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rainhadaenerys · 6 years ago

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Daenerys/Alysanne/Jaehaerys Parallels

Reading Fire and Blood, I found many interesting parallels between Jaehaerys, Alysanne and Daenerys. Some of these parallels are about their actions as rulers, and some are about their personal life and beliefs. I don’t necessarily think that all of these parallels are intentional, and I don’t think all of them are equally significant, but I found them interesting anyway. So here’s what I found:

1. At the start of his reign, Jaehaerys has to deal with Maegor’s supporters. Queen Alyssa wanted all the traitors killed, but Lord Rogar Baratheon urged clemency. Jaehaerys chooses to do as Rogar suggested:

Let Maegor’s men stand trial and confess their treason, the Protector urged. Those found guilty of the worst crimes could be put to death; for the remainder, let them tender hostages to ensure their future loyalty, and surrender some of their lands and castles.

[…]

There, before the eyes of gods and men, they renounced their allegiance to Maegor and did homage to his nephew Jaehaerys from their knees, whereupon the king bade each man rise, granted him pardon, and restored his lands and titles. – Prince into King, Fire and Blood

But Jaehaerys doesn’t pardon all:

The royal clemency did not extend to all. Maegor’s headsman, gaolers, and confessors were all adjudged to be guilty of abetting Tyanna of the Tower in the torture and death of Prince Viserys, who had so briefly been Maegor’s heir and hostage. – Prince into King, Fire and Blood

Dany’s reign starts similarly. While there are differences in circumstances (she’s not dealing with traitors, she doesn’t take hostages and she’s trying to end slavery), both slavers and former slaves wish for punishment against the other: the slavers want punishment for the crimes during the sack, and the slaves want the masters punished for their past crimes against them. In face of this, Dany chooses conciliation, pardoning the crimes during the sack and the crimes the slavers committed before she took the city, not only out of clemency, but also out of pragmatism:

A former slave came, to accuse a certain noble of the Zhak. The man had recently taken to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble's bedwarmer before the city fell. The noble had taken her maidenhood, used her for his pleasure, and gotten her with child. Her new husband wanted the noble gelded for the crime of rape, and he wanted a purse of gold as well, to pay him for raising the noble's bastard as his own. Dany granted him the gold, but not the gelding. "When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with as he would. By law, there was no rape." Her decision did not please him, she could see, but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of eunuchs.

A boy came, younger than Dany, slight and scarred, dressed up in a frayed grey tokar trailing silver fringe. His voice broke when he told of how two of his father's household slaves had risen up the night the gate broke. One had slain his father, the other his elder brother. Both had raped his mother before killing her as well. The boy had escaped with no more than the scar upon his face, but one of the murderers was still living in his father's house, and the other had joined the queen's soldiers as one of the Mother's Men. He wanted them both hanged.

I am queen over a city built on dust and death. Dany had no choice but to deny him. She had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. Nor would she punish slaves for rising up against their masters. – Daenerys I ADWD

That doesn’t mean that Daenerys forgives all crimes, though. It’s true that she can’t control what the slaves do while rising against their masters, and punishing crimes committed during the sack would be impractical and give rise to a lot of conflicts and anger from the former slaves against her. But she does punish her own soldiers for their crimes during the sack:

She was pleased. Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen cities always were, but Dany was determined that should end now that the city was hers. She had decreed that murderers were to be hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but Meereen was calm again. – Daenerys VI ASOS

2. Before Jaehaerys comes of age, he and Alysanne try to prepare themselves for ruling:

It is written that the young king and queen were seldom apart during that time[…], reading to one another from dusty leatherbound tomes they found in the castle library, taking lessons together from Dragonstone’s maesters (“for we still have much to learn,” Alysanne is said to have reminded her husband), praying beside Septon Oswyck. – The Year of The Three Brides, Fire and Blood

Jaehaerys continued his rigorous training regimen with the knights of his Kingsguard every morn, and devoted his evenings to poring over accounts of the reign of his grandsire Aegon the Conqueror, on which he wished to model his own rule. Dragonstone’s three maesters assisted him in these inquiries, as did the queen. – A Surfeit of Rulers, Fire and Blood

Daenerys is very similar. Even before she is actually a queen, she has tried to obtain important information from books, very much like Alysanne:

"A queen must listen to all," she reminded him. "The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found." She had read that in a book. – Daenerys I ASOS

Dragons are fire made flesh. She had read that in one of the books Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift. – Daenerys I ADWD

She has a lot of willingness to learn from what others can teach her:

Dany reined in her mare and looked across the fields, to where the Yunkish host lay athwart her path. Whitebeard had been teaching her how best to count the numbers of a foe. "Five thousand," she said after a moment. – Daenerys IV ASOS

"I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but older, wiser men tell me that to hold Meereen I must control its hinterlands, all the land west of Lhazar as far south as the Yunkish hills." – Daenerys III ADWD

She is aware that her education is lacking and wants to learn more about the kingdom she intends to rule:

"Tell me of this other Daenerys. I know less than I should of the history of my father's kingdom. I never had a maester growing up." Only a brother. – Daenerys VIII ADWD

And just like Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Dany tries to prepare herself to rule, knowing that she needs to learn:

"But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?" He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. "My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I've freed all over again." She turned back to look at their faces. "I will not march."

"What will you do then, Khaleesi?" asked Rakharo.

"Stay," she said. "Rule. And be a queen." – Daenerys VI ASOS

3. Jaehaerys, following Aegon’s footsteps, believes it’s necessary for the smallfolk to see their kings and queens, so that the smallfolk knows the monarch cares about their problems:

Jaehaerys I Targaryen would prove to be as restless a king as ever sat the Iron Throne. Aegon the Conqueror had famously said that the smallfolk needed to see their kings and queens from time to time, so they might lay their griefs and grievances before them. “I mean for them to see me,” Jaehaerys declared, when announcing his first royal progress late in 51 AC. Many more were to follow in the years and decades to come. During the course of his long reign, Jaehaerys would spend more days and nights guesting with one lord or another, or holding audience in some market town or village, than at Dragonstone and the Red Keep combined. And oft as not, Alysanne was with him, her silvery dragon soaring beside his great beast of burnished bronze.

Dany believes the same. She helps the sick Astapori refugees, because she cares for them, but also because she believes it’s important to show her people that she cares about them:

"Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you." Dany vaulted down from the horse. "I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares." – Daenerys VI ADWD

And she always tries to hold court and listen to her people, seeing it as her duty as a queen:

Dany would gladly have sent the rest of the petitioners away … but she was still their queen, so she heard them out and did her best to give them justice. – Daenerys III ADWD

4. Jaehaerys and Alysanne hold court for all, listening to the smallfolk, and even people that are considered too low by others:

Queen Alysanne also wished to listen to the women of the North. When Lord Burley explained that there were no women on the Wall, she persisted...until finally, with great reluctance, he had her escorted to a village south of the Wall that the black brothers called Mole’s Town. She would find women there, his lordship said, though most of them would be harlots. The men of the Night’s Watch took no wives, he explained, but they remained men all the same, and some felt certain needs. Queen Alysanne said she did not care, and so it came to pass that she held her women’s court amongst the whores and strumpets of Mole’s Town...and there heard certain tales that would change the Seven Kingdoms forever. – Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Fire and Blood

Dany does the same, listening to the smallfolk at court and council, and giving them the same respect:

Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he call upon a freedman. Thereafter she alternated between the former masters and the former slaves. – Daenerys I ADWD

Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany's councils. – Daenerys II ADWD

Late that afternoon Admiral Groleo and Ser Barristan returned from their inspection of the galleys. Dany assembled her council to hear them. Grey Worm was there for the Unsullied, Skahaz mo Kandaq for the Brazen Beasts. In the absence of her bloodriders, a wizened jaqqa rhan called Rommo, squint-eyed and bowlegged, came to speak for her Dothraki. Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother's Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen's elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. – Daenerys III ADWD

It’s also interesting to note that just like Dany has former slaves in her council, Jaehaerys and Alysanne have lowborns and foreigners, like Septon Barth and Rego Draz.

And like Alysanne, Dany is not afraid to mingle with the smallfolk and see their problems, as shown by the time when she goes help the Astapori refugees:

Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. "I will not turn away from them," she said stubbornly. "A queen must know the sufferings of her people." – Daenerys VI ADWD

5. Alysanne is way more feminist (if we can really use this word in a medieval context) than Dany, but they both value women and are concerned for women. Alysanne holds her women’s court, and believes women should have equal rights in succession:

Alysanne saw no reason why a man should be favored over a woman...and if Jaehaerys thought women of less use, then he would have no need of her. – Jaehaerys I, TWOIAF

Dany doesn’t exactly share this belief about succession (given that she always thought that her son would be the one to rule the seven kingdoms and not her), and she doesn’t hold women’s courts, but she does see the same value in women, allowing them in her councils (like Rylona Rhee), and defending herself when Prendahl uses her gender to insult her:

"Woman, you bray like an ass, and make no more sense."

"Woman?" She chuckled. "Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man." – Daenerys IV ASOS

Also, Alysanne tries to protect women by ending the First Night, while Dany tries to protect women from rape when Drogo’s khalasar attack the Lhazareen, and punishes the rapists in her armies.

6. Both Daenerys and Alysanne believe that a queen should listen:

“Above all else, a queen must know how to listen,” Alysanne Targaryen often said. – Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Fire and Blood

7. Jaehaerys and Alysanne care about the smallfolk and are beloved by them in return:

The horrors of King Maegor’s rule were receding into the past, the Iron Throne and the Faith were reconciled, and the young King Jaehaerys I was the darling of smallfolk and great lords alike from Oldtown to the Wall. – A Surfeit of Rulers, Fire and Blood

In his sister he had a queen even more beloved than he was. “Good Queen Alysanne,” the smallfolk called her, from Oldtown to the Wall. – Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Fire and Blood

Dany cares about the smallfolk as well. She is not beloved by the slaver class (which is to be expected, given that she wants to end slavery), but she is very much loved by the people that she freed:

"Mhysa!" a brown-skinned man shouted out at her. He had a child on his shoulder, a little girl, and she screamed the same word in her thin voice. "Mhysa! Mhysa!"

Dany looked at Missandei. "What are they shouting?"

"It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means 'Mother.'" – Daenerys IV ASOS

And even when Dany is gone from Meereen, her people are still loyal to her:

When His Grace had tried to put them under the command of a cousin, as he had the Brazen Beasts, Grey Worm had informed the king that they were free men who took commands only from their mother. – The Queensguard ADWD

"Is it true?" a freedwoman shouted. "Is our mother dead?"

"No, no, no," Reznak screeched. "Queen Daenerys will return to Meereen in her own time in all her might and majesty. Until such time, His Worship King Hizdahr shall—"

"He is no king of mine," a freedman yelled. – The Discarded Knight ADWD

8. Alysanne helps the Night’s Watch, creating the New Gift, and offering her jewels to help build a new castle, Deep Lake. Dany has yet to come to Westeros, but I think that looking at the show and at the foreshadowing in the books, it’s pretty certain that Dany will help the Night’s Watch too, in the War For The Dawn:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. – Daenerys III ASOS

9. Jaehaerys makes many improvements in King’s Landing and in the rest of the realm:

“Would that I could empty the city, knock it down, and build it all anew,” the king told his council. Lacking that power, and the coin such a massive undertaking would have required, Jaehaerys did what he could. Streets were widened, straightened, and cobbled where possible. The worst styes and hovels were torn down. A great central square was carved out and planted with trees, with markets and arcades beneath. From that hub, long wide streets sprung, straight as spears: the King’s Way, the Gods’ Way, the Street of the Sisters, Blackwater Way (or the Muddy Way, as the smallfolk soon renamed it). – Birth, Death and Betrayal Under King Jaehaerys I, Fire and Blood

Alysanne also urged Jaehaerys to accept Septon Barth’s project of building public fountains to bring clean water to the smallfolk:

Barth’s scheme was costly, beyond a doubt, and Rego Draz and King Jaehaerys balked at the expense...until Queen Alysanne served each of them a tankard of river water at the next council meeting, and dared them to drink of it. The water went undrunk, but the wells and pipes were soon approved. – Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Fire and Blood

And Jaehaerys decides to build roads throughout the Seven Kingdoms:

“Roads, my lord. I do not see roads. I see some ruts, if I fly low enough. I see some game trails, and here and there a footpath by a stream. But I do not see any proper roads. My lords, I will have roads!” – The Long Reign, Fire and Blood

Daenerys hasn’t had as much time ruling as Jaehaerys and Alysanne, but in the short time she has been queen, she has worked on rebuilding the economy and on the infrastructure of the city:

"Not a hole. A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water." – Daenerys III ADWD

"You spoke of help. Trade with me, then. Meereen has salt to sell, and wine …"

"Ghiscari wine?" Xaro made a sour face. "The sea provides all the salt that Qarth requires, but I would gladly take as many olives as you cared to sell me. Olive oil as well."

