Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

This fight is for everything.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Come on, man.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You are here: Home / Politics / America / IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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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.

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54Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    One of my favourite things to do on July 4th is to listen to familiar NPR voices — hosts and reporters and a few former superstars like Susan Stamberg — read the Declaration of Independence aloud. They’ve done this every year for over three decades, and I don’t think I’ve missed it more than a couple of times. Link takes you to this year’s reading, which includes audio, full text, and identification of the readers.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    I believe the Revolutionary War had already been underway for 14-1/2 months by the time of the Declaration.

  5. 5.

    schrodingers_cat

    Happy 4th, I am celebrating the first year anniversary of making it official with the United States!
    There will be corn on the cob and lobster to celebrate.

    ETA: Exactly a year ago, I surrendered my green card, danced with Uncle Sam, swore an oath of allegiance and became a freshly minted United States citizen on the village green of Old Sturbridge Village. I am sending Alain photos of the same.

  7. 7.

    Marcopolo

    “In order to form a more perfect union…”

    I realize that is the preamble to the Constitution and not the Declaration but those are the words I always come back to. And my god we still have so much work to do to get there. So while I will be off celebrating today’s history with good friends later today, I will be keeping in mind all the hard work that has gone before, is happening right now, & will go on after I am around in actualizing those eight words.

    And there was this president who gave a speech in 2012 with the title “A More Perfect Union” and I think it is a wonderful speech to listen to on the 4th of July. With where we are now 6 short years later Obama’s words might come across sounding naive but I take the position they are just fiercely optimistic.

    I’ll also give the Gettysburg Address a read, which is always a pleasure since of course it is a lot lot shorter :).

    Have a lovely 4th all you jackals!

  8. 8.

    HeleninEire

    There’s a pub here offering free whiskey for any American who shows their passport.

    On my way.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    OT, but good news: Conservative columnist Max Boot uses July 4th to declare his independence from the Republican party. Unequivocally.

    WaPost. Max Boot: I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.

    Unlike George Will, he does not feel the need to denigrate the Democratic party. He says not one unkind thing about them. (Actually, they are not mentioned at all, until the penultimate sentence.) Take it away, Max.

    “Should I stay or should I go now?” That question, posed by the eminent political philosophers known as The Clash, is one that confronts any Republican with a glimmer of conscience. You used to belong to a conservative party with a white-nationalist fringe. Now it’s a white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe. If you’re part of that fringe, what should you do?

    …. After a lifetime as a Republican, I re-registered as an independent on the day after Donald Trump’s election.

    Explaining my decision, I noted that Trumpkins [how snuggly] “want to transform the GOP into a European-style nationalist party that opposes cuts in entitlement programs, believes in deportation of undocumented immigrants, white identity politics, protectionism and isolationism backed by hyper-macho threats to bomb the living daylights out of anyone who messes with us.” I still hoped then that traditional conservatives might eventually prevail but, I wrote, “I can no longer support a party that doesn’t know what it stands for – and that in fact may stand for positions that I find repugnant.” [Max: one of these issues is not like the others.]

    I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision. The transformation I feared has taken place. Just look at the reaction to President Trump’s barbarous policy of taking children away from their parents as punishment for the misdemeanor offense of illegally entering the country. While two-thirds of Americans disapproved of this state-sanctioned child abuse, forcing the president to back down, a majority of Republicans approved.

    … The entire Republican platform can now be reduced to three words: Whatever Trump says.

    And yet there are still principled #NeverTrump conservatives such as Tom Nichols and Bill Kristol who are staying in the party. And they have a good case to make. Kristol, for one, balks “at giving up the Republican party to the forces of nativism, vulgar populism, and authoritarianism.” As he notes, “It would be bad for the country if one of our two major parties went in this direction.”

    …. I can’t respect are head-in-the-sand conservatives who continue to support the GOP by pretending that nothing has changed.

    They act, these political ostriches, as if this were still the party of Ronald Reagan and John McCain rather than of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller — and therefore they cling to the illusion that supporting Republican candidates will advance their avowed views. Wrong. The current GOP still has a few resemblances to the party of old — it still cuts taxes and supports conservative judges. But a vote for the GOP in November is also a vote for egregious obstruction of justice, rampant conflicts of interest, the demonization of minorities, the debasement of political discourse, the alienation of America’s allies, the end of free trade and the appeasement of dictators.

    That is why I join Will and other principled conservatives, both current and former Republicans, in rooting for a Democratic takeover of both houses in November. Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must first be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    @schrodingers_cat:

    ETA: Exactly a year ago, I surrendered my green card, danced with Uncle Sam, swore an oath of allegiance and became a freshly minted United States citizen on the village green of Old Sturbridge Village. I am sending Alain photos of the same.

    Congratulations, again. Glad you’re here.

  17. 17.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    The list of grievances in the Declaration comes across a bit whiny and self serving to an outsider. Kind of like a bitter divorce document.

    Still, it mostly turned out well in the end.

    Congratulations on your country, but dump Trump.

  18. 18.

    oldster

    typo in the OP:
    “to dissolve the political bands”
    should be
    “to dissolve the political bonds”

    Jefferson didn’t break up the band until after the fourth album (which was already a steep let-down from the third).

    Then there was that embarrassing “Starship” period, but the less said about that the better.

  22. 22.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elizabelle: The error in Boot’s take is that the GOP has been on the road to Trumpism since Nixon. Consciously and with malice aforethought. Reagan and Bush were just waystations on the road to white nationalism…the seeds were obvious then, even moreso than Nixon’s reign. They’ve relied on white fear for their power for fifty fucking years, and I’ve seen it happen before my very eyes.

    BTW, apparently Donald the Dotard has suggested that the US should invade Venezuela. This motherfucker needs to be removed from office at once.

  25. 25.

    MazeDancer

    The Declaration is a brilliant treatise on the psychology of change. How people will put up with all kinds of abuse to avoid leaving a familiar situation. And how, when the abuse grows too terrible, it is not just your right to break free, it is your sacred duty.

    Jefferson could be talking about abusive families or relationships as easily as oppressed citizens.

    @schrodingers_cat: Happy Anniversary!

  27. 27.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @schrodingers_cat: Congratulations on your anniversary. Madame’s citizenship ceremony locale was a bit less romantic, the east hall of the LA Convention Center in DTLA. Then again it made it easy for me and my co-workers to attend.

  30. 30.

    PST

    @schrodingers_cat: Exactly four years ago today, I surrendered my independence and got married. I’d known the girl for almost half a century, so we knew what we were getting into.

  33. 33.

    danielx

    a decent respect to the opinions of mankind

    What’s all this about respect for the opinions of mankind?
    – donald trump

  34. 34.

    A Ghost To Most

    Just chalk it up to one more reason for DJT being elected. Taxpayer funded partisan advocacy.

    — Rod Kelly (@nexenrod) July 4, 2018

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, not a single moderate praised. Lincoln, of course, because he was many generations ago. The party of Reagan and McCain.

    Max: there were liberal and moderate Republicans, too. Party purged them just as you have purged yourself (allegedly) of the party.

  39. 39.

    Steeplejack

    @A Ghost To Most:

    What is this even about? It doesn’t show up in the Twitter feed of Rod Kelly (who seems to be a right-wing nut), although I can’t see “tweets & replies” because I’m not “on” Twitter.

    If only there was some way to help readers go directly to the item itself . . .

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The error in Boot’s take is that the GOP has been on the road to Trumpism since Nixon. Consciously and with malice aforethought. Reagan and Bush were just waystations on the road to white nationalism…the seeds were obvious then, even moreso than Nixon’s reign. They’ve relied on white fear for their power for fifty fucking years, and I’ve seen it happen before my very eyes.

    I won’t argue the point with you, but I am willing to cut people some slack for closing their eyes to it. One of the drawbacks of our system is that it forces voters into binary choices, so anyone who genuinely favored a small government/low tax approach because they thought it was the right way to govern was effectively forced to make common cause with racists who wanted to gut the government so it couldn’t help Those People. I know there are some people in the Democratic Party who I don’t particularly care for, but who I have to accept as part of my coalition to hope to get anything done. I feel as if I need to give Republicans who haven’t obviously given themselves over to racism the benefit of the doubt that they’re doing the same.

    And, like Boot, I have some respect for those who recognize that the Republican Party has degenerated into a wreck but still feel it’s worth trying to fix from the inside. I think they’re wrong, but again I don’t want to criticize them too harshly, both because I don’t want them to give in and because I can imagine myself in their shoes with my own party.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Jesus, I get that. I don’t understand where Kelly’s loopy tweet comes in, or even what it’s supposed to be addressing. Apparently it’s a reply to another tweet, because it doesn’t appear in his “raw” Twitter feed (tweets only, not replies). Some context would have been nice.

    So I guess he’s saying that NPR’s reading of the Declaration of Independence is “taxpayer funded partisan advocacy”? Whoop-de-freakin’-do. Nutjobs gotta nut.

  46. 46.

    Captain C

    @schrodingers_cat: How fantastic! That is, both the citizenship and the location. The latter is where my sister got married a couple of years ago. The Sunday brunch there is to die for.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    @Roger Moore:

    I have some respect for those who [. . .] still feel [the Republican Party is] worth trying to fix from the inside. I think they’re wrong [. . .].

    Yeah, take away Trump and what do you have left? What policies or programs do the Republicans promote that improve Americans’ lives in the slightest? Cut taxes and shrink government—that’s all they’ve got. Both of which have been shown to be ineffective, at least as implemented by the GOP.

    So what is this Republican Party that they’re going to go back to after Trump? It’s just more magical thinking.

  49. 49.

    James E Powell

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The error in Boot’s take is that the GOP has been on the road to Trumpism since Nixon.

    This is true, but it is a truth that the entire press/media are heavily invested in suppressing, denying, or ignoring.

    It’s infuriating because the development of the RW-GOP has been documented in real time.

  50. 50.

    frosty

    @schrodingers_cat: Congratulations on the transition, and what a great time and place for the ceremony. Welcome to citizenship. Also, too, thanks for all your comments, I always look forward to reading them.

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @James E Powell:

    This is true, but it is a truth that the entire press/media are heavily invested in suppressing, denying, or ignoring.

    Hence my nym.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

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