  It means that a popular movement will need a cadre of prominent men who will build a political movement from the top down.  Without Donald Trump we would have gotten Hillary Clinton as president or at best prettier Hillary, JEB!  Those were the only two choices that were going to be available.  Whoever is going to lead the non-leftist party is going to have to build a machine that can harness the power of that constituency both in power and out.  We shouldn’t have to wait until 2024 to start organizing and getting results.  Someone should already be rounding up the governors and legislatures of the red states to coordinate legislative and executive actions that protect their citizens from the usurpations that are presently going on in Washington.  There needs to be a reaction to the election fraud legislation in Congress.  It needs to reach into the cities in Red States to close the door on voter fraud once and for all.

And voter fraud is just one item on the agenda.  A clear strategy is needed to confront any and all BLM type campaigns of intimidation against law enforcement and the innocent citizens that depend on it for safety and peace of mind.  Information should be shared across the whole red state confederation to identify the leaders who go back and forth to various cities to lead and coordinate the Antifa and BLM attacks.  These people need to be arrested, charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned for the real crimes they’ve committed.

The red states need to reject all of the anti-white and anti-male affirmative action programs and laws.  All of these laws and programs need to be declared illegal and their operation in red states ended.  This includes the anti-white and more generally anti-normal bias that is practiced on the social networking sites.

So, that is how I see us rebelling against the Left.  Our Declaration of Independence is just us waving the Declaration and the Constitution in front of the noses of the Left and saying we aren’t going to let you nullify these documents.  We still have all these rights and if you say we don’t we’re going to work against you at the state level if necessary to protect them.  We’ll need to start coordinating boycotts and state lawsuits against corporations that sponsor or condone these discriminatory practices.  We need to raise awareness among our people that there is a way to redress the attacks we are experiencing from the Left and their allies in industry, academia and the media.  So that would be the beginning of a rebellion.

Where it goes from there is a fair question.  But until we at least do something at the levels where we do control the reins of power, we’ll just keep losing ground.

And finally do leaders like the ones I describe exist?  I think they might.  But there’s only one way to know for sure.  And that is when they stand up and say no and then make it stick.  That’s where the rubber meets the road when they push back and you have to push back harder.

When in the Course of Human Events – Part 2

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My first part in this series of posts was a love song to the kind of Fourth of July celebration we had when I was a kid.  And that was fun to think about and write.  But the heart of this exercise was a thought I had about the underlying reason for the holiday.  All of this crap about Juneteenth being Independence Day got me thinking about the document that declared our independence.

I know it’s old fashioned to still think about a country that’s founded on the cause of equality.  After all, equality or as it is now called equity is the cudgel that the Left uses to deprive us of our rights.  And it is very fashionable on the Dissident Right to condemn all things associated with Enlightenment political thought.  So be it, I’m a reactionary.

But when I look at the text of the Declaration, I see that it was a list of grievances that free men were making against their government and a statement that they weren’t going to take it any longer.  And the more I read into it the closer and closer is the analogy to the situation we currently find ourselves in.  Let’s look at it.

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.

If we decided to end our association with the Blue States, I think I would be very hard put to find better words than those found in the introduction to the declaration.  I’d borrow the whole thing.

 

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. 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, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Other than the use of the words, “colonies” and “King of Great Britain” this section of the document, called the preamble, is also almost word for word the best thing that could be written to describe why we would want to escape from the clutches of the Left.  Who could hope to write a better justification than this, “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.”?  It’s perfect.  We are being deprived of the things that make life worth living.  We are treated as criminals and third-class citizens in our own country and we are tired of it.

I’ll pick a few of the grievances the colonists listed to show a little of the similarities to today’s grievances.  Obviously not everything jibes in this list because we are not in a sparsely inhabited wilderness.

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 our case this would equate to allowing Antifa and BLM to burn, loot and murder our neighbors)

 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

(In our case this would be weaponizing the FBI and Justice Department to prosecute us for trumped up charges.)