"I have none to offer. The slavers burned the trees." Olives had been grown along the shores of Slaver's Bay for centuries; but the Meereenese had put their ancient groves to the torch as Dany's host advanced on them, leaving her to cross a blackened wasteland. "We are replanting, but it takes seven years before an olive tree begins to bear, and thirty years before it can truly be called productive. What of copper?" – Daenerys III ADWD

Ser Barristan remained. "Our stores are ample for the moment," he reminded her, "and Your Grace has planted beans and grapes and wheat. Your Dothraki have harried the slavers from the hills and struck the shackles from their slaves. They are planting too, and will be bringing their crops to Meereen to market. And you will have the friendship of Lhazar." – Daenerys V ADWD

10. Jaehaerys and Alysanne lost many children. Daenerys has also lost her child, Rhaego, and it’s quite likely that she will lose the dragons that she considers as her children in the War For The Dawn.

11. Jaehaerys, Alysanne and Daenerys all seem to share the belief that Targaryens don’t get sick. They all find out they are wrong in this belief; Jaehaerys and Alysanne when Princess Daenerys dies with the Shivers, and Dany when she gets sick at the end of ADWD, in the Dothraki Sea.

The king and queen were not the only parents to lose a child to the Shivers; thousands of others, highborn and low, knew the same pain that winter. For Jaehaerys and Alysanne, however, the death of their beloved daughter must have seemed especially cruel, for it struck at the very heart of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism. Princess Daenerys had been Targaryen on both sides, with the blood of Old Valyria running pure through her veins, and those of Valyrian descent were not like other men. Targaryens had purple eyes and hair of gold and silver, they ruled the sky on dragons, the doctrines of the Faith and the prohibitions against incest did not apply to them...and they did not get sick. – The Long Reign, Fire and Blood

"I am the blood of the dragon," Dany reminded him. "Have you ever seen a dragon with the flux?" Viserys had oft claimed that Targaryens were untroubled by the pestilences that afflicted common men, and so far as she could tell, it was true. She could remember being cold and hungry and afraid, but never sick. – Daenerys VI ADWD

12. Lastly, I wanted to talk about a not so pleasant parallel. When Lord Rego Draz is murdered by the crowd, Jaehaerys gets furious:

When word reached the Red Keep, Jaehaerys Targaryen himself rode forth to claim the body, surrounded by his Kingsguard. So wroth was His Grace at what he saw that Ser Joffrey Doggett would say afterward, “When I looked upon his face, for a moment it was as if I were looking at his uncle.” The street was full of the curious, come out to see their king or gaze upon the bloody corpse of the Pentoshi moneychanger. Jaehaerys wheeled his horse about and shouted at them. “I would have the name of the men who did this. Speak now, and you will be well rewarded. Hold your tongues, and you will lose them.” Many of the watchers slunk away, but one barefoot girl came forward, squeaking out a name.

The king thanked her, and commanded her to show his knights where this man might be found. She led the Kingsguard to a wine sink where the villain was discovered with a whore in his lap and three of Lord Rego’s rings on his fingers. Under torture, he soon gave up the names of the other attackers, and they were taken one and all. One of their number claimed to have been a Poor Fellow, and cried out that he wished to take the black. “No,” Jaehaerys told him. “The Night’s Watch are men of honor, and you are lower than rats.” Such men as these were unworthy of a clean death by sword or axe, he ruled. Instead they were hung from the walls of the Red Keep, disemboweled, and left to twist until they died, their entrails swinging loose down to their knees. – The Long Reign, Fire and Blood

This is very similar to Dany’s reaction to the murder of Rylona Rhee:

Grey Worm answered. "Your servants were set upon as they walked the bricks of Meereen to keep Your Grace's peace. All were well armed, with spears and shields and short swords. Two by two they walked, and two by two they died. Your servants Black Fist and Cetherys were slain by crossbow bolts in Mazdhan's Maze. Your servants Mossador and Duran were crushed by falling stones beneath the river wall. Your servants Eladon Goldenhair and Loyal Spear were poisoned at a wineshop where they were accustomed to stop each night upon their rounds."

Mossador. Dany made a fist. Missandei and her brothers had been taken from their home on Naath by raiders from the Basilisk Isles and sold into slavery in Astapor. Young as she was, Missandei had shown such a gift for tongues that the Good Masters had made a scribe of her. Mossador and Marselen had not been so fortunate. They had been gelded and made into Unsullied. "Have any of the murderers been captured?"

"Your servants have arrested the owner of the wineshop and his daughters. They plead their ignorance and beg for mercy."

They all plead ignorance and beg for mercy. "Give them to the Shavepate. Skahaz, keep each apart from the others and put them to the question."

"It will be done, Your Worship. Would you have me question them sweetly, or sharply?"

