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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Wal-Mart Announces Merger with Congress
The Declaration of Independence Remix 2006
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WAL-MART ANNOUNCES MERGER WITH CONGRESS
Bentonville, AR - Breaking News: Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott will anounce on January
1st the merger between Wal-Mart and the United States Congress. Scott released
a prepared statement that noted, "...Since every member of Congress has
already been for sale for many years, and tremendously overpriced, it is the
perfect time for Wal-Mart to take over and run the country at a lower cost and
with more efficiency."
Scott believes that many Americans are fed up with the way Congress had been
leading the county. For far too long they have watched clumsy attempts at selling
political favors, earmarks, and pork by such fools as Tom Foley, Bob Ney and
Duke Cunningham. Scott stated, "It is time for Wal-Mart to provide national
leadership without all the messy overhead cost of bribery. Wal-Mart's first
cost cutting measure will be the elimination of all the institutionalized legal
and illegal bribery that is commonplace in our capitol."
"There will be no more Democrats, no more Republicans, no more partisan
bickering, or politics of personal destruction. There will only be one party,
the Walcrat-Marticans. Just think about it. No more embarrassing Harry Reid
land deals, William Jefferson-sized bribes, or John Murtha ABSCAM scandals."
Wal-Mart plans to reduce prices while increasing government efficiency. Something
Congress has long forgotten how to do. Wal-Mart's first goal will be to rebuild
New Orleans in 6 weeks, while lowering drug prices for everybody. Remember the
$150m bridge to nowhere in Alaska? Wal-Mart can build it to somewhere, and for
only $20m.
Wal-Mart is the largest grocer in the world and believes that they can eliminate
hunger and poverty while reducing taxes. Wal-Mart will also figure out how to
run our schools efficiently, support the military, and balance the federal budget.
Feel the need
for campaign finance reform? No need for that now. Feeling cynical about the
elite class of Americans that exclusively rule over us with their phony and
condescending compassion? Worry no more. We will have real middle-class Americans
from Wal-Mart who are in touch with all of us running the country.
Worried about
your Congressman losing his job? We have jobs waiting for them.
Rep Howard Smith
(D-MA)
"You need our education system fixed? Go to aisle 5, right next to the school supplies."
Since more people show up to shop at Wal-Mart in one week than show up to vote in each presidential election Wal-Mart does not expect much opposition to the merger. If there are any court challenges Wal-Mart is extremely confident of their chances. Merger litigation will glide right through the first legal hurdle of the US District court in Arkansas, which is home to Wal-mart. If the opposition appeals to the 8th Circuit of the US Court of Appeals located in nearby St Louis, just remember that bench currently has two judges on it from the state of Arkansas. The real fight may be in the Supreme Court but Wal-Mart's corporate lawfirm of Effington, Effington, Hartford, and Cletus confidently expects a 5-4 decision in their favor.
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Have you ever noticed that any time Congress attempts to reform itself, the abuses become worse? In the early 70s, Congress tried to limit the amount of money a single donor could give to a politician. That legislation limited the amount that individuals could only give their favorite candidates at $1,000 (called "hard" money). Well our dear old legislators dodged that requirement by creating "soft" money. Soft money is money that you give to your favorite candidate without really giving it to your candidate. The money goes to your candidate's party and they spend it for him. In 2002 Congress tried to reform itself again with the McCain-Feingold Law. This silly law, in addition to silencing free speech (limits on issue adds), attempted to remove the influence of soft money. What it ended doing was moving control of the soft money from the political parties to so-called "527-groups," which are non profits set up to influence the elections.
These attempts at reform are wrong because the reformers have failed to properly identify the problem (This is known as a Category Error). These reforms are made with the idea that there is too much money in politics and the answer is simply to limit this amount. This is silly. First of all, there is nothing wrong with having money influence the election. Why? It is the free market at work. The more popular candidate will draw the most money. And what exactly is the alternative? Would you like the military to control the election? Or the media? How about the politicians themselves? Money is the lesser of all these evils. Second, each attempt at limiting the money has failed. The money will always find some way to make it into the process. Theoretically if you designed the perfect law that limited the amount of money that could enter the political process what do you think the result would be? Only the rich, using their own money, would become elected. We can't design a law that tells someone how much of their own money they can spend on their own election. That money is their private property.
