life, liberty, pursuit of happiness
fireworks, bombs burst in air,
fire up the barbie

send in the tanks, send in the clowns, forget
why or what we celebrate,
oppression at the gate

~kat

Have you read the Declaration of Independence lately? I’m just going to leave this here…

Many of us are familiar with China

the following excerpt…

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. —

Here are a few other tidbits from the text…several of the charges that justified our case for declaring independence. Reading it again in 2019 is a chilling exercise if you’re paying attention…

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.

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 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 affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

For protecting [soldiers], 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 suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

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.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

-George Santayana