 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

(Nothing needs to be changed on this one)

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

(Nothing needs to be changed on this one.)

 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

(Ask the guys who are rotting in jail whose only crime was being in Washington D.C. on January 6th.)

 

And the conclusion:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Once again, switch out words for Great Britain and British Crown and decide what the new country will be called and you can use the whole darn thing.

What I think I want to show with this analysis is the reasonableness of wanting to escape from the Left.  The parallels with 1776 are obvious.  All the same natural conditions exist for rebellion.  They are reducing us to serfs and we’re not used to such an existence.  We know what it is to be free and we want freedom back.

What isn’t equivalent is the level of difficulty in escaping from our masters.  George III was a peevish nobleman across what was then a very wide ocean.  We are trapped in a barrel with a badger.  We can’t run and we can’t hide.

In the third installment I’ll talk about what our quest for freedom could look like.

When in the Course of Human Events – Part 3

When in the Course of Human Events – Part 1

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I am grateful to the Haters of America for putting their new Independence Day in June.  I’ve always loved July as the finest time of the year.  And not just because my birthday is slap dab in the middle of it or because it is the hottest and therefore the time when we in the north feel most vitally alive.

But also, because the Fourth of July was every young boy’s idea of the perfect holiday.  You had it right in the middle of your summer vacation (back then we had all of June, July and August off).  It included playing with and watching fireworks, eating huge amounts of barbecued food, corn on the cob and watermelon and drinking lemonade.  We would go down to Coney Island and swim in the polluted waters of Lower New York Harbor and then watch the fireworks display that the city put on for us proles.  It was a mighty fine time to be had by all and sundry.  I can remember neighbors that typically spent most of the year yelling at their neighbors’ kids coming out and sitting on their porches and stoops and talking about the weather and the baseball teams and acting almost human.  We didn’t really think about the patriotic aspect of it.  After all we were boys and therefore barely human.  But I am grateful to the Cloud People and Antifa and BLM and the illegal immigrant lobby and the LGBTQ Mafia and everyone else who hates the normal everyday things that America stood for.  I’m grateful that I no longer have to share the Fourth of July with them.

And of course, the Fourth of July stands for more than just fireworks and hot dogs.  But I wanted to start out with those things because they are the things that make it more than just important.  They make it fun.  And heaven knows we need as many things that can make us happy right now as we can get.  I’m having the family over for a Fourth of July barbecue and the weather isn’t going to cooperate.  After days of 90° weather, it’s going to be in the 60’s and cloudy.  But that just means we’ll be able to have a baseball catch and play horseshoes without getting completely drenched in sweat.

We’re going to have a great time.  After the barbecue I know Camera Girl will have desserts, splendiferous desserts.  Ice cream and whipped cream will abound.  And there will be Italian Cheesecake and maybe even pastries.  And I’ll show my little 2 ½ year old granddaughter fireflies in the yard for her first time.  And we’ll even shoot off a few small fireworks and then maybe watch some of the big stuff in the sky.

And I guarantee there will be not a whisper of white privilege or white rage or reparations or Juneteenth or Critical Race Theory.  But there will be a little history lesson where I’ll find out if the boys all know what the Fourth of July commemorates.

And just to end this part of the post on the right note I’ll include some words that probably are more relevant today than they’ve been since shortly after they were written.

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.

They almost sound topical.  We’ll take a swipe at it next.

When in the Course of Human Events – Part 2

The Ethical Basis for Our Cause is Clear.  Do We Have the Courage?

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Back 250 years ago the Founding Fathers laid out in the Declaration of Independence why they were casting off their allegiance to King George of England.   I could copy the whole thing here but that’s unnecessary.  What is interesting is to see just how many of the complaints have analogs in our present situation.  Let’s start with the first cause, the first paragraph.

