IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

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.

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 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.

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.


The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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

Column 4
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

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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 Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Cultural Rights

By Tom Rhodes, 7/2/2018

Anglos came to North America, the Native Nations did not stop them, and the Anglos not only didn’t assimilate into native culture but forced their culture on the Native Nations. History shows the result was the virtual destruction of the native cultures that existed in North America. Human tribes have been taking over and changing or destroying other cultures through all of history. In extreme cases killing all the men and taking the women, to genetically destroy a people. For all of history, this is not the exception but the norm of human behavior.

This raises more than a few questions:

Is there a right to cultural identity?

Are other cultures obligated to accept and protect cultures other than their own?

Is the historic norm of cultures moving in and changing or destroying the native culture wrong?

Do a people have the right to protect their culture?

What should be the measure of the quality of a culture?

Are there such things as Cultural Rights?

International bodies like the UN say there are “Cultural Rights.” The Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies states, inter alia, that the assertion of cultural identity contributes to the liberation of peoples. Conversely, any form of discrimination constitutes denial or impairment. Cultural identity is a treasure which vitalizes mankind's possibilities for self-fulfillment by encouraging every people and every group to seek nurture in the past, to welcome contributions from outside compatible with their own characteristics, and so to continue the process of their own creation.

Do people have the right to enjoy their own culture and to profess and practice their own religion and to use their own language?

If an outside culture is not compatible with the local culture’s characteristics, can a nation exclude people from that outside culture? This is the policy for Japan and other mono-culture societies.

Do people have the right to invade another culture and force them to stop the practice of their own religion and to not use their own language?

Do people have the right to appropriate the values, symbols, technology and art of a culture, that isn’t their own?

If people have a right to their cultural identity then: they have the right to enjoy their own culture; to profess and practice their own religion; to use their own language; to participate effectively in cultural, religious, social, economic and public life, as well as in the decision-making process concerning for their culture; to establish and monitor their own associations; to establish and maintain without any discrimination, free and peaceful contacts with other members of their group or other citizens or other States to whom they are related by national ethnic, religious or linguistic ties.

Do other cultures have the right to force another culture to change?

Do some tribes have the right to move to a nation, and live in that nation, and not assimilate and adopt that new nations culture?

Does a nation have the right to liming migration into its territory, so that the local culture is not over-run and destroyed?

When the leaders of a culture says, "Thanks to your democratic laws, we shall invade you; and thanks to our religious laws, we shall dominate you." Should they be taken seriously?

Can the native culture keep those invaders out?

Is “spreading democracy” forcing one culture on people of other cultures?

Do all peoples have the inherent right to enjoy and utilize fully and freely their natural wealth and resources?

If that is so, then there is a problem. Fossil fuels are still the cheapest, most reliable energy resources available. A developing nation cannot fight climate change and provide for their citizens.

Do other nations (cultures) have the right to force developing nations to use expensive “sustainable” energy?

Are cultures required to share and give other cultures their technology, art, music?

Does one culture have the right to dictate to another culture what changes it must make, or to dictate what changes that other culture cannot make?

Does one culture have the right to spread their values and beliefs to other cultures?

If that other culture refuses to accept the new values and beliefs can they use force to stop the spread of that foreign culture?

Clearly all cultures are not equal, even the UN recognizes that cultural relativism is an absurd concept. Cultures that accept human sacrifice, slavery, etc. are not acceptable to modern western civilization.

Who gets to force their culture on others, and what gives them that right?

History shows that the strongest and most willing to force their culture on another can and will do so.

Why do globalists insist they have the right to force what they believe is the best way for a society to live on others?

Is that any better or more righteous than the actions of the Anglos who destroyed the native nations of North America?

History has shown that Socialists can and do use force to make those in the territory they control accept socialist values and outlaw non-socialist institutions.

Do capitalists, or monarchist, anarchists, or despots, have the same right to use force to make those in territory they control accept their values?

How is the LBGT community forcing cultural change on American Christians, any different than Anglo settlers forcing Christianity on American Indians?