The problem in politics is not too much money. The problem is the source of the money and the strings that are attached. Donors expect to be paid back with special treatment and favorable legislation. We cannot eliminate this problem so the only realistic thing we can do is shine some light on it. How do we do that?
Here is my campaign finance reform:
1. There are no limits on
spending-Spending limits have never worked before. And besides, the US government
should not be able to place restrictions on my donations. My wealth is my private
property and I should be able to donate as much as I want to whom I choose.
2. Donors must be a citizen and a legal resident of the congressman's district
3. There must be full disclosure of who donated and how much-If we are going
to elect you we should know who your masters would be.
4. Repeal the issue ad restrictions of McCain-Feingold.
5. Term limit Congress. The worst abuse of campaign finances come from entrenched
incumbents who are scratching and clawing to keep their seats. We term limit
presidents, so why not legislators, and while we are at it we might as well
term limit federal judges.
6. Give the president a line item veto (43 governors have it). Special interest
groups donate money to politicians in exchange for political favors. Let's give
the president the power to veto some of the pork and earmarks. The donors must
realize that the revolving door of donations coming in and favors coming back
out can now be interrupted.
We can't leave it to the incumbents to craft campaign finance reform. They only get serious about it when the public begins to get outraged. And when they do tackle the issue they attempt to craft the laws in favor of the incumbents. Perhaps a freshman class of congressmen can fix this issue. We can do it if we put enough public pressure on them.
And finally, when discussing pork and earmarks please stop saying that politicians spend money like drunken sailors. That is an insult to sailors. At least sailors spend their own money.
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Our presidents, many governors and some mayors have term limits. Why? We know that multiple re-elections will poison a person and turn them into a self-server. He or she will have too much power and start making bad decisions. They will place themselves and their next re-election ahead of the people they are serving. If this makes sense then why don't we have term limits for our legislators? (Lifetime appointments of federal judges are another bad idea that can be discussed at a later date.)
When we are first thinking about term limits it is helpful to think in terms of local governments. The state and federal government are just too large for most of us to comprehend. Your local city government is a good microcosm of what happens at every level. Would you want the same people voted over and over again on your city council? (City councils typically wield the power in a council-mayor type of government). What would happen? They would create a political machine that serves their purposes instead of the city's. They would appoint cronies to run city departments who would in turn select buddies to staff most of the positions. The city government would grow and more city workers would be hired. Anybody who wanted a city job would have to toe the party line. Free speech would be stymied as outsiders with new ideas are not allowed in. The performance of the city would suffer. There would be no impetus for a city worker to perform above the minimum level of their job unless they were bribed.
The same thing happens in our national government except they don't call it bribery. They call it pork barrel spending and earmarks to the tune of billions of dollars annually. The professional politicians in our congress who are elected term after term rule the nation with little regard for the voters. They are consumed with doing what it takes to become reelected and payback those who are helping them. Any laws they pass tend to grow the size of the government and/or reward their supporters with more earmarks and pork. They are no longer beholden to the voters, they respond to lobbyists. The problem has become so bad that even the republicans who came to Washington with the promises of smaller government and fewer taxes have been seduced. They might have wanted to do the right thing at one point but they have become assimilated. The power is too intoxicating and they are incapable of stopping it.
The need for term limits
did not occur to our Founding Fathers. They did not believe that someone would
want to become a professional political parasite. They visualized a Congress
made up of congressman and senators who would give up a few years of productive
private life to serve their civic duty and then return to the private sector,
voluntarily replaced by others. A small cadre of bureaucrats would be in place
to bridge the turnover and help run a smooth ship. These original public servants
did not receive much pay, had few perks and worked behind the scenes. But over
the last 225 years these public servants have turned into self-serving leeches.
