As the United States turns 250 years old, the Declaration of Independence is being quoted almost everywhere, both in lavish celebration of the glory of America as a nation, and in praise of the nearly unlimited freedom that Americans supposedly enjoy.
Curiously, the quotations used for these purposes come almost exclusively from the first two or three sentences of the Declaration. True, those opening lines are brilliant and profound. Who can resist words like these:
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…
Consider however, that this celebratory and self-congratulatory use of the Declaration completely ignores the last 1,100 or so words of the 1,300 word document. As a born and bred patriotic American, I wanted to know why this is so. I began by rereading the entire Declaration. It raised a lot of questions.
For example, why does no one seem to reference this statement?
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.
Why doesn’t anyone remind us that
… 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.
I believe a careful rereading of the entire Declaration of Independence reveals why it is so selectively and incompletely referenced today. It is a sobering realization: if one thoroughly reviews the entire Declaration within the context of modern American politics, the parallels are unmistakable. It becomes obvious that the United States Government is itself guilty of “a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations” at least as tyrannical as the British Crown’s actions a quarter millennium ago.
As such, the right and duty of patriotic Americans is made clear in the words of the Declaration of Independence itself – especially in the portions that we never seem to hear.
Two Long Trains of Abuses and Usurpations
The majority of the Declaration of Independence consists of a detailed description of the “long Train of Abuses and Usurpations” that the Founders accused the British Crown of committing, followed by an account of the unsuccessful appeals for justice that the American colonists made to the British.
After its much-quoted opening flourish, the Declaration begins its litany of the Crown’s abuses. It includes a lengthy description of the Crown’s manipulation of the legislative process for the benefit of the British government and to the detriment of the American people:
- 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…unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly
Serious as those offenses are, one wonders how the Founders would have reacted to the legislative malfeasance of our modern American government. In the interest of time I will stop at three:
- The routine passage into law of 1,000-page bills that nobody reads, loaded with endless hidden riders that the public would never accept as stand-alone legislation (e.g., every “omnibus” bill ever written)
- The routine creation of laws that blatantly contradict the Constitution, stripping citizens of their fundamental rights (e.g., the Patriot Act, the PREP Act, and many more)
- The frequent creation of laws granting legal shields to corporations and denying citizens legal recourse for harms they suffer (e.g., the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and others)
A Multitude of New Offices
The Declaration of Independence states that the British Crown “has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.”
Today’s Federal Government has an estimated 441 agencies, according to the Federal Register. That number is necessarily an estimate. No one really knows exactly how many Federal agencies there are. Today there are “sent hither Swarms of Officers” (about 2.67 million of them) among us in every walk of life – work, education, travel, commerce, food, health care, etc., harassing us and eating out our substance to the tune of a $1.85 trillion deficit in 2025.
At this writing, the United States Federal Government’s debt is $39.3 trillion and rising, and for decades Washington has done nothing to stop it. The American nation and its people will ultimately be impoverished when the nation’s currency collapses and its economic system implodes.
Furthermore, Federal agencies often function as self-ruling fiefdoms. They impose endless regulations, mandates, and guidelines upon American citizens. These are often both ridiculous and tyrannical. These restrictions on citizens’ freedoms may not technically be laws, but they are treated as such in practice, often with force.
Recall the many nonsensical but truly harmful and unconstitutional civil rights abuses of the Covid era, that were based not on laws but on Federal mandates and guidelines, such as
- ‘social distancing’ (later admitted to have no scientific basis)
- mandated masking with utterly ineffective paper and cloth masks (including forced masking while standing in a restaurant, but not while seated!)
- the selective closing of small businesses (e.g., your neighborhood convenience store) while keeping big box and chain stores open
- the arbitrary designation of people and businesses as “essential” versus “inessential” (recall that liquor stores were deemed essential)
The Covid era made the tyrannical nature of Federal regulations, mandates, and guidelines much more obvious, but similar abuse long preceded Covid, and continues today.
Imposing Taxes on Us without Our Consent
The Declaration denounced the Crown “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” The Founders were understandably incensed by taxes imposed on them through distant legislation such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, even though those taxes amounted to a few percent.
But the Founders were spared the US Income Tax, which plunders hundreds of millions of Americans every year, even as government debt continues to grow. The permanent Income Tax was instituted in 1913 with the passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (perhaps the only part of the Constitution the Federal Government consistently obeys).
How many different United States Federal taxes are there today? Here is the most complete list I could find, and one sure to make even Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Charles Townshend blush.
- Personal Income Tax
- Corporate Income Tax
- FICA/Payroll Tax
- FUTA/Federal Unemployment Tax
- Self-Employment Tax
- Estimated Tax
- Capital Gains Tax
- Dividend Tax
- Net-Investment Tax
- Additional Medicare Tax
- Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax
- Excise Tax
- Tariffs/Customs Duties
- Alternative Minimum Tax
- Gift Tax
- Estate Tax/Death Tax
Any government that taxes its citizens like this, yet still runs a deficit in the trillions of dollars year after year, while endlessly printing money in the process, has unquestionably forfeited its right and authority to govern.
He Has Endeavored to Bring on the Inhabitants of Our Frontiers
The Declaration of Independence accuses the British Crown of what we today would recognize as false-flag operations, domestic terrorism, and intentional border instability. It states:
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.
