Today, we are wrapping of Declaration of Independence month at Salerno Schools. The 1776 Declaration has four parts: the preamble, the philosophical, the indictments of King George and the actual declaration of action. You can check out my coverage of all 27 indictments, with modern counterparts, here. Going through this project made me realize that the things King George III was indicted for pale in comparison to the things our federal government does today. The federal government violates the Constitution and inalienable rights on a daily basis. Without further ado – here is my 2022 Declaration of Independence.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the bands which have bonded them by force, and to assume among them their God-given rights, which have been denied and sabotaged, a humane respect to the rights of man requires that they should declare the causes which impel them their right to self-determination.

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. To secure these rights, governments are created by men, for men, deriving their expressed powers only from consent. Whenever this government violates this pact, it is the right and responsibility of the people to abolish it. When a government alters and abuses these constitutions, in the name of foreign interests, mercantilism, or bureaucracy, it is duty of those who do not consent to discard these governments. The history of the present Federal government is a trail of constant abuse and a perversion of true federalist ideals. These repeated attacks on self-determination and the rights of man are done in the name of tyranny not liberty. To prove this, let the facts be illuminated to all under this jurisdiction.

They have refused assent to laws necessary for the public good.

They have denied us representation under the Congress of our Constitutions. They have abolished state representation in these houses and altered their legislatures.

They have encouraged domestic insurrections against us.

They have waged war in the name of foreign powers without our consent, abolishing our Constitutions by placing the decision to make sacrifices, in the name of defending our liberties, in the hands of those alien to our safety and interests.

They have abolished our legislatures by assuming undelegated powers. They have written laws through judiciaries, welcoming tyranny by neglecting delegated powers under a responsible, constitutional government.

They have imposed taxes on us without our consent. They have assumed the unlawful power to inflate our currency, attacking our property, devaluing our assets, and using their bounties to fund interests alien to our liberty.

They have allowed the executive to have unilateral command of our military and our substance.

They have enabled invasion on our soil, without the consent of the governed, and at the expense of our safety and substance.

They have encouraged the expansion of extra-governmental bodies in our legislature, our judiciary, our diplomacy and our defense. These officers have harassed our people and acted in contempt.

They have kept among us and others, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

They have denied fair trial in the name of partisan interests.

They have allowed the power of the sword, expressly delegated for securing our defenses, a malleable definition to conform to their wishes.

They have taken away our charters, abolished our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the Constitutions of our federal republic.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by insult. Government 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 American 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 founding principles. 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 secession, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of these United States of America, in peaceful assembly, 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 States, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States are, and of right ought to be free and independent States; in a voluntary union, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the National government, and that all political connection between them and the union they abolished, 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.