  • 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.
    1. So, we believe that all men are equal. Our opponents believe that people must be treated differently based on the color of their skin.
    2. We enshrined these unalienable rights in the Bill of Rights. Our opponents trample on those rights without regret.
  • 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.
    1. It says that power is derived from the consent of the governed. When elections are fraudulently held there can be no talk of consent.
    2. And it says when government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it. That seems very clear.
  • 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, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
    1. This one exists now verbatim.

Okay that’s enough.  Only a fool can ignore the fact that we are in the same moral situation that the Founding Fathers were with Great Britain.  The only difference is one of will.  The colonists were brave and daring men who were used to fighting wars against other Europeans and the Indian tribes.  We have become accustomed to luxury and ease.  The wars we fight are fought by a small group of volunteers.  And the majority of American citizens are women, something that was unheard of during the Revolutionary War.  And women tend to be uneasy about confrontation and violence.

So that’s where we are.  When this country was young the men living here wouldn’t allow themselves to be bullied by tyrants.  Today the women and the men who emulate them are too cowed to so much as defend themselves when the government sponsored mobs burn down their businesses and assault them in the street of their major cities.  They’re even afraid to demand that the teachers that they pay to teach their children either do it or stop getting paid.  Hell, they’re too scared to even go to Thanksgiving dinner with their families for fear of being ratted out to the police by Karen next door.

Really the only question is how long will it take to find out if we truly are just slaves of the Left.  Here’s a fair test.  If you can’t get together with your family on the Fourth of July then just take your flag down and reverently burn it.  The country will be officially dead.  At that point look for a better place to live.

Race and the Right

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I often read articles by people who describe themselves as the Dissident Right.  What these groups line up around is the idea that the experiment of the United States of America as a multi-ethnic state has been a failure.  The corollary is that the reason for the failure is because the egalitarianism enshrined in the Declaration of Independence with the words, “All men are created equal,” is untrue and therefore a stumbling block to making a society made up of diverse groups workable.  They point out the absurdities and obvious discrimination inherent in the affirmative action laws that interfere in the selection of students and employees in colleges and corporations across America and the harm these practices do both psychologically and practically to all involved.  And they say this problem is unavoidable because of actual differences among different races and groups with respect to intelligence and temperament.  They will point to scientifically produced studies to prove these differences exist and point to the last fifty years of civil rights legislation to prove that nothing will ever alter the government’s approach to race relations.  In other words, the government will always consider differences in achievement and social outcome between the races as proof that racial discrimination is being committed.

I believe that some of what they say is probably true.  There are differences between people.  And intelligence is an inherited characteristic in the same way that all our other physical characteristics are inherited from our parents.  And some groups probably are better at various things depending on how their ancestors spent their time.  Farmers, hunters, merchants, sailors, soldiers, priests, and craftsman are successful for different skill sets and physical characteristics.  If a civilization has a very long history, running into millennia of a profession that specializes in doing astronomical calculations such as the Chinese or the Babylonians it might not be surprising to find their descendants have been selected for brains that are adept at mathematical calculation.  Or if your people have been traders for thousands of years such as many in the middle east it might not be surprising to find that they have skills that make them comfortable working in finance and commerce.  Let’s grant all these things.  But let’s also remember that every group is itself a normal distribution for any of these traits.  There is always a bell curve with the majority of individuals somewhere in the middle of the curve but with some individuals higher and lower than the middle.  So even within any group that is found to excel at some characteristic like IQ, that group will have some more intelligent individuals and some less.  And no one seems to be upset that there are more and less successful individuals within an ethnic or racial group that is not believed to be victims of discrimination.  If all the white Anglo-Saxon descendants in Massachusetts were catalogued, we would find some that were incredibly wealthy and then we would find some that are abysmally poor.  Why do we not assume that discrimination is at work?  The obvious reason is that there is no racial motive at work.  So, this would lead us to the conclusion that differences in the talents and characteristics of people lead to differences in their level of success.  We do not have to suspect that systemic discrimination is the cause.

