When, in the course of human events...

[athelind]

This is the list of grievances from the Declaration of Independence.  If you can stand to, take it and bold the parts you've seen apply recently.

(yanked from a friendslocked post)

1. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.



2. 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.



3. 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.



4. 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.



5. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.



6. 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.



7. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.



8. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.



9. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.



10. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.



11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.



12. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.



13. 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:



14. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:



15. For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:



16. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:



17. For imposing taxes on us without our consent:



18. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:



19. For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:



20. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 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 in these colonies:



21. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:



22. For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.



23. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.



24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.



25. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.



26. 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.



27. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.



28. 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.

Additions and corrections requested. Objections to bolded passages will be met by links to examples.

Comments

[scarfman]

I may use this at AKOTAS, in thirty-three days, if you don't mind.

[iridium-wolf.livejournal.com]

Remember this entry of mine from September of last year: http://iridium-wolf.livejournal.com/251872.html ?

I did the same thing with the Declaration. Nothing's changed in the intervening eight months, it's sad to say.

I have no objections to your bolds, I only suggest you bold the entirety of #28.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Sending his goons to the Attorney General's hospital bed might marginally count as #4.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

With only slight twists in wording, I'd go for all 28 to be bolded. The simplest change would be to add "He has wanted to...."

[paka.livejournal.com]

I'd argue the following caveats;

3. Blue State interests are not represented by this executive. The alternative to persisting with our current state of disenfranchisement is secession, which is not a feasible measure.

7. This could be argued by the Republican party's consistent eagerness to scapegoat and blame immigrants, and to hinder attempts of immigrants to naturalize.

11. The war was technically an executive action rather than a legislative-backed declaration of hostilities.

13. The Patriot Act may qualify as an unconstitutional piece of legislature and the constitutional status of its enforcement by the executive is arguable.

17. Someone must provide funding for this war. At some point, funding to make up for costs will come out of tax revenue. It could be argued that my continued payment of taxes represents consent to that use of revenue, however.

22. Check out some of the Bush's discussion of executive permissions according to the Patriot Act.

24. We lost an entire city thanks to intentional execurive neglect. 9/11 may arguably be intentional neglect, or active intent depending on your view of the situation. Either way the responsibility is clear.

27. It could be argued that the Republican tactic of fractitiousness and pulling on regional differences consists of close to a domestic insurrection.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

3. Bold it. This administration has actively sought to disenfranchise Democratic voters in key states, like Jews in Florida in 2000 and blacks in urban Ohio districts in 2004.

13 should be bolded, too. This is President Executive Order. If his many illegal EOs aren't pretended legislation, nothing is.

24 might be taken in the light of Bush's awful environmental record. ;)

[atomicdumbass.livejournal.com]

This is a good post.

13. The purge of the Officer Corps. If one works not only in the Justice Department, but also the US military, the Civil Service and the Intelligence Services, one falls under ideological screening. Those in charge of these institutions are now ideologically in tune with the administration.

17. Taxes without consent. There exists a "secret Democrat tax," levied upon American citizens who live on the coasts. It's disguised as the new Alternative Minumum Tax, and it affects people where property and local income taxes are high. Blue states.

22. The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed May 9th, gives the president the power to ignore the other branches of government as well as the consitution in case of "catastrophe."

I have conservative friends. We discuss this. They change the subject when asked: "What if Bill Clinton had done these things?"

[athelind.livejournal.com]

PLEASE do. That would be the best method of meme propagation EVER.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you're right.

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall hearing him claim "The Declaration of Independence is just a damned piece of paper!"...

I really hope your congress impeaches the idiot and his entire cabinet for crimes against humanity, among other things. Also, I really hope you all learn from this, and choose more carefully.

[iridium-wolf.livejournal.com]

That quote unfortunately referenced the Constitution. The thing he swore, three times, to defend.

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the other document of importance. :) My mistake. Still, hopefully the American people set up the gallows once more.

[shadowspun.livejournal.com]

Bold 17: Washington DC still has no say in their government, which (to be fair) is an issue that has been a problem for many administrations.

[rakeesh.livejournal.com]

And this is why I'm proud to be Canadian.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

...because you never declared independence to begin with, and you don't have any documents like this for your government to disregard and devalue??

[wy.livejournal.com]

zing. :P

[rakeesh.livejournal.com]

Actually, we have laws governing such actions. :3

And we did the polite canadian thing. We asked them nicely, and they said yes. ^_^

-Keesh

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Thank you!