They have become highly paid (above and below the table) self-important power
hungry publicity seeking scoundrels. They serve themselves, their contributors
and the government. Every once in a while they dangle a carrot to the voters.
They have created a self-serving system that swallows up the idealistic newcomer
and turns them into monsters. The rare newcomer arrives in Washington DC campaigning
as an outsider (they all do) who is ready to make changes. They soon realize
that the system is so complex that they must compromise to make some change.
If they want to make further changes they realize that they must rise within
the political machine. This causes them to further abandon their original principles.
They become entrenched and lose all idealism as they concentrate on using the
system to maintain the power that they accumulated. Their original idealism
is long forgotten. Dismissed as naiveté.
As they become ensconced in Washington they come down with a case of Potomac Fever. They feel the need for new legislation for every public problem. Their egos are stroked as they solve all of society's problems while at the same time conveniently gathering more political power with the growth in government. As the size of the government grows more lobbyists rush to Washington DC in order to get a piece of the pie. They pay congressman millions of dollars in legal campaign contributions and illegal bribes. The congressmen will tell you what you want to hear to get through the next election but their real allegiance goes toward their contributors.
The congressmen then use a number of perks to help them get re-elected (Free mail, a taxpayer provided professional staff, free publicity, the list is myriad.). Since that isn't always enough, they help fashion laws at the state level to help. The most startling of these laws is probably gerrymandering. Political parties at the state level draw congressional boundaries in order to help their peers stay elected. These boundaries are not related to geographical features or even postal zones. They are hand-tailored drawings that resemble Rorschach prints used to guarantee that the voters represent the legislator, not vice-versa. So, in essence, the legislators are selecting their voters. These districts are so safe that reelections are almost foregone conclusions. Voters see little impetus to get out and vote. That is why we barely get a 50% voter turnout. The incumbents are so safe that it takes the entire resources of the national political parties to unseat one congressman from the other party. This means more money needs to be raised, and that means more favors are owed.
We must be protected from
out-of-control politicians and they must be protected from themselves. Term
limits will do this and it will also bring out more voters. The size of government
should shrink (or at least, stop growing), and corruption on the scale of a
Rep. Randy Cunningham would be less likely. Critics of term limits state that
there are already term limits built into our system at Election Day. But the
incumbents have crafted a system that has created 90% re-election rates. Please
vote. Dump the incumbents.
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Prior to 1913 you did not vote for your two state senators. They were either appointed or voted in by your state's legislature. The XVIIth Amendment of the Constitution authorized the direct election of senators by the citizens of each state in 1913. This was the same year that we got our Federal Reserve System and our modern day Income Tax (I'd say one of the worst non-war years in US history.).
That amendment needs to be repealed because our senators no longer represent the people who vote for them. They are beholden to the organizations that finance their campaigns and to their political parties. By repealing the amendment, the senators would have to change their loyalties back to the citizens of the states through their state legislatures. Political power would shift from Washington DC back to the states.
Here is how the current system works. The two political powers in our country, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) decide early on who they will support for the senate races in your state's senate primaries. They offer direct financial support to their candidates with political contributions garnered through well-organized national fundraising efforts (hard money) as well as indirect financial contributions through the raising of money that goes into the party's general account (soft money and "527s") that is also used to help the candidate. So what you end up with is a lot of out-of-state special interests sending money to candidates that are chosen by the national parties. These parties also offer indirect support to their candidates by praising them in front of the news media. These chosen candidates rarely lose the primary race due to the amount of financial support and the typical low voter turnout. Even though the apathetic voters are partly to blame for this, the system itself needs to be changed.
