A Brief Analysis of the Declaration of Independence and What It Means for Today

Independence Day is celebrated every July 4^th, but when we light up fireworks or barbeque hamburgers and hotdogs with friends and family, do we really understand what the day actually means? Do we realize that the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and edited by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and ultimately the Second Continental Congress as a whole, was a radical secessionist document that declared independence from the most powerful military force on the planet at that time (independence was approved by Congress on July 2^nd, but the Declaration was adopted on July 4^th). Everyone involved in this plot was considered a traitor and terrorist to the British Empire and King George III.

The Declaration of Independence started with:

 “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.”

This is quite profound. Think about what this means from a modern American perspective. If states currently tied to the United States or Americans as a whole declared our federal government to be against the interests of the people, those states and individuals are free to separate from the United States or overthrow the federal government and replace it with something that is more conducive to the needs of the people.  

How many of us pause to think about whether we would sacrifice our lives to implement a more favorable governing structure in twenty-first century America? Would we be able to handle the weight of knowing that the president of the United States and half or more of our fellow Americans thought of us as enemies of the state and insurrectionists? Most of us believe that the trespassing on the Capitol and disruption of a congressional procedure on January 6, 2021 was despicable, and yet, the event was not unlike the Boston Tea Party in some ways. Overall, the American Revolution made that event look like child’s play, and still, we put up our collective noses to the sky and condemn the protesters as Make America Great Again (MAGA) scum, not considering that those of us who have that attitude would have been supporters of the status quo of the British Empire in 1773 to 1776. Today, we defend so-called democracy, but at that time, most of the country would have wanted to preserve the security and order that the British government had gifted to the colonies. Most Americans today would have been loyalists to the Crown if they had been alive then and conditioned to the propaganda of King George III. The conspiracy theorists, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, extreme MAGA protesters, and libertarians of today would be the ones in league with our founding fathers, and if a large-scale rebellion were to break out today, most of the populace would just go about their lives not caring one way or another.

Our founding fathers were under complete revolt to the government, and hardly any modern Americans could stomach the possibility of doing something so radical today and declaring that as free men and women, the federal government needs to secure our rights instead of taking them from us. It is clear that our current government is not able to live up to the legacy created by our radical founding fathers, whether we are talking about empire-building overseas, the police and surveillance states that have been established, the bureaucratic oligarchy created to legislate on behalf of Congress, the censorship of unfavorable ideas (especially surrounding COVID-19 and the 2020 election), or the bloated tax system. Yet, we choose to continue living under these tyrannical conditions and not follow the precedent set forth by Thomas Jefferson and others. Our complacency and subjugation to distractions of life have made us apathetic to the political situation in which we find ourselves. Instead of pressuring our federal government to secure our rights, as is the proper role of government, we have allowed presidents and the bureaucratic state to gradually erode them. As long as the political elites can keep us distracted and fat and happy, they will never have to worry about us altering or abolishing our existing “democracy,” and they will be able to have free reign to destroy our rights little by little over time.

We simply think of the Declaration of Independence as a historical document written and applied by old men years ago without any real implications for today, so as long as we think in those terms, nothing will change. But, we can make the decision to plot a new course. Can this year’s Independence Day celebrations inspire Americans to do something in furtherance of gaining back our freedoms?

The next lines of the Declaration also had a deep meaning:

“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.”

Of course, we do not want to overthrow or change a current government for a few minor abuses of power, but as can be seen in my writings from over the years, what the federal government (as well as the state governments) is doing to our Bill of Rights and the framework set forth in the Constitution is far from trivial. Just what Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 and the Twitter Files showed in 2022-2023 about federal agencies collecting our data and spying on us without warrants and censoring our information through social media platforms should be enough for the average person to demand change, but because of the brainwashing and constant propaganda, we surrender to the powers that be and think that these acts are of little consequence to our lives.

Although surveillance and censorship only scratch the surface about what is really going on, the Declaration sort of sums up why Americans ignore these abuses of power and the theft of our rights. Humans are naturally more inclined to go along to get along and not cause conflict and risk their livelihoods for a cause in which they believe may lead to their certain deaths. I mean, in the United States, we live pretty luxurious lives compared to the past (at least as far as we can tell), and with movies, television shows, sports, videogames, and many other forms of entertainment, why would we want to change what we have going on? It is easy to sacrifice most of our liberties for the secure life that we have, right? We have nothing to hide, so who cares if the government spies on us or manipulates our algorithms to make us more docile. However, in reality, it is these steps to make us more docile that prevent us from wanting to force change on the powers that be. Our founders understood that most people do not care about politics or the abuses of power. As Samuel Adams once opined, “It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” That minority must help the rest of its fellow citizens to understand what is at stake and why it is important to retain liberties and freedoms, but in the meantime, the regime in power will relegate their ideas as “conspiracy theories” and “misinformation” or “disinformation” in order to preserve the status quo.

As discussed above, when there is a history of abuses of power, the people have the right, and really a duty, to eliminate that form of government and set up one that is more favorable. To do so, those wishing to separate from or alter an existing government must have an organized list of grievances in order to appeal to the world and convince it that their cause is just. The next part of the Declaration did just that.

“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.”

The next section outlined the specifics as to why our founding fathers seceded from Great Britain to form a confederation of thirteen independent states. The grievances against King George III were the following:

“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.”

The list started out by saying that the monarchy in London had not taken the welfare of the American colonists seriously and was not willing to govern in a manner that the people needed. King George III would only permit the approval of certain laws, which were passed by the colonial legislatures, if the colonists agreed to submit to authority, and the king-appointed governors also did not allow for the local laws created to go into effect. Additionally, he regularly dissolved the colonial legislatures when it was decided that the people were not complying with the laws of Britain. And, when the legislatures were permitted to meet, the governors often forced them to be conducted in inconvenient places for the purposes of making the procedures more difficult.

