Actually I think all the Grievances are pretty dumb--easily the lamest part of the D of I. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't King George, like, a King? And isn't "King" a fancy, pre-20th Century word for "dictator"? So, if King George wanted to, say, boil every colonist named John in oil and feed the result to his peacocks, what's the problem? He's a fucking King! It's in his job description!

And since when do the colonists owe George or anyone else an explanation? If they want to start a new country, they start a new country. It's basically "See Ya!," drop off the key, Lee, and get on with life. Unless they thought they could bullshit their way out of war, which if I recall they never deluded themselves into thinking they could do. I mean, enough with the drama queen stuff already. We're lucky there was no daytime TV or nail salons in 1776 or the Revolution never would have gotten off the ground, because instead of Founding Fathers we would have had a bunch of Founding Pre-Teen Sisters.

Americans, among others, still have this nasty subservience before authority fetish. Kings, popes, Presidents, Senators, judges, CEOs, bosses, professors, even parents--you name it. Meanwhile, most of these people we bow before or write elaborate rationales for why we're revolting against couldn't give a shit if we're alive or dead. They have power we don't, and therefore in most cases they're assholes and we don't owe them squat.

If me and a bunch of buddies think the government of the United States sucks and we want to overthrow it, we don't need no stinking list of grievances. All we have to do is figure out how to get the jump on the Department of Defense.

Keep your head straight, and every day is July 4, 1776.

Happy 4th of July, Josh!

My favorite actually comes from Jon Stewart's "America: The Book":

"The Declaration of Independence was the laundry list of grievances stating America's case for freedom. Its accusations against the King ranged from the egregious ("He has plundered our seas, burnt our towns and ravaged the lives of our people") to the trifling ("Sometimes when he sees us at a party he acts like he doesn't know us")."

Oh, and Yard -- there are some kind men from the NSA here to see you now.

"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:"  Seems like the most topical.

RE: Mr. Yard's observation on the pliant masses, the Constitution prohibits the Congress from granting titles of nobility.  At first I thought it was a quaint prohibition, but if it wasn't there, I have no doubt that the land would be lousy with Baronesses.

I finished HBO's John Adams last weekend (DVD) and the Declaration was read to Congress after it was finished, I think in it's entirety (I'm too lazy to find it).  Anyway, it was good to hear it, and John Adams, the series was well worth the watch.

Following in aculimic's footsteps, another apropos grievance:

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

williamyard, I didn't know you lived south of the Mason-Disxie?  As usual, fun read will.

So when's that YardBlog comming, eh?

I wonder if George W. Bush has ever actually read the Declaration of Independence?

And how did we get so lucky that so many brilliant intellectual elitists got together to give us this gift and the gift of the Constitution?

Bill

Funny post.  

But seriously ... it was because of "a decent respect to the opinion of mankind" ... there was a time when these United States had such respect for Old Europe, for what men (back then, all that mattered) thought of the actions of the young country.

In his book "On the Law of Nations", Moynihan notes this beautiful line and laments the passing of the internationalist sentiment and respect for the laws of Nations from the American scene (some time in the 50s).

Agree though that the bit about "the tea exported to these lands is of the lowest quality, good only for dunking in the rough rude sea" was probably too much.

My favorite is, "he hath made his subjects take the first drops from the ketchup bottle first, the part that beith most runnieth, and left the plumpesth parteth for himselfeth."

yard, good post, but no one truly has power over anything. As I have said before, you don't even exist. You were not around 200 years ago, won't be here 200 years from now, in fact, what is 80 or so years divided into infinity? Nothing. So how could something that doesn't exist have power?

My Favorite:

'He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.'

If you are going to oppose the King, do it with Manly Firmness.

blackton's not far off:

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

Don't you just hate it when the king crashes your 4th of July picnic?

I like "He hath instituted the habit of wearing metal flags of the British Crown on the jacket revers, to claim a love of country of which no man knoweth the true worth, and to make those without seem as lesser men."

"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."

Substitute "US Attorneys" and this one looks pretty topical...

We just finished our annual reading of the Declaration of Independence with our kids (ages 12 and 7 - they HATE it!). I don't have a "favorite" grievance necessarily, but reading that last paragraph reduced my husband and me to tears. It also made me wonder how many Americans have ever read the document and stopped to ponder the great risk these men took. The question seems particularly appropriate for these times of idiotic, does-he-wear-a-flag-lapel-pin, patriotism debates.

Rereading it, one that caught my attention was:

"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."

Sounds pretty pro-immigration to me.  All of the stuff about legislative representation is probably more central to our democracy, but it's worth noting that they *wanted* people to come here, to the extent that they included obstructing immigration among their list of reasons for breaking with England.

hee, hee...yard, you are truly incorrigible...

In the spring, when my older son and I went to DC, we went to the Nat'l Archives and saw them all in that dimly light room. My 15 year old was fascinated. In that room with all that history, this document there as a touchstone for all the others, really impressed us.

but to tell you the truth, we did not read the entire text...we spent most of our short time in front of it searching for signatures that we could recognize.

I sure wish tnr would hire Bill.  To be honest, he is one of the primary reasons I check in every day...

"wasn't King George, like, a King? And isn't "King" a fancy, pre-20th Century word for "dictator"?"

Uhhhh, actually no.  If you want a light read on this Fourth, take a look at Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution.  Or just go to Wikipedia and read the sections on the Glorious Revolution and the Hanoverian Succession.  In fact, the English monarchy after 1688 was anything but dictatorial--the Whigs, not the Tories, were in charge, and the power was shifting to Parliament.  

But to a more important thing:  of course the most important greivance was "quartering large bodies of armed troops among us."  That's why we have the most important section of the Bill of Rights, the Third Amendment.  (Why ISN'T there a Third Amendment Foundation?)

My favorite has always been:

"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 ..."

Perhaps the most radically democratic statement in there. The law-making powers of the state are incapable of annihilation, and when legitimate authority is incapable of acting, the sovereign power to make law returns to the people at large. That sentence is the only one in the Declaration that makes an American constitutional monarchy theoretically inconsistent with our founding document.

"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."

Classy. I'll have to remember that one if I ever become a dictator with puppet legislatures.

"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury."

Trial by Jury he can have. Depriving me of Iolanthe or The Mikado on the other hand might be enough to move me to revolutionary acts.