This document is thought provoking and principled.

The text follows, from the National Archives at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

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

Here’s what I want you to do, imagine peace. Not conceptually, but literally.

Imagine a human world at peace. Imagine a human world where humans do not kill each other, for any reason, ever. Imagine a human world where humans can’t even imagine killing. Imagine what that human world world be like. Imagine how you would feel in that world. Imagine peace on earth.

Which brings me to imagination. When Yoko Ono first floated the “imagine” idea, then taken by her husband John Lennon and turned into the legendary somewhat corny song Imagine, I wasn’t aware of it, barely a toddler probably.

Imagine is not my favorite Lennon, obviously I love “I Found Out” much more, and “Hey Bulldog” from his Beatles era. But the concept is sound, imagine, simply imagine.

And here is where the concept becomes useful, and that is in realizing potentiality, as in becoming aware of potentiality, possiblity.

Imagination is needed to even be aware of what is possible, then the actual practical realization of that potential follows. Today’s dreams are tomorrow’s inventions. Even Einstein went on about imagination.

So of late I’ve been thinking about imagination as a form of suspension of disbelief too.

I’ve been thinking about how as a people, a race of human beings, we could communicate with one another so much better if we had imagination, or used the imagination we have, if we imagined the other perspective, if we suspended disbelief in things, any thing, and simply imagined circumstances with no limits.

People pay to see movies. They know what they see is not real. They suspend their disbelief, intentionally, to have a good time, to go on an imaginary journey, to be entertained.

We could do the same in every day life. We could have discussions instead of arguments where agreed upon suspension of disbelief was the basis of the discussion, the context, the given, and then go from there discussing the imagined circumstances.

My favorite example is, of course, imagine the United States of America quit invading and occupying sovereign nations.

Imagine the United States simply left Afghanistan and Iraq.

Based on that imagination, then we talk about a United States that doesn’t invade other countries, that doesn’t occupy other countries, that stops the pattern of centuries of blood, stretching behind us. Just imagine that.

Imagination gives consciousness, consciousness give reality.

Instead we argue over “shoulds” and “coulds” and “yeah buts”. We can’t facilitate communication. We can’t even start a conversation. Then everyone freaks and starts yelling, violence, anger, hate, division, madness. Just humans, victims of the insane.

If only we had some imagination.

Turn off your mind relax and float downstream.

Happy New Year!

This is of great interest to me because here in the United States of America one finds that principles of convenience are rife. This is revealed through action, or lack of action. The actions one takes tells the true story of principle and value.

When one trumpets adhering to a principle, but then fails to uphold that principle through action, then one is practicing principle of convenience. That is to say that this is not principle at all but a fawning of value upon concepts one has no intent to uphold. Worthless really, pointless, and in some circumstances damaging.

Which brings me to this post, principle without opposition. These core values built on shared principles are tested at times, and our choice is to uphold or fold. The USA chose to uphold in the face of tyranny at its birth. This was not convenient, unlawful, certainly was heavily opposed, and punishable by death. Yet they carried on…

Principle without opposition is easy, and not principle at all.

I was disappointed at times by Obama’s apparent lack of conviction, lack of consistency, lack of principle, but ultimately I found that he, the man, as a whole, is genuine and seriously championing equality, freedom, justice, democracy, the heart and soul of the USA. Like Andrew Jackson.

I called this election to be a land slide because I knew that US principles could no longer stand idly by and watch our country being destroyed, fragmented and shattered into ideological camps of lunatics because the effects were coming home and because some people became aware of the fact that business as usual was not sustainable.

11 trillion in the hole, 1 trillion expected in deficit spending, the US is in heaps of trouble, but our captain to be, is a steady hand in turbulent seas.

I recall thinking out loud when Obama was nominated how fucking unbelievably great this nation is.

Despite all that had happened, all the global sentiment against us, all of the dolt president’s bungling crimes, all the hatred and jealousy, all the dying human beings in useless conflict, all the US erosion of responsibility and leadership, all the apparent results of the end of US economic dominance, all the US imperialist mandates, despite this erosion of the US the Dems nominate Barack Hussein Obama to run for President of the United States of America.

We the People of the United States of America then elect him.

Has the US sent a message to the world? Fucking aye!

What a fucking great Country this is. It’s a matter of principle.

As we peel away the layers of humanity and come to the realization that humans are a part of this earth and not on this earth and that our own vanity inflates our self worth to the point of believing there must be more to us, we can see that principle, or principles are the underlying basis of what makes a human…human.

Here in the United States we have an opportunity to voice our principles in a big way tomorrow, if one is of voting age.

Barack Obama will become the first President of the United States that symbolizes the principles of equality, honesty, justice and freedom.

Are these principles that we value? Do our actions evince these principles?

My vote is for Barack Obama as a matter of principle.