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 harass 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 benefit 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 British 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.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, 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 York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
I have long held that those on the left appear to suffer from some sort of derangement that paralyzes their mind. Liberals are unable to debate logically based upon scientific facts, historical experience, or economic reality. Instead, liberals have a tendency to debate using emotion (which is not logical or rational by its nature) or to argue based upon mysticism dressed up in the garb of environmentalism. Once such example of where liberals become quite deranged is on the issue of oil drilling. Liberals act like Superman does to kryptonite when discussions turn on whether America should begin to drill for oil.
I will show various examples from recent letters to the New York Times. For instance, letter writer, Paul R. Epstein, from Harvard Medical School, wrote, "Nature is saying stop, while Oil is saying go. Haven’t we learned? For so many reasons, it’s time to leave oil in the ground!"
Since I consider myself, as a human being, as part of nature, I would say that nature is not saying to leave oil in the ground, but rather, that we need more of it! The fact that so many of us humans, who depend upon oil for our high standard of living, are complaining about the high cost of oil shows that nature is not asking that it be "[left] in the ground." Of course, the letter writer was probably saying nature, that is, the non-human world, has been asking us to leave the oil in the ground. This is where liberals bring out their religious mysticism because they are "channeling" nature, stating what nature believes and feels. But nature itself is quite ambivalent about leaving oil in the Earth. Oil is a natural resource that has been waiting for industrious humans to use for our own consumption. Nature has not asked us to save the oil.
The next letter to the editor to the New York Times writes a very complicated argument against drilling by stating that it a) harms the planet, b) gasoline is going through the roof, and c) oil companies are making high profits, d) we should find alternative sources of energy. Here is the sentence in all of its glory:
"Let’s see: our entire planet is in danger because of the burning of fossil fuels, our economy is in the tank because of the rising cost of gasoline and diesel while the oil companies are announcing the biggest profits in the history of the planet, and we are going to open the oceans, our biggest source of both oxygen and food, to further offshore drilling. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?"
The non-genius who wrote this is a Judith Luber-Narod from Mass. Let's take each argument on its own. (Liberals have a tendency to throw a million arguments into one, with the hope that something will stick.)
To the argument that drilling "harms the planet".
The global warming movement is a propaganda movement whose purpose is to directly tax the industrial economies and to roll back the high standard of living in the West. The argument over man-made global warming is not over--despite the fact that liberals have said otherwise. The only reason liberals state that the debate is over is precisely because they do not want to have a debate. Just recently, 31,000 scientists have written in opposition to the view that humans are responsible for global warming.
Liberals, however, believe man-made global warming as a matter of faith, though. They do not care what the evidence is with regard to warming, but, rather like useful idiots, go along on the bandwagon because it makes them feel special to be part of this religious cult. That is why they drive around in those silly looking Prius cars.
To the argument that we should not drill because "gas prices are going through the roof" and "oil companies are making high profits":
To the argument that we should find alternative sources of energy:
The truth is that American companies are already investing in alternative energy resources. However, in the mean time, this does not preclude continuing to explore for the energy resource of today--which is oil--even while finding alternative energy sources. If there are alternative energy sources, private industry will find it and profit from it. The truth is, though, even many liberals realize that alternative energy is a scam. Billions of dollars have been spent on alternative energy, but nothing has been shown for it. Far better to use the money to explore for the proven energy of today--oil.
Are you tired of high oil prices? This is a classic economic question that can be solved by supply and demand. There is a high demand for oil worldwide, but the supply has been artificially limited in the United States due to the environmental lobby. This can change, though! You have the power to influence Congress and change the law. Here is a model letter that you can copy and paste and send it to your Member of Congress.
"As your constituent, I urge you to allow oil companies to drill in ANWR as well as the continental United States. The high oil prices exists because there is a limited supply of oil. If America stated that we will drill for oil all across our nation, the price of oil would drop, which would help consumers. I urge you to ignore the environmental lobby. There is no environmental harm that will arise from drilling for oil. Modern practices are very different from what they were decades ago, and there is no reason to continue the moratorium on oil drilling. As a result, I urge you to allow for oil drilling all across the Outer Continental Shelf, in ANWR, off the West and East coasts, as well as on federal land.
Drilling is the only solution that will lower the price of oil, and for that reason, I support drilling. This is a very important issue to me."
America's Founders created a federalist, not a national, system of government. By that I mean they created a system in which the states would be autonomous to create and administer their own set of laws and have sovereignty over their own territory. One of the greatest results of such a system is the competition among the many states. Some states don't seem to know how to compete. Take California, for instance. We have many socialistic and outdated laws that make our state unattractive for businesses. Nevada has recognized this and has taken the effort to highlight just how wrongheaded our laws are. Recently the Nevada Development Authority has been running ads in California with a cartoon of a huge bear on top of a businessman, with the label "California taxes." The ad is designed to show that California's government is strangling business development in the state and that Nevada's business climate is much more hospitable. While California's lawmakers are calling for tax increases on everything, Nevada is advertising that it has no income tax on individual income, corporate income, or inventory tax.
California's lawmakers don't seem to realize that California is a high-cost brand, one which is increasingly being deserted for its low-cost rival next door. If a public company refused to lower its cost--and merely criticized its rival--it would probably lose market share and possibly go out of business. California cannot compete by having lawmakers criticize Nevada's efforts to lure businesses out of Nevada. If California is serious about competing with Nevada, then we must actually start passing laws that are far more similar to Nevada--such as eliminating the income and corporate tax systems. That would be a good start at least.
