Opinion: Clark Haass declares his independence

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Portland, Oregon’s Clark Haass was just one of many readers sending his July 4th thoughts today, but he put more effort into it than anybody. Here is the full text of his revised Declaration of Independence:

Portland, Oregon, July, 2008

The Declaration of a Citizen of these Fifty United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political establishment 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 declaration of change.

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 Presidential Administration and Congress, 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 Presidential Administrations and Congress 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 change such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Fifty United 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 and his attendant Administration is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute moral and political bankruptcy of these Fifty United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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 obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for in the name of the war on terror.

He has made Judges and District Attorney’s dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance, utterly failing them during Katrina and impeding their progress through airports against a foe whose actions cannot be known or controlled - ever.

He has kept among sovereign foreign nations, Standing Armies without the informed Consent of our legislatures and citizens, concocting sham evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject combatants to a pretend due process foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended patriotic protection:

For quartering large bodies of armed Blackwater Mercenaries abroad:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world for biotechnology, afflicting his religious views on our commerce:

For imposing Tax rebates and cuts on us without our informed Consent on surpluses, concealing impending deficits and pushing the reckoning or Social Security integrity to future Presidents and generations further :

For depriving combatants in the ‘war on terrorism’ in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting or rendering combatants beyond Seas to be tried or tortured for offences without habeas corpus:

He has abdicated rational Government here, by declaring us below his Protection and waging idealogical War against us and against his supposed enemies in the guise of terrorism, when it is nothing more that a modern-day continuation of The Crusades.

He has plundered our savings, ravaged our civil liberties, burnt our diplomatic bridges, and destroyed the lives of our people to wage his Modern Crusade.

He is at this time employing large Armies of Blackwater Mercenaries alongside Patriotic and Duty-bound Americans to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan, already begun in the name of Democracy with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation, these Fifty United States of America.

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 and Congress, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, devoid of responsibility to the will of the people it supposes to represent, is unfit to be the government of a free people.

I, therefore, a free Citizen of the fifty united States of America, in, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the First Amendment Rights, solemnly publish and declare, That the people of these united States are, and of Right ought to be Free of the intolerable acts of the President Administration and Congress, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to an utterly failed and corrupt international and public Policy, and that all political trust and confidence between them and the President Administration and Congress, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Citizens, we have full Power to be informed and vote, effecting redress for an President Administration and Congress bent of the utter destruction of America’s global reputation, financial well-being and leading example of Democracy - And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I mutually pledge my Life, my Fortunes, and my sacred Honor.

Clark Haass