A good example of outside special interests selecting the candidates is going on right now in the state of Connecticut. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D) is up for re-election. The Democrat's vice-presidential candidate from 2000 has fallen out of favor with the Democratic National Committee due to his support of President George Bush (R) and the war against terrorism. The DNC is supporting his challenger Ned Lamont with campaign money from outside the state donated by the loony anti-war extreme left-wing of the Democratic Party. Even Lieberman's former running mate Al Gore, and the Clintons refuse to support him. He might end up running and winning as an Independent, but we would not have so much out-of-state interference in Connecticut's politics if the senators were appointed by the state legislature.
Another example is from the republican primary in the state of Pennsylvania in 2004. The most conservative choice for republican voters was former Congressman Pat Toomey. The Republican National Committee and President George Bush either did not like Toomey or did not think that Toomey could win the general election against the Democrat challenger Congressman Joe Hoeffel, so they threw their support behind the incumbent RINO (Republican In Name Only) Senator Arlen Specter. Specter is one of the most liberal republicans and a frequent critic of George Bush. President Bush supported Specter and Specter won re-election. Looking back it was a huge mistake. Specter narrowly defeated Toomey and then trounced Hoeffel, so Toomey probably could have defeated Hoeffel. The Republicans of Pennsylvania would have had a real conservative in Specter's chair.
So thanks to the XVIIth Amendment our senators are beholden to the national parties instead of the state legislatures or the citizens. You see further proof of this when legislation is run through the senate almost exclusively along straight party lines. That shouldn't be happening. Senators from adjoining states should have similar interests and similar voting patterns. Let's look at an example using immigration and some senators from New England. If a Republican senator from Arizona presents some get tough legislation on immigration we would tend to think that the two senators in NH and the two senators in ME would vote alike since immigration is really not an issue in that part of the country. These senators would ideally judge the new legislation solely on its merits. But in reality, the Republican senators from NH will almost automatically vote for the get tough on immigration law while the Democrat senators from ME will vote against it. They do this because that is how their national parties feel about such legislation and the national parties own these senators. You could also use the abortion example. If you took the senators from two southern Bible Belt states you would assume that they would all vote against abortion. But they will cast their votes along party lines; Democrats typically voting for abortion, and Republicans voting against it.
If you repeal the amendment and give state legislatures the power to appoint senators, than at least we know that the states are sending senators to Washington, and not the national parties. The state legislators would also have an incentive to help us monitor their activities. These senators would be beholden to their state parties and local interests and not owned by national committees and national special interests. They would be much closer to the people they are supposed to be serving.
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Welcome to my Dump The Incumbents page. It is well past the time to vote all of our entrenched federal lawmakers out of office and this election year is the perfect time to start doing it. We can clean out all of the congressmen and some of the senators in 2006, continue in 2008 with more senators and the president, and finish up with the rest of the incumbent senators in 2010. It is a good time to purge everybody because we don't have an incumbent president or vice-president seeking office. I'm not asking anybody to do a whole lot, just to register and vote in three national elections in four years time (2006, 2008, 2010). If we could get 75% of the adults in this country to vote, we could easily do it.
I am a staunch republican, but this is a bipartisan effort. I used to be a proud republican but now I am a republican solely because I believe it is the lesser of two evils. That is not an option you should have at election time. I don't think third parties are the answer because they don't get anywhere and only end up hurting the party they are more closely aligned with. Ross Perot ruined George Bush the Elder's re-election bid in 1992. In 2000, Ralph Nader probably cost Al Gore the election by siphoning off precious votes in Florida.
My Dump The Incumbents (DTI) campaign will actually consist of four goals:
1. Dump the Incumbents in
Washington
2. Repeal the 17th Amendment (Which provides for the direct election of senators)
3. Campaign Finance reform
4. Term limits for Congress
Right now I will rant about why we should Dump The Incumbents. Discussions on issues 2-4 will follow.
Why do we need to purge out national government?
1. The party with the power disappoints. The democrats had most of the power for 40 years and ruined the country's culture. They took over the schools and taught multiculturalism and value neutrality to 3 generations of American children. They created our race problems with their social programs and destroyed the black family. The republicans started taking over in 1994 with a pledge of reform but became drunk with power; bankrupting the country and increasing the size of the government.
