Happy Independence Day!

[hummingwolf]

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.

Thomas Jefferson survives.

Comments

[moomlyn.livejournal.com]

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.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

My country's policies and politics would be so much saner if everybody remembered the government was founded by a bunch of subversives.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

...a bunch of subversives who believed in a Supreme Deity but who wanted to keep THAT out of *government.*

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

I tells ya, if Jefferson, Washington and Franklin were alive today, they'd be a remote and secured location, stocking up on illegal firearms, blogging via international proxies, preparing to lead the revolution. Neither side of the aisle is pointing in the same direction as, let alone in the same place as, the Declaration or the Constitution.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

On this we agree.