History Repeating Itself?

Side-by-side comparison of the Declaration of Independence with a modern interpretation

Sep 28, 2020

I found this interesting Medium article by The Absurdist containing a modern rendition of the Declaration of Independence, but substituting Trump for King George and recent events for events leading up to the Revolutionary War.

They claim it was a phrase by phrase adaptation from the original text. I thought it would be interesting to put them side by side (try a real browser on a laptop or desktop, probably looks like crap on a phone):

A New American Manifesto

From the People of the United States of America: From time to time in human societies, things get so bad with the governments that we set up that we have to take a step back, stop being citizens of that government and just be basic humans again, loyal only to the primary needs of humanity. This is one of those times and it’s only fair if we are going to take such a drastic step, that we first explain why. We owe everybody that.

The Declaration of Independence

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.

First of all, we start by taking for granted that nobody’s life should matter more than anyone else’s. Everyone should have the right to live their life without people oppressing them. At minimum everyone should have the right to live. Nobody should be prevented from moving around freely or doing whatever they want as long as they are not causing harm to someone else. More than that, every human has the right to seek out things that bring them joy.

These are basic things that humans need.

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.

The whole reason we create governments is so that communities can come together and agree among themselves to set up structures that make sure that ALL the humans among them have access to these fundamental needs. If the structure that they set up stops functioning properly, if it becomes corrupted, if it stops serving the needs of the people, then it is critical that those humans be allowed to dismantle that structure in order to build one that does a better job. They need to be allowed to create new structures that are better at keeping them safe and happy.

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.

Nobody is suggesting that we take the dismantling of a government lightly. Things must have gotten really bad for this to be the only option left. Humans by nature don’t like change and even when they’re being harmed, they’re more likely to just endure that harm than to break down a whole system that they’re comfortable with and used to. But if things get so bad that the government starts abusing and harming its citizens in the name of gaining more power, it’s every human’s moral duty to burn that government down and build one that protects them better from would-be dictators.

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.

The American people are now facing down these exact same kinds of abuses. We have tried to be patient, but now we’re fed up and the whole thing needs to come down.

The entire Trump administration has been a long list of human and civil rights abuses and every single thing he has done has been to gain absolute power over the government.

Here are the Receipts:

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 is lawless. He has no respect whatsoever for the rules of this country
He has interfered with state Governors’ abilities to take care of their states in times of crisis, constantly breaking promises and being unreliable, just to wear them down so that they will do whatever he wants and then neglects them even when they do it.
He has abused the powers of the Presidency, leveraging people’s rights for business purposes.
He turns public events into personal campaign stunts, wearing all the rational people down with his antics and erratic behavior
He has repeatedly fired the heads of critical agencies for refusing to support his illegal and abusive orders.
He routinely leaves these positions unfilled so that Congress doesn’t have a formal say in confirming nominations. This allows him to keep unconfirmed lackeys at the heads of agencies where Congress can’t touch them and they can sabotage and exploit the agencies without consequence, leaving the public without the safety those agencies provide. This causes chaos.
He has imposed harsh immigration laws and is directly attacking the economies of States and cities that allow people he doesn’t like into their borders.
He has rigged the Judicial system, conspiring with Congress to break rules to secure his judge appointments.
He has made shady deals with judicial appointees to influence them.
He is inventing personal secret police squads to terrorize and harass the population
He has flooded our cities with militarized personnel against the wishes of local populations and their governments.
He glorifies violent law enforcement and elevates them above the rest of the humans in the country
He has corrupted the Justice Department and Congress, using them to help him create a wholly unconstitutional set of policies
He pardons and covers for crimes committed by these henchmen and refuses to allow any accountability for their treason
He has started costly and economically damaging trade wars
He supports extrajudicial killings and encourages a lack of due process by law enforcement.
He uses tax laws to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
He supports the use of black sites, torture and other brutal authoritarian measures
He has leveraged the oversized jurisdiction of the Border Patrol to impose their power on areas and people they were never intended to.
He has trampled the rule of law, all protocol and policy. He shows no respect whatsoever for the institutions of government.
He is overreaching with Federal jurisdiction, overriding local jurisdictions with his own teams.
He isn’t protecting America, he’s waging war on us.
He has withdrawn us from crucial environmental treaties, deregulated industry, refused aid for wildfires, and has allowed over 200,000 people to die needlessly from a preventable pandemic
His federal forces have been stockpiling weapons for use against the civilian populace
He turns dissidents against each other, threatening them with high crimes if they don’t turn against their fellow protestors.
He starts riots and leverages those brutal, merciless folks embedded in our every community, the police, whose known rules of engagement are “anyone who’s not a cop can die”

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.

Over and over again we have pointed these things out. We have complained. We have petitioned. We protested in the streets. None of this has worked and instead of listening to us, Trump has merely responded with increased violence. To put it plainly, a President whose every act is the same as a dictator isn’t fit to run a country. And a government who lets him isn’t fit to govern.

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 tried to be empathetic to those who support Trump and his nationalism. We tried to give them the heads up that they had made a terrible choice. We tried to remind them that many of them were immigrants and that they should think twice about how we deny others entry. We tried to appeal to their sense of honor. To their sense of civics. To their sense of duty. We tried to appeal to the fact that we’re all in this together and that we are all one nation. We tried to explain that backing authoritarianism would be terrible for everyone. But they wouldn’t listen. We tried. We wanted to fight Trump together. But they mock justice and shun the idea of unity. So nothing personal, but they picked a side.

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.

So we, the true Patriots of the United States of America, in the name of all that is good and holy, declare that we aren’t standing for it anymore. This country failed to live up to its promises and it’s time to build something new and better.

We are united in this goal.

We can do better than this.

We intend to and we swear our lives, our money, and our sacred honor to each other.

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.

A New American Manifesto

The Declaration of Independence

Doug's Compendium of Stuff