People who have near death experiences all talk about a peaceful, euphoric , bright light enveloping them. From the moment we are conceived, we are moving towards that light. This is my heels diggin' in, I don't wanna' go, reluctant journey, into the light. Stephen







Sunday, March 21, 2010

D-Day





The most corrupt government in our country's history is going to vote on health care reform today in the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the tipping point.  I'm going to take some guns, alot of ammo, plenty of targets, and go practice.  I feel like I'm going to need it.  In the past, others have felt the same way.  How long has it been since YOU read the bold, italicized section below?

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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 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.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:

John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, 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:

Caesar Rodney, George Read, 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



7 comments:

bluesun said...

I wrote it all out by hand a week or two ago. It's amazing how many parallels you can see between now and then.

It got me thinking that we as Americans, we seem to enshrine the constitution but completely forget about the declaration. But which one is more important to how we live our lives?

Stephen said...

I totally agree. I read your handwritten declaration. I didn't write it out, but I DID go read it again. Sometimes, enough is enough.

Marla said...

Amen, Mister. I'm just hoping they don't do any damage that we can't change come November. I'm holding out hope.

And not Obama's hope... Real hope. It's time for a CHANGE in Congress!

Stephen said...

Marla, my parents were here visiting yesterday, along with ex-teenage food processor #2 and his girlfriend. Of course my Mom brought up the subject of grandkids. She was quite surprised to hear the Babe say, "NO Grandkids." Why bring kids into this world until this political nightmare our country is experiencing gets sorted out. I wouldn't wish the Obama/Pelosi future on anyone.

bluesun said...

@Marla

My problem with holding out hope for November is that the people who are running against the people who need to be kicked out will be just as entrenched in the system. The only people who can get to that point of running for a National Office have either gone up so many party rungs that they are divorced from reality (though maybe a good liar) or so rich that they can fund their own campaign and so are also divorced from reality. I don't know that it will be any better.

virgil xenophon said...

Reading that again brings tears. They really did risk it all didn't they? Their lives, fortunes and their sacred honor. Not a few of the signers lost both of the first...it was not an academic exercise. But none lost their sacred honor. Unfortunately all too many today don't even know what it is, let alone spell it--let alone possess it to lose in the first place. I am a very pessimistic man....

I remember the night of the 68 election. The one where Humphrey pledged he'd crawl on his hands and knees to Hanoi if it would bring peace. I was staying at the home of the family of one of my college roommates in New Orleans. I had just flown in from DaNang that day after finishing my combat tour. I was dead tired, and the election was, if you remember, in doubt until the wee hours. I finally had to crash before knowing the outcome. When I awoke the next morning to find Nixon had won, a great relief physically, palpably, coursed thru my body.I thought to myself (I really did) "Thank God, the Republic is saved." We had dodged a bullet. We dodged another years later when Bush 43 was elected. On 5 Nov 2009 America's luck ran out..the gullible fools prevailed. One can cheat fate only so often, as we used to say. It's all a matter of exposure time. Sooner or later, given enough exposure time, everyone catches the Golden BB. Is this the time, or just a close call? God may still protect fools and drunks (I'm living proof of that) but has he given up on America? How many chances does a nation get?

Stephen said...

Virg, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Thank you for your service. It's hard to even imagine those fellas who signed the Declaration having the courage of conviction to go up against the British Crown. A courage born of an innate hatred of tyranny. Tyranny. That's how this feels to me. This is just the beginning, unless we stop them. The patriotic sacrifices that our military people have made around the world in the defense of freedom for all men, are being cast aside and devalued with every new progressive forward thrust. I'm not having any more of it. Those who wish to destroy what has made our country so great are my enemy.