"He Has Refused His Assent to Laws, the Most Wholesome and Necessary for the Public Good"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence#Annotated_text_of_the_Declaration

The very first charge in the colonists' indictment of King George III:

"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."

Yesterday's veto of the health and education funding bill had me dusting off my copy of the Declaration of Independence.

When was the last time you read the other charges in the indictment against King George, and compared it to the rule-by-fiat style of the current George?

Those who do not learn their history...

- Dave

http://www.colonialhall.com/histdocs/declaration/declarationanalysis01.php

i didn't know Jefferson was referencing a very specific law offering general amnesty to Stamp Act rioters

... unfortunately.

I wonder what a "working group" of those Founders might come up with, if anything, to update the veto override for modern party politics?

- Dave

I began to read the copy in her school book, and said damn, sure sounds like Bush to me!
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance

I really did grab the darn thing yesterday, and re-read it. It is an eerily accurate checklist, and almost makes me wonder if he's got a checklist of remaining "to dos" to match Ol' King George.

; )

- Dave

to match Ol' Jefferson, et al.

:thumbsup:

... might be a good start.

; )

- Dave

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

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.
-Nope

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.
-Check

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.
-Nope

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

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.
-Nope

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.
-Check

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
-Check

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

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

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
-Nope

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
-Check

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:
-Check

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
-Nope

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
-Check

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
-Nope

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
-I wish

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
-Check

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
-Check

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
-Check (gitmo)

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
-Check

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
-Nope

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
-Nope

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
-Nope

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.
-Check

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.
-Nope

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.
-Nope

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.

I'd say Bush is in violation of 13/27, and that doesn't include the now-outdated ones involving "merciless Indian Savages" and dissolving legislative bodies. That's pretty bad.

"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.
-Nope"

Maybe not, but he has sent the Solicitor General on a crusade to block states from enacting and implementing laws in areas where unitary executive fans think only the Federal Executive should play.

"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.
-Nope"

Maybe not, but his Administration has shredded, deleted, and refused to turn over records - which is a modern form of keeping our representatives "distant" from those records, in a clear attempt at "fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
-Nope"

Maybe not directly, but his environmental policies haven't been friendly to our seas, coasts, towns, or people. Besides offshore drilling, attempts to tap Federal lands, and gutting of environmental regulations, I offer two words: New Orleans.

It was good of you to give him the benefit of the doubt, though.

; )

- Dave

he can tick his King Count up a few. I was just giving him a strict reading, which I think is bad enough. (I wouldn't have caught the "distant" parallel. Sharp thinking.)

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
-Nope"

disregard of environmental concerns (plundered seas)
New Orleans (ravaged coasts)
SoCal fires (burnt towns- where were all the National Guard folks when we needed them? Hmmm?)
funding cuts to the "least among us" (destroyed lives)

Lined up pretty well then.

-Hoot

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/antifaschits/97

they are great words, by the way.

with the utterly spurious "signing statement."

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=charles+i+parliament

- Dave

I know you mean well, but I feel this trivializes what the 18th Century colonists did in their rebellion against the crown. They put their lives and livelihoods on the line. Today?

... was characterized by most colonists wanting a reconciliation with the Crown.

You're absolutely right: in many respects, we're far, far better off than the colonists.

But in some respects, we're in far worse shape: never could the Founders have conceived of an Executive that could eavesdrop so efficiently on their conversations, for instance.

- Dave