2. They think they are the privileged class. When the FBI raided Congressman William Jefferson's office, House Speaker Dennis Hastert pitched a fit over their congressional privilege and the sanctity of their offices. Patrick Kennedy and Cynthia McKinney both broke the law and received special treatment. Look at the arrogance of Duke Cunningham and Tom Delay.
3. They lack the courage to end failing government programs that are bankrupting us. We could easily eliminate half of the president's cabinet and their corresponding bureaucracies and programs.
4. It is partisanship over constituents-Each party's focus is on defeating and sabotaging each other. Their constituents are second. I have to blame the democrats on this one. Spineless republicans were famous for getting along with the democrats for all those years they were in power. Once the republicans took control of Congress the democrats simply stopped working with them. The democrats were in power for so long that their definition of bipartisanship meant doing what they said.
5. Both parties love voter apathy and take the necessary steps to ensure a low voter turnout. They act to create cynical citizens because cynical citizens don't vote and a low voter turnout will always help the incumbent. One way they ensure low voter turnout is through gerrymandering (They use the euphemism redistricting.). They design their own congressional districts to ensure they get re-elected. (I know that this is done at the state level, but they are told what to do by the congressmen.) Gerrymandering creates a system where the incumbent gets to choose their voters instead of the other way around. Many people don't even bother to vote because the result is a foregone conclusion.
6. They have created an incumbency protection racket and called it campaign finance reform. Remember, every piece of campaign reform is created by and for the incumbents. Incumbency creates a class of legislators that are no longer responsive to their own public. This creates anger and cynicism, and the frustrated voters stay home.
7. They have created a system where the truth is so hidden that they have to hire a staff that is skilled at cover ups, evasion, spin, lies, disinformation, half-truths, feigned ignorance, sudden memory loss, manipulation of facts, distortions, controlled polling, double standards, and blame-shifting. Washington DC is the industry that has the most euphemisms to describe incompetence and lying. More cynicism.
8. They create laws that are more complex than the electronic blueprint of the international space station. Laws that are layered, intertwined, cumbersome, intrusive and confusing add to voter anger and apathy
9. They are all crooks. The fine line between legal and illegal bribery is indistinct in Washington DC and that is the way they like it. They want you to stay confused over the legitimacy of their activity. Have you noticed that when one of our esteemed leaders is caught doing something illegal his political enemies rarely say much about it? They know that they have committed the same crime in the past or will someday commit that crime and they don't want to be called a hypocrite. They have designed a system where you can shower the legislator and his family all year with bribes and special favors in exchange for pork and earmarks. But at re-election time these favors and donations are strictly limited because the incumbents don't want that same money seeping over to their competitors.
10. Both parties are fiscally irresponsible. They have different approaches to taxation, but the same approaches to spending. There is no limit to their spending because spending money for their districts helps them get re-elected. The deficit in this country can be defined as the amount of taxes they wished they had the courage to levy on you in order to cover their spending. And you know what? I don't even trust their figures. I bet it is much worse than they say. They are not held to the same accounting principles that they created for our private companies. They make their own accounting rules and then ignore them. I don't have a problem with a country running a small deficit, but a large one shows irresponsibility and invites further corruption. Our bloated budget has been created in order to feed an army of lobbyists composed of congressional family members, former legislators, and former staffers.
11. They are moral cowards. They schedule simple, popular legislation at election time and complex, unpopular legislation in years where there are no elections. We have a midterm election coming this fall and what do we get from Washington? Flag burning legislation! Sure I think we need it because I don't think flag burning is a speech issue. But this issue was brought up just to energize the republican base during an election year. Meanwhile tougher issues like immigration, social security reform, and spending limits are ignored because our lawmakers are cowards. They avoid the tough issues and waste our resources grandstanding about dumb issues such as steroids in baseball. They schedule everything based around Election Day. Ever wonder why our taxes are due in April, when the government's fiscal year starts in October? April is a safe distance from election time. They don't want you to remember how much tax money you paid when you go to the polls. Let's move tax day closer to Election Day.