Bringing this back to the egalitarian statement, “All men are created equal,” it seems evident to me that the Founding Fathers didn’t mean that people were identical in their capabilities but instead that all men were equal under the law.  There were no nobles who had priority over the rights of the commoners.  There was one law for all.  But I can’t see how that should be interpreted as meaning that everyone is forced to have exactly the same house, car, family size and television set.  Now granted the government seems to be saying that if there are disparities between the prosperity of different ethnic and racial groups then the only explanation is racism.  But I see changing the government’s minds and policies as the primary object of the Right-Wing project.

But let me play devil’s advocate.  My neighbors in the Dissident Right would say that the gap for some groups is so large that they could not integrate into the society that contains many higher functioning individuals because their skills would not be adequate.  I do not think that is true.  There are jobs in a country like ours that accommodate all levels of skill and experience.  That is proved by the never-ending influx of unskilled illegal immigrants who find occupation by the millions.

No, I think the real problem is we have to force the government to acknowledge that we’re not harming the people they claim we are.  In fact, we have to force the government to admit that welfare and affirmative action are the problems.  That and the phony claims by the Left that blacks are being systematically oppressed.  These lies have poisoned race relations in America for more than a generation past when any actual discrimination existed.

As far as the problems with police, that is a reflection of the lawlessness that reigns in these neighborhoods.  Pretending that it is the police that are the problem is a ridiculous lie.  Police hyperactivity occurs whenever criminality is rampant.  This same situation occurred in the European ghettos of the early twentieth century in all the big cities.  Irish, Italian and even Jewish gangs were constantly battling the police and the kids in the neighborhood would be recruited by the gangs and would then be fair game for the police.

Of course, at the present time, this situation has festered to the point that millions live in poverty, crime and perpetual unemployment.  To break out of this crisis the government should focus its efforts on incentivizing industries that can utilize low skill employees to set up shop in these devastated areas and shift as many of these people from welfare to work as quickly as possible.

So that in a nutshell is how I see the racial problem in the United States.  I differ from the Dissident Right in that I don’t think the problem is unsolvable.  The problem is to end the failed practice of blaming white people for disparities in racial prosperity and instead concentrate on stimulating job creation for low skill employees to break the cycle of perpetual unemployment and dysfunction.

But one thing that should be said in defense of the Dissident Right.  They were first to recognize that the Left’s use of identity politics rendered the Establishment Right perpetually on the defensive and hopelessly incapable of defeating the never-ending series of progressive demands.  And their recommendation that white Americans begin demanding their rights is absolutely correct.  In a world of identity politics, the only way to avoid abuse is to claim your own identity and stand up for your rights.

04JUL2019 – OCF Update – Happy Fourth of July

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Just a quick update.  I’m, of course, going to a family barbecue today.  But I’m off for a couple of weeks and will use the time to test out some lenses I’ve rented the following lenses:

Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS and the Sony 1.4 and 2.0 teleconverters and the

Mitakon SpeedMaster 50mm f/0.95 Lens for Sony E.

I hope to have some interesting conclusions about these two products.  I’ve been looking for a telephoto and think the 100-400 might be a more useful lens that the 200-600 that is coming out next month.  And the 50mm 0.95 is probably not something I need but it might be fun to have such an extremely thin plane of focus in certain shots.

Shatner-Khan was postponed due to illness but I have plans to publish important original research on the subject in the weeks ahead.

And I plan to eat my share of hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob (hand shucked!) and watermelon in the days to come.  To all of you enjoy our Independence Day and make sure that your children and grandchildren know the truth and don’t let them be misled by the Colin Kaepernicks and Nikes of the world.  We had to separate ourselves from tyranny once before and we can do it again.  In fact just by how we think of these people, we already have.

Here’s a little reminder.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,
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. 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, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. 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 of 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.

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. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton