Our nation's self-styled King George

Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle:

Americans did not undertake a revolution against the reign of King George III to create a government that would spy on its citizens, torture enemy combatants, detain suspects without charges for extended stretches on an island beyond reach of U.S. law, invade foreign countries without just cause and attempt to edit not only the press -- but laws that have been duly crafted and approved by our elected representatives in Congress.

This nation is veering too far from the course of its Founding Fathers. Two hundred-thirty years ago, the Declaration of Independence reproofed that a government's power is "derived from the consent of the governed." Those words ring true today.

If Americans are ceding too many freedoms under the guise of a war on terrorism -- which, by its nature, may never officially end -- it is because their absence of outrage is taken as a nod of assent.

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not doing so to commission an annual party. They were making a covenant with history that requires day-to-day vigilance to defend the liberties it asserted. Honor them by speaking out.

Let's look again at what they said; at what caused the American Revolution that we celebrate today:

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 [My note: like presidential blowjobs]; 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.

[snip]

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

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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 harass 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.

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.

[snip]

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.

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.

Indeed.