"Sweetly, to begin. Hear what tales they tell and what names they give you. It may be they had no part in this." She hesitated. "Nine, the noble Reznak said. Who else?"

"Three freedmen, murdered in their homes," the Shavepate said. "A moneylender, a cobbler, and the harpist Rylona Rhee. They cut her fingers off before they killed her."

The queen flinched. Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany's councils. "We have no captives but this wineseller?"

"None, this one grieves to confess. We beg your pardon."

Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon's mercy. "Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply."

"I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him."

"Do as you think best, but bring me names." Her fury was a fire in her belly. – Daenerys II ADWD

Though, in Dany’s defense, she does learn from her mistake later, and stops the tortures:

"If there is a Harpy." Skahaz was convinced that somewhere in Meereen the Sons of the Harpy had a highborn overlord, a secret general commanding an army of shadows. Dany did not share his belief. The Brazen Beasts had taken dozens of the Harpy's Sons, and those who had survived their capture had yielded names when questioned sharply … too many names, it seemed to her. It would have been pleasant to think that all the deaths were the work of a single enemy who might be caught and killed, but Dany suspected that the truth was otherwise. My enemies are legion. "Hizdahr zo Loraq is a persuasive man with many friends. And he is wealthy. Perhaps he has bought this peace for us with gold, or convinced the other highborn that our marriage is in their best interests."

"If he is not the Harpy, he knows him. I can find the truth of that easy enough. Give me your leave to put Hizdahr to the question, and I will bring you a confession."

"No," she said. "I do not trust these confessions. You've brought me too many of them, all of them worthless."

"Your Radiance—"

"No, I said." – Daenerys V ADWD

I wanted to call attention to this last parallel because Dany gets a lot of hate in the fandom for her flaws, even though she does learn from her mistakes. But it seems that even the best King in the history of Westeros also shares Dany’s flaws, and he’s not an inexperienced teenager like Dany at this point. I think it’s very interesting to see that Dany not only share flaws with Jaehaerys and Alysanne, but she shares a lot of their virtues as well.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #house targaryen #dany defense squad #daenerys defense squad #jaehaerys i targaryen #alysanne targaryen #my meta

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dee6000 · 4 years ago

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A message on this current insanity by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

A few days ago a lady, believing she appeared gifted with practical sense, said that it is necessary to submit to the use of the mask and social distancing not so much for their effectiveness, but to support our rulers in view of a relaxation of the measures adopted so far: “ If we put on the mask and get vaccinated, maybe they'll stop and let us live again, she commented. Faced with this observation, an elderly gentleman replied that some Jews, in Germany in the thirties, perhaps thought that wearing the Star of David sewn on his jacket would somehow satisfy Hitler's delusions, avoiding far worse violations and saving himself from deportation. Faced with this calm objection, her interlocutor was shaken, understanding the disturbing similarity between the Nazi dictatorship and the pandemic madness of our days; between the way in which tyranny could be imposed on millions of citizens by leveraging their fear, then as now. They have allowed themselves to be persuaded to obey, not to react to the violation of the rights of German citizens guilty only of being Jews, to inform themselves of the "criminals" in the civil authorities.And I ask myself: what difference exists between the denunciation of a neighbor who hides a Jewish family and the zealous reporting of those who receive acquaintances in violation of an unconstitutional provision that limits the freedoms of citizens? Are they not both respecting the law, observing the rules, while those same rules violate the rights of a part of the population, criminalized yesterday on a racial basis and today on a health basis? Have we learned nothing from the horrors of the past?while those same norms violate the rights of a part of the population, criminalized yesterday on a racial basis and today on a health basis? Have we learned nothing from the horrors of the past?while those same norms violate the rights of a part of the population, criminalized yesterday on a racial basis and today on a health basis? Have we learned nothing from the horrors of the past?

The voice of the Church invokes the divine Majesty to remove the " flagella tuae iracundiae, quae pro peccatis nostris meremur". These scourges have manifested themselves in the course of history with wars, plagues, famines; today they show themselves with the tyranny of globalism, capable of making more victims of a world conflict and of destroying national economies more than an earthquake. We must understand that if the Lord were to allow the supporters of the Covid emergency to be successful, it will certainly be for our greater good. Because today we are precluded, as if it were a fault, what little remained in our society that was still inspired by Christian civilization and that until yesterday we considered normal and taken for granted: exercise our fundamental freedoms, find ourselves praying in church, going out with friends , see us at dinner with our loved ones, be able to open the shop or restaurant and earn honestly, go to school or take a trip.

