Wednesday, November 19, 2003

See the post below for a brilliant observation by Mark Kleiman filled out to the following

The Declaration of Independence II



The Declaration of Independence of the United Kingdom In parliament November 19 2003
The unanimous Declaration of the England, Northern Ireland, Wales and, especially Scotland. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a multiethnic
bunch of peoples 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 and women 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, special relationships are formed between countries, deriving their just powers from the consent of both governments, --That whenever any special relationshipbecomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new special relationships, laying their foundations on such principles and organizing their powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that special relationships 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 a special relationship, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these kingdoms; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former special relationship. The history of the present president of the United States of
America [George III'd president of that name] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these kingdoms.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has (when governor of Texas) refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to balance their budgets, unless suspended in their operation till his Federal subsidies 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 (such as Puerto Rico and Washington DC) 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 allied leaders 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 refused for a long time, to recognise that someone else was elected president; 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 the United States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners and refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by giving his executive orders to for establishing alleged Judiciary powers.
He has made the resulting "Judges" dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent swarms of Officers to harass his people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power including the supreme court.
He has requested permission to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws for Quartering large bodies of armed bodyguards among us and For protecting them, by diplomatic immunity, from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these kingdoms.
He has combined with others to subject the USA to a jurisdiction foreign to their constitution and unacknowledged by their laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For depriving US citizens, in two cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting people beyond Seas to be held without trial:
For abolishing the free System of American Laws in a neighbouring naval base and establishing therein an Arbitrary government.

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 President 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 American brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over them. We have reminded them of the circumstances of their emigration and settlement there. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common cultural background 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, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the House of Commons, in
Westminster, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these kingdoms, solemnly publish and declare, That
these United Kingdoms are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Bush administration, and that the special relationship between them and the United States of America, is and ought to be temporarily 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.

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