12. They have no accountability. The government is simply too big for any accountability. Who was held accountable for 9/11? Should someone be in jail for the negligence that caused 3,000 Americans to be murdered? Who was held accountable for the lousy city, state and federal reaction to hurricane Katrina? Sure "Brownie" was forced to resign, but that was it. If there is no punishment for failure, failure will multiply until it becomes even more catastrophic.
13. Scandal. Congress is quick to chase down the latest corporate scandals; Adelphia, Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, etc. But what about their own scandals and incompetence? Should they go to jail? How about the scandals of quasi government agencies they have oversight for such as Fannie Mae?
14. They have sat around for years and watched our private property rights erode. Private property is taken in this country under the guise of drug forfeiture laws and eminent domain cases that are just undisguised political favors. Yes, I disagree with illegal drug forfeiture laws. Drug dealers are the scum of the earth, but that does not justify taking their private property. Private property should be sacrosanct. It is too vital to the creation of private wealth in a society. If you fear that the government is going to take your property you stop accumulating wealth and the economy fails.
I could go on an on but the
only thing I seem to be am accomplishing right now is elevating my blood pressure.
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THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE-REMIX 2006
In Congress, July 4, 2006
The unanimous Declaration of the fifty 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 States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present elected members of our federal government 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.
They have refused his Assent to Laws, the same laws they hold us to, most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
They have refused to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, such as Social Security reform. And when they pass other laws, they have utterly neglected to attend to them. Thereby starting a cycle of need for new laws enabling the government to grow and amass more power.
They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large corporations, unless those businesses would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature in favor of outright bribes, campaign contributions, special perks, favors, insider trading, and other preferential treatment, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
They have enacted complex and obfuscated legislation distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing the people into compliance with these measures.
They have disgraced the
Congress repeatedly, by their invasions on the rights of the people.
They have refused for a long time, after passing incumbency protection laws,
to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the current occupants at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion
from without, and convulsions within.
They have endeavoured to endanger the native born population of these States; for that purpose obfuscating the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to discourage their illegal migrations hither, and raising national security issues of the Lands.
They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers and preventing activist courts.
They have made Judges dependent on their capricious behavior alone, for the tenure of their offices, and their legal decisions.
They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of bureaucrats to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
They have kept among us, in times of prosperity, burdensome Armies of regulations without the consent of our citizens.
They have affected to render the federal government independent of and superior to the citizenry.
They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their Assent to Acts of pretended Legislation by the United Nations:
For Quartering large bodies of militarized police forces among us:
For protecting themselves, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should be responsible for through their own negligence on the Inhabitants of these States, such as on 9/11:
For surrendering our autonomy to all parts of the United Nations:
For imposing a complex system of Taxes on us without our Consent that guarantees errors causing us to be guilty of breaking the law which results in a new round of more complexity:
For depriving us, through gerrymandering, of the benefits of voting:
For lying to us before Elections about pretend promises:
For enacting so many complex, burdensome, and contradictory laws, 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 States:
For taking away the original intent of the Constitution, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own property rights and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate ownership for their cronies in all cases whatsoever.
They have abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of their Protection and only worrying about reelection.
They have plundered our inner cities, enacting welfare laws that destroyed the will of our people.
They are at this time transporting large Armies of lobbyists to compleat the works of bribery, corruption and other criminal behavior already begun with circumstances of Felonies and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
They have asked our fellow Citizens to bear Arms against another Country, while withholding their full support of our soldiers and publicly fighting amongst themselves.
They have excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and have endeavoured to divide our American population by constructing artificial notions of race, and dividing us by ages, sexes, religions, ancestry and other 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 empty campaign promises. Princes whose characters are thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, are unfit to be the rulers of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our beltway 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 Citizens 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 the Authority of the good People of these States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the beltway Crown, and that all political connection between them and the Kingdom of Washington DC, 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.
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