By Silence Dogood
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 people 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 the people, 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 President of the United States 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.
He has refused to fund the necessary operation of the government to leverage a political demand at the determent of the public good.
He has forbidden his government to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance to repair infrastructure, has proposed cuts to Medicare and Social Security and has utterly neglected to attend to issues of national security.
He has refused to follow the Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people by instituting unconstitutional executive orders and removing power over the budget and declaration of hostilities from Congress, a right inestimable to Congress and formidable to tyrants only.
He has dissolved the power of representative houses by subverting democracy, supported racially motivated policies and used the power of his office to attack anyone opposing with firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states by skewing the census and supporting a party that commits gerrymandering and voter suppression; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising conditions of abject horror by imprisoning children without due process of law.
He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers by attacking the independence of the courts and impugning the motivations of judges based on their ethnicity.
He has made courts dependent on the will of his party and packed courts with unsuitable candidates in opposition to the consent of the governed.
He has appointed corrupt and inept people to cabinet positions, and sent hither swarms of cabinet officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, white nationalists, who carry out domestic terrorism against the people without his censure.
He has affected to rob the military of its independence. He has brought troops and tanks to march in our nation’s capital for the political benefit of himself and his party and done so at the expense of the government purse. He has ordered military craft carrying the name of a political opponent hidden from his sight to protect his fragile sense of self.
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 aggression against our democratic election process and signaled he would take aide from a foreign enemy for personal gain.
For cutting off our trade with parts of the world and imposing arbitrary tariffs:
For imposing taxes through tariffs without Consent of Congress:
For depriving us in many cases, of lawful checks and balances:
For violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution and enriching his purse through gifts from foreign governments and self-dealing from federal coffers:
For abolishing the free system of laws, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries through executive order so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states:
For taking away our tax dollars for self-enrichment, abolishing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the norms of our government:
For suspending our checks and balances, autonomy of the judiciary and Department of Justice, and declaring himself invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring himself our only savior and us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our pockets, ravaged our national trust with a constant barrage of lies, burnt our Constitution, and destroyed our standing in the world.
He is at this time creating internment camps that result in the death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens by attacking race, gender, religion, and creed. He has incited nationalist to bear arms against their country if his election was not successful and encouraged them to become the executioners of their friends and brethren if they did not pledge allegiance to his mob.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our nation’s underbelly, the merciless Nazis, Segregationists, and Proud Boys, and he tweets for the undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions who do not support his will.
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 Republican 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 representatives 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 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 Trump, and that all political connection between them and the party of Trump, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to oversee fair elections free of gerrymandering, onerous voter laws intended to exclude those whose oppose minority rule, the usurpation of the will of the People to determine their representation, to have a free and independent press that is not attacked by an authoritarian leader, to have the right to control one’s body free from government intervention, establish Commerce free from the political ideologies of a minority party, and to be free from the forced religious ideologies, and to do all other acts and things which independent, free people may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, for the restoration of a functioning democracy, and restore America’s standing in the world, it is with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Silence Dogood is a local citizen who would like to see America live up to its potential promised in our Constitution and return America to a functioning democracy.