VIDEO: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” It’s not about hotdogs folks!
VIDEO: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” It’s not about hotdogs folks!
Gather around with your children and listen to the Reading of the Declaration of Independence. This sublime document is as relevant today as it was when it was written.
VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETroXvRFoKY
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen 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 Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain 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 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 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.
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.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
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 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
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 made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
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:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, 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 benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring 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 into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of 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 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.
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.
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.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish 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 Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, 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.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
Text Source: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Aaron Russo – RIP; Democracy vs. Republic – Do you know the difference?
Enough is enough! Greeks with Moxie, Vote OXI !!!
Enough is enough! Greeks with Moxie, Vote OXI !!!
Enough is enough! Greece votes ‘No’ to further austerity for cash
The Greek people have voted ‘No’ in a key referendum deciding whether to accept or reject the harsh bailout demands of international creditors. At stake, many commentators have said, is the country’s future in the eurozone and the EU itself.
A total of 4,800 polling stations across the country opened at 7:00 am local time (4:00 GMT) and closed at 7:00 pm.
Approximately 9.9 million Greeks have took part in the vote, which was labeled #Greferendum by the social media.
“Today, democracy trumps fear. Our people’s determination trumps fear. I am confident that tomorrow we will set a new course for all the peoples of Europe,” Tsipras said after casting his vote.
“No one can ignore the will of a people who are seeking to live with dignity, to live life on their own terms,” he added.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis once again slammed Greece’s creditors for using “terrorist methods” against the debt-stricken nation.
Tsipras’s predecessor as prime minister, Antonis Samaras, of the rightist New Democracy party, told reporters that he had voted “Yes.”
“Today, we Greeks decide on the fate of our country,” Samaras said. “We vote ‘Yes’ to Greece. We vote ‘Yes’ to Europe.”
Voters were handed two ballots as they enter the booths – one contained the referendum question and the other, for those who wish to abstain, is blank.
“Should the deal draft that was put forward by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the Eurogroup of June 25, 2015, consisting of two parts, that together form a unified proposal, be accepted?” the question read.
The people were asked to put “+” in either ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ boxes, while the use of any other symbol rendered the ballot invalid.
With the country’s economy on the brink of default, the interior ministry said that the holding the vote cost around €25 million, which is half the cost of the general election which took place in January, bringing the current anti-austerity government to power.
Sunday’s referendum in Greece was called by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras last week in order to add more clout to his negotiating position in the ongoing talks with the Troika of global lenders – the European Central Bank (ECB), European Commission (EC), and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The negotiations have been stalled since June 25, after creditors declined to prolong a financial aid program for the struggling country or delay payments on earlier debts.
Speaking in front of a 25,000-strong rally in Athens on Friday, Tsipras urged the crowd to say a “proud ‘No’ to ultimatums” by the lenders, stressing that the plebiscite is about “staying in Europe, and deciding to live in dignity in Europe.”
Greek economic minister, Yanis Varoufakis, went a step further on Saturday, describing the actions of the Troika as “terrorism.”
“What they are doing with Greece has a name: terrorism,” Varoufakis told Spanish El Mundo paper. “Why have they forced us to close the banks? To make people frightened. And when it comes to spreading terror, this phenomenon is called terrorism.”
He said the country’s creditors want the people to say “Yes” to the bailout terms, so that “they could humiliate the Greeks.”
READ MORE: Varoufakis accuses Greece’s creditors of ‘terrorism’ ahead of crucial referendum
Source: http://rt.com/news/271738-greece-votes-bailout-referendum/
Thanks to Helje Bollyn for the photo and post!
“Now the whole world knows how to say NO in Greek! OXI! OXI! OXI!
Congratulations to the people of Greece! A major step in the right direction for the benefit of the people, not the creditors or Fiat money lenders (banksters).”
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