Tag: No Kings Rally

Most Americans know very little about the Declaration of Independence. For example, the document contains twenty-seven grievances against King George and the British government. What follows is list of the grievances. Notice how eerily similar many of the grievances are to those many Americans have against King wannabe Donald Trump.

1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
9. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
10. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
12. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
13. 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:
14. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
15. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
16. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
17. For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
18. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
19. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
20. 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:
21. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
22. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
23. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. 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.

And here’s a modern rendition of the twenty-seven grievances:

1. He won’t approve laws that are necessary for the public good.
2. He makes governors wait to pass laws until he gives his approval—and he often doesn’t.
3. He refuses to pass laws that are important unless people give up their right to representation, which is too important to give up.
4. He has made legislative meetings difficult by forcing them to be held in inconvenient, uncomfortable, or distant locations, just to wear people down.
5. He has dissolved elected legislatures just because they opposed his invasions of people’s rights.
6. After dissolving these governments, he’s refused to let new ones be formed, leaving people unprotected and exposed to disorder.
7. He has blocked immigration and naturalization laws, making it harder for people to settle here.
8. He has refused to let us set up a justice system that’s independent and fair.
9. He controls judges entirely—they serve at his will and are paid by him.
10. He has created many new offices and sent over a swarm of officials to harass and exploit us.
11. He has kept standing armies among us during peacetime without our consent.
12. He’s made the military more powerful than civilian governments.
13. He has allowed foreign laws to override our own justice systems.
14. He has allowed British soldiers to be housed in colonists’ homes without permission.
15. He has protected soldiers who commit crimes by allowing them to avoid trial and punishment.
16. He has cut off our trade with other countries.
17. He has taxed us without our consent.
18. He has denied us the right to trial by jury.
19. He has taken people across the ocean to be tried unfairly in Britain for supposed crimes.
20. He has tried to impose British law in Canada and expand it into our territory, threatening our laws and governments.
21. He has taken away our charters (legal rights), abolished our laws, and changed our governments.
22. He has suspended our legislatures and claimed the power to govern us directly.
23. He has declared us outside of his protection and started a war against us.
24. He has destroyed our towns, attacked our coasts, and harmed our people.
25. He has sent foreign mercenaries (hired soldiers) to kill and destroy with cruelty unheard of in modern times.
26. He has forced American citizens captured at sea to fight against their own country.
27. He has stirred up domestic unrest and encouraged Native American attacks on frontier settlements.

By my count, Trump has done most of the things on this list. Yet, his MAGA followers can’t or won’t see it; going so far as to say that maybe having Trump as an authoritarian king is not a bad idea. More than seven million Americans participated in nationwide No Kings rallies on Saturday — the largest single day political rally in U.S. history. These rallies suggest that Trump will not be made King Donnie without, hopefully, a spirited, raucous, non-violent fight. I am not convinced that civil war is avoidable, but we on the left need to make sure that we do all we can to press our demands in non-violent ways. In moments like these, we must follow in the steps of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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