In today’s society, you may be thinking that we have a representative democracy (or republic) where citizens vote and decide on legislators to represent them at the state and federal levels, however, in our two-party system where both candidates in any given race are bought-and-paid-for by special interests and the legislators simply bicker over trivial matters and pass through legislation without reading the bills that they sign, we are not truly represented. In fact, in many cases, Congress passes laws with thousands of unrelated items and blank authority to the unelected bureaucracy, which then uses its own authority to do the actual legislating (under the guise of experts regulating industries and our lives). Congress may not have been formally dissolved, but in many cases, its dereliction of duty is no better since that body does not create laws for the betterment of the people, and rather, it strengthens the power of the unelected bureaucrats and corporations who truly run this country. We have created an environment where congressmen can just sit back and become wealthy elites without effort and let others govern the country on their behalf (spending most of their time campaigning for the next election and retaining their position instead of doing their actual job).  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the state legislatures were de facto dissolved (as well as the courts), and the governors were allowed to create or eliminate laws at will without any sort of checks and balances. With the executive-heavy precedent set, there is no reason to believe that the president of the United States or the state governors will not suspend the legislatures in the future if some sort of emergency were to pop up again (to include a false flag event).

King George III also prohibited German immigrants, which were encouraged to come over by the colonists, because they might be prone to disobey him, expanded Canada into areas that the colonists had hoped would become part of their territory, and tolerated Quebec to be ruled differently from English common law. He also refused to allow the colonists to elect their own judges, and rather, he handpicked them himself and paid them, meaning that they would be loyal to the British government and not the citizens of the colonies. He created new offices for the collection and enforcement of taxes, and he used American taxpayer dollars to do so. In other words, the colonists were forced to pay taxes and for the entities that collected them, and they had no representation or way to legally change this. It is not dissimilar to the fact that we have no control over our tax entities or taxes in general today, and our “elected” representatives would never willingly address or abolish an established concept like the federal income tax, for example.

The list of grievances continued with the fact that British soldiers were kept on the streets and on the frontiers in times of peace and without the colonial legislatures’ permission, and this was often done to enforce tax collection and other British laws. Sometimes, these troops were housed in colonists’ homes without their approval, and this caused further outrage. Additionally, the king-appointed military generals who led the troops in the colonial cities were also the governors over civilian matters, and the lack of separation of military and civil power angered many of the colonists. Soldiers who killed civilians were often stated to have gone through mock trials and easily acquitted by king-appointed judges.

Today, the standing armies that we have in place are the police. In fact, many of them lie in wait for us to commit some sort of crime and then pounce on us when the opportunity arises. Additionally, they have qualified immunity from crimes committed against the population (some of which result in a suspect’s death), and armed police at the state and federal levels embark on militarized raids of people’s homes in search of drugs, guns, or terrorists (sometimes at the wrong house). Not to mention, the United States military has a standing army not just in the United States, but the empire expands to roughly two-thirds of the world’s nations, terrorizing and invading noncompliant people and governments.

The king also worked with Parliament to create entities of tax collection (like the Board of Trade) and courts, and since this was not enacted by the authority of the colonial legislatures, it was not received favorably and was viewed as fake legislation (the king made it appear legitimate by saying that the colonists were represented in Parliament, and therefore, it was a legislative procedure). Taxation without representation was enforced with writs of assistance, which were effectively blank search warrants that allowed British soldiers to search anyone, anywhere, and at any time.

Does this remind you of the surveillance state created in the United States after the 9-11 attacks? The federal government can now collect our data, spy on us (even through our smartphones and televisions), and issue blank warrants (through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts). The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses surveillance and police powers to enforce taxation, and we act like it is no big deal.

The next grievance listed was that colonists were deprived of the right to trials by juries, and violations of tax laws were overseen by courts selected by the British government. However, it went even further than that, as Parliament allowed for the king-appointed governors to remove suspects from the colony of jurisdiction and move them to another colony or overseas to Great Britain for trial, and this covered things like murder, violations of tax laws, and acts of rebellion against the British government (any act could be construed as rebellion).

The king essentially declared war on the colonies and considered them in a condition of rebellion and an enemy state, and therefore, to many of the colonists, this meant that the United States was now a de facto nation of its own outside of the jurisdiction of the British government. Additionally, the British navy seized American trading vessels (the crews of which were sometimes impressed into official British navy service against their will) and attacked the colonial coastal cities, and the British army hired the “cruel and barbarous” German mercenaries to secure order. Meanwhile, the king was also accused of encouraging Native American attacks on the rebellious colonists and starting slave rebellions to sow disorder.

The next section of the Declaration was a conclusion of the repeated attempts to petition the government and compromise.

“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.”

In the end, the colonists felt that the differences were irreconcilable. The king was a tyrant who was never going to give up power over the colonies and allow them to govern themselves, so the only option left at that point was to declare independence. Repeated protests and grievances had failed, and it was time to move on. In doing so, the colonists declared to the world that the United States was a new nation that had the power to do anything that any other sovereign nation could do, and they were willing to put their lives on the line to defend the notions set forth in the document. It took several more years and close calls to finally defeat the British military, but in the end, a new nation rose from the ashes to set off a chain of insurrections throughout the world, including Haitian and Mexican independence, Simon Bolivar’s campaign to liberate much of South America from Spain, and Mohandas Gandhi’s stand against Britain in India.

The United States was the first country to successfully challenge imperial rule, but it was certainly not the last. The irony is that we have let this great experiment with liberty and self-government slip out from under us, and we have become like the very British Empire that we seceded from years ago. It is now up to us to bring back what has been lost.

Happy Independence Day!

Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.