If this pseudo-pandemic is a scourge, it is not difficult to understand what are the sins for which Heaven punishes us: crimes, abortions, murders, divorces, violence, perversions, vices, thefts, deceptions, scams, betrayals, lies, desecrations. , cruelty. Public faults and faults of individuals. Sins of God's enemies and sins of His friends. The faults of the laity and the faults of the clerics, of the base and the top, of the governed and of the rulers, of the young and old, of men and women.

Those who believe that the violation of natural rights that we are undergoing has no supernatural significance, and that our share of responsibility is irrelevant in making ourselves complicit in what happens is wrong. Jesus Christ is Lord of History, and whoever would like to banish the Prince of Peace from the world He created and redeemed with His most precious Blood does not want to accept the inexorable defeat of Satan, the eternal loser. Thus, in a delirium that has all the traits of hubris , his servants move as if the victory of evil is now certain, while in reality it is necessarily ephemeral and momentary. The nemesisthat he prepares for them will remind us of the people of Israel after the crossing of the Red Sea, and that Pharaoh could have done nothing if it had not been permitted by God.

The Christian Easter, the true Easter of which that of the Old Testament was only a figure, takes place on Golgotha, on the blessed wood of the Cross. Of that perfect Sacrifice Christ was the Altar, Priest and Victim. L ' Agnus Dei , held up by the Precursor on the banks of the Jordan, took upon Himself the sins of the world, to offer themselves as human and divine victim to the Father, in His Blood restoring the order violated by our Progenitor. It is there, on Calvary, that the true Great Reset took place , thanks to which the inextinguishable debt of the sons of Adam was canceled by the infinite merits of the Passion of the Redeemer, redeeming us from the slavery of sin and death.

Without repenting of our sins, without the intention of modifying our life and conforming it to the will of God, we cannot hope that the consequences of our sins, which offend the divine Majesty and can be appeased only by penance, will disappear. Our Lord showed us the royal way of the Cross: " Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in his footsteps " (1 Peter 2:21). Let us each take up our cross, denying ourselves and following the divine Master. Let us approach Holy Easter with the awareness of always being under the gaze of the Lord: "You wandered like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls“ (1 Peter 2:25). And let us remember that in the dies irae We will certainly all have him as Judge, but thanks to Baptism we have deserved the right to recognize him as a Brother and Friend.

We ask the Supreme Judge, in the words of Sacred Scripture: " Discerne causam meam de gente non sancta, ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me ". To the Merciful Father, who in His divine Son has made us heirs of eternal glory, we humbly address David's words: " Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a sin meo munda me ". We ask the Consoler Spirit: " Da virtutis meritum, da salutis exitum, da perenne gaudium ".

If we really want this so-called pandemic to collapse like a house of cards - as it always happened for far worse scourges, when the Lord decreed its end - let us remember to recognize him, and him alone, that universal Lordship that we usurp with every sin. , refusing to obey His holy Law and thus making us Satan's slaves. If we want the peace of Christ, it is Christ who must reign, and it is His kingdom that we must want, starting with ourselves, with our family, with our circle of friends and acquaintances, with our religious community. Adveniat regnum tuum . If, on the other hand, we allow the hateful tyranny of sin and rebellion against Christ to establish itself, the madness of Covid will only be the beginning of hell on earth.

Let us therefore prepare Confession and Easter Communion with this spirit of reparation and atonement, both for our sins and for those of our brothers, men of the Church and our rulers. The true and holy "new renaissance" to which we must aspire must be the life of Grace, the friendship of God, assiduity with His Most Holy Mother and with the Saints. The true " nothing will be the same as before " we must say by rising from the confessional with the intention of sinning no more, offering the Eucharistic King our heart as a throne in which he delights in dwelling, consecrating our every action, our every thought, our every breath.

May these be our wishes for the next Easter of Resurrection, under the benign gaze of Our Queen and Lady, Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces.

+Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

#Catholic #covidー19 #Michigan #President Trump #gop #democrats #italy #britain #massachusetts

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aislingyngaio-cbu · 8 years ago

Text

Mon El hate

I don’t get it. I see all these arguments about how evil Mon El is, but are you guys aware that Daxam is literally Earth like 1000 years ago? No actually it’s less, since even THOMAS JEFFERSON OWNED SLAVES FFS, and don’t tell me yall, no matter where you came from, didn’t benefit from slavery in any way. So basically the entire human race shouldn’t be mated because ew, we owned slaves before owning slaves became not cool (and we constantly gloss over this part of our history because we don’t want to be reminded of the fact that we were once this gross. Wait that sounds familiar...).

Are you seriously judging him for travelling 1000 years into the future in terms of cultural/morality shifts and not immediately changing from how he’s been brought up in the first 5 minutes? Yet (and this is the hypocrisy I can’t stand), every time he takes baby steps (omg realism in a tv show! the horror!) to change for the better you literally stomp him back to “stay in your misogynistic, slave owning, abusive (lolwhut) lane so that we can judge and hate you for all eternity”?

Life is all about learning, unlearning, relearning, and spoiler alert, this doesn’t happen overnight, especially bad behaviour that’s a) learned during your formative years, and b) everyone around you, especially those with authority over you, says is ok and normal, and c) you’ve never been exposed to better examples. Women’s suffrage started only in the 19th century, which means for at least 1800 years misogyny was alive and kicking, and even now, 200 years after it first began, we are still not all the way there at true equality. The American Civil War that ended American slavery ended in 1865, which is only 152 years ago. So why do you get to judge ONE GUY for not immediately being the shining beacon of equality when he never knew better, was never brought up to be better, until now?

To be honest, the true reason you hate Mon El is probably because his “cowardice” speaks to the darkest recesses of you. Most of us aren’t heroes. We aren’t the ones to drive change, to fight for it, to be brave enough to fight the system unless there are enough of other people standing together for us to be just another protestor. We do not rally, we do not inspire, we are the chorus and not the lone voice in a crowd, and unless we have enough of a support system telling us it’s ok to rebel, we will not do so. We are the ones who sit quietly, head down, praying that things will change for the better but never actually having the courage to seize it, to drive change. We do what we’re expected to, birth, school, graduation, job, marriage, kids, because it’s expected of us, while dreaming a fantasy but never letting it impact reality.

And that, I think, is why we (and Mon El) look up to Kara, because she is the change we’d like to be. But Mon El is the person we are, and in hating him, you’re just as big of a liar as he is, pretending that you’re better than the person he (you) was in order to comfort yourself that no matter how cowardly you are, you’re still not as bad as Mon El is. Trouble is though, Mon El is trying to change. He is trying to be the hero he can be, even though he’s at least self-aware enough to realize that he isn’t there yet. It is you who refuses to let him change, because god forbid that he actually becomes a hero. God forbid that people are actually capable of changing for the better even if they had the lousiest upbringing. God forbid that you wake up one morning to find out that while you stood still hating the person he was, he has climbed out of the pithole that Daxam put him in. Who will you hate then? Who will you use to feel superior over, then? It is normal to occasionally regress, and I’m not saying he doesn’t regress back to his former behaviour on occasion, but he is still trying to be better. Are you?

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.“ ~ Utopia , Thomas More.

P.S. I don’t know how the Daxam political system works, but I don’t get the feeling that Mon El had a lot of influence over their government. He might even have been purposely subsumed and kept pacified if his uneasiness over Daxam’s culture was ever made known to those in actual power (spies can be bought with enough coin or even threats. His closest “friend”, his women, anyone who has contact with him, could have been reporting on him), and my god did I get chills after watching that one clip where he was having dinner with his parents and Kara, the way they tried to brainwash and gaslight him all over again while simultaneously trying to cut off his moral support system on Earth (mostly in making Kara hate him, but also in trying to isolate him away from Earth and the DEO to be with Daxamites again). And lest you forget, a prince is not a king. Princes can still be accused of treason and stripped of their hereditary rights (or even executed outright) if they rebel against the king. Heck, even a king can be declared an unfit ruler if a powerful enough person was behind the coup (see Mary Queen of Scots). Just because he was the prince and benefited, to whatever degree, from Daxam’s hedonism, doesn’t mean he also wasn’t very much trapped by the planet of his birth, nor does it automatically mean he had so much control over Daxam that he could have waved a hand and changed everything overnight but didn’t.

#supergirl #mon el #mon-el #karamel #thinky thoughts from a non-viewer #because i dipped my toe in the karamel tag from a friend's tumblr #and got fucking annoyed at all the haters in the tag

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dominatingyourpussy-blog · 7 years ago

Text

A Declaration by the Representatives

of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in

General Congress assembled.

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 & 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.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and* [certain] inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & 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 abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, & organizing it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light & transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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 & usurpations begun at a distinguished period and 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, & to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to expunge [alter] their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting [repeated] injuries & usurpations, among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest but all have [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 for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.

HE has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome & necessary for the public good.

HE has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; & when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

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, & formidable to tyrants only.

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.

HE has dissolved representative houses repeatedly & continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without & convulsions within.

HE has endeavored 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, & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

HE has suffered [obstructed] the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these states [by] refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

HE has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, & the amount & paiment of their salaries.

HE has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed power and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

HE has kept among us in times of peace standing armies and ships of war without the consent of our legislatures.

HE has affected to render the military independent of, & superior to the civil power.

HE has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions & unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

FOR quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

FOR protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states

FOR cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

FOR imposing taxes on us without our consent:

FOR depriving us [in many cases] of the benefits of trial by jury

FOR transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

FOR abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging it’s boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states [colonies]:

FOR taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

FOR suspending our own legislatures, & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in allcases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance & protection. [by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.]

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

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny already begun with circumstanccs of cruelty and perfidy [scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, & totally] unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

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 & brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has [excited domestic insurection among us, & has] endeavored 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, & conditions of existence.

He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL Powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.

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 injuries.

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 who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad & so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered & fixed in principles of freedom.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend a [an unwarrantable] jurisdiction over these our states [us]. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expense of our own blood & treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity with them: but that submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited: and, we [have] appealed to their native justice and magnanimity [and we have conjured them by] as well as to the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to [would inevitably] interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice & of consanguinity, and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time too they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness & to glory is open to us too. We will tread it apart from them, and [We must therefore] acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation! [and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.]

We therefore the representatives of the united States of America in General Congress assebled [appealing to the Judge of the World for the recititude of our intentions] do in the name & by authority of the good people of these states [colonies] reject and renounce all allegiance & subjections to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through or under them: we utterly disolve all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us & the people or parliment of Great Britain: and finally we do assert and declare these colonies to be free and independent states, [solemly Publish and Declare that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are dissolved from allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;] and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract allies, establish commerce, & do all other acts & 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, & our sacred honor.

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codysiguanas-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Don't call yourself a American if you can't recite the Declaration of Independence

You are here HomeJeffersonDeclaration of Independence Transcript of Declaration of Independence (Rough Draft) Note: Italicized words or phrases were omitted in the final draft. Bracketed words or phrases were added to the original draft and appear in the final draft. A Declaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled. 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 & 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. WE hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and* [certain] inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & 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 abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles, & organizing it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light & transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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 & usurpations begun at a distinguished period and 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, & to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to expunge [alter] their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting [repeated] injuries & usurpations, among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest but all have [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 for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood. HE has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome & necessary for the public good. HE has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; & when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 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, & formidable to tyrants only. 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. HE has dissolved representative houses repeatedly & continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without & convulsions within. HE has endeavored 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, & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. HE has suffered [obstructed] the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these states [by] refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. HE has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, & the amount & paiment of their salaries. HE has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed power and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. HE has kept among us in times of peace standing armies and ships of war without the consent of our legislatures. HE has affected to render the military independent of, & superior to the civil power. HE has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions & unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: FOR quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: FOR protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states FOR cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: FOR imposing taxes on us without our consent: FOR depriving us [in many cases] of the benefits of trial by jury FOR transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences: FOR abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging it's boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states [colonies]: FOR taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: FOR suspending our own legislatures, & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in allcases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance & protection. [by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.] He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, & destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny already begun with circumstanccs of cruelty and perfidy [scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, & totally] unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 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 & brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has [excited domestic insurection among us, & has] endeavored 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, & conditions of existence. He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property. He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL Powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another. 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 injuries. 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 who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad & so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered & fixed in principles of freedom. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend a [an unwarrantable] jurisdiction over these our states [us]. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expense of our own blood & treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity with them: but that submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited: and, we [have] appealed to their native justice and magnanimity [and we have conjured them by] as well as to the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to [would inevitably] interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice & of consanguinity, and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time too they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness & to glory is open to us too. We will tread it apart from them, and [We must therefore] acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation! [and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.] We therefore the representatives of the united States of America in General Congress assebled [appealing to the Judge of the World for the recititude of our intentions] do in the name & by authority of the good people of these states [colonies] reject and renounce all allegiance & subjections to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through or under them: we utterly disolve all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us & the people or parliment of Great Britain: and finally we do assert and declare these colonies to be free and independent states, [solemly Publish and Declare that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are