The anachronistic characterization of American Indians aside, the parallels between the misdeeds of the British Crown circa 1776 and our Federal Government of today are unmistakable. Today, “inhabitants of our frontiers,” especially our Southern border, have been permitted and even encouraged to stream into our country by the millions, almost completely uncontrolled, for many years.
In the process, our cities have been infiltrated and occupied by drug cartels and violent foreign gangs. Drugs have flooded into the country. Countless American citizens have fallen prey to drug addiction and deaths of despair.
All of this has been allowed and even promoted by multiple elements of the United States Government, and by repeated presidential administrations. The relative success of the current administration in securing the border shows that this could have been stopped long ago, had the Government performed one of its most basic functions – protecting its own borders.
He Has Affected to Render the Military Independent of and Superior to the Civil Power
The Declaration of Independence states of the British Crown that “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.”
According to the Constitution, only Congress possesses the power to declare war. The last time the United States Government declared war was during World War II.
However, since World War II, the United States, claiming to be “the world’s policeman” and boasting of its alleged talent for “nation-building,” has been the most militarily aggressive, war-mongering nation on the planet. It pains me as a patriotic American citizen to say this, and I may offend some readers, but the facts do not lie.
Since World War II, without a single Congressional designation of war, the United States has:
- Waged large-scale wars and/or invasions of 11 countries
- Bombed 30 countries
- Attempted at least 18 coups d’état of foreign governments
- Lost as many as 100,000 American soldiers in military operations
- Killed many millions of foreign civilians
- Spent approximately $8 trillion on wars and military operations
This legacy of nonstop war and military aggression overwhelmingly demonstrates that the US military, covert government organizations such as the CIA, and essentially all modern presidential administrations operate with total disregard for the Constitution’s intent to prevent “render[ing] the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.”
Regardless of arcane legal arguments disputing the difference between declaring war and authorizing it, or between all-out wars and “limited” military operations, the fact remains: the United States Government wages nearly constant war against much of the rest of the world with no accountability to the American people.
“Classified” Operations Completely Ignore the Consent of the Governed
Elements of the United States Government and its military are involved in numerous “black ops” and “classified” activities that are kept beyond Congressional oversight or any other form of consent of the governed. Under the justification of “national security,” a wide variety of murderous acts perpetrated by the US Government are kept secret from American citizens, including those perpetrated on American citizens themselves.
For example, the Covid catastrophe was principally the product of our Federal Government’s unconscionable gain-of-function bioweapons research program. Its lynchpin was the utterly corrupt US Government lifer Anthony Fauci, working in cooperation with a host of other criminal forces, including the globalist population-reduction advocate and billionaire Bill Gates, the Chinese Communist Party, and yes, even Jeffrey Epstein.
Covid was not an isolated incident. Former Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard recently submitted a report revealing the existence of longstanding United States government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries, including in highly unstable nations such as Ukraine. These labs – essentially bioweapons workshops – have been highly classified and thus completely unknown to the American people, who have unwittingly funded them for decades.
Since Covid, the United States Government’s long history of bioweapons development is becoming better known, but the great majority of Americans remain unaware that in addition to Covid, we face numerous infectious agents today (including Lyme disease, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and H5N1 Bird flu) as a result of US bioweapons research.
Bioweapons are far from the only “classified” weapons that the US Government secretively spends many billions of taxpayer dollars upon annually, and often unleashes upon its own citizenry. A review of all of these (weather weaponization, psychological warfare and mind control, directed energy weapons, etc.) would fill volumes. Collectively, they represent a level of betrayal of the American people on the part of their government that the Founders could hardly have imagined.
We Have Petitioned for Redress
The Declaration of Independence describes more Crown offenses: corruption of the Judiciary, denial of trial by jury, restraint of trade, and others. Rest assured, for these offenses as well, similar acts of malfeasance have been committed by our current US Government. But I will turn from the long train of abuses, both in the interest of time and also to address the Declaration’s statement about the colonists’ attempts to seek redress.
The Declaration of Independence states:
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.
We modern Americans also “have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms” to our Federal government. Witness the numerous grassroots advocacy groups constantly working to correct the misdeeds described in this essay. Where has it gotten us?
- Our nation is $38 trillion in debt, despite its citizens being heavily taxed
- Our rights are being stripped from us by corrupt lawmakers without regard for the Constitution
- For decades, the Federal government has failed to secure its own borders
- Our nation foments endless wars of choice that benefit only foreign and globalist interests and profit only the military-industrial complex
- “Classified” elements of our government pervert science and court worldwide catastrophe through the weaponization of nature and the creation of ever more deadly technological weaponry
As a patriotic American, I love my country. I am loyal and faithful to the United States. Nevertheless, it has become clear that our United States Government has committed “a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations that evinces a Design to reduce [us] under absolute Despotism.” It is “unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.”
Removing the Corruption and Restoring Lost Principles
Let us consider some words from the three authors of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, its principal author, predicted the cause of our current predicament, and elsewhere hints at a solution:
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.
Benjamin Franklin predicted that the corruption of we the people would eventually end the American republic:
This [the Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then to end in despotism…when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.
John Adams stated that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Are we modern Americans composed of the stuff needed to save our Republic? How do we remove the corruption and restore its lost principles? As for our government, how do we alter or abolish it, and institute new government?
As Americans appreciate the genius, beauty, and power of the Declaration of Independence at 250 years, we must ask ourselves:
How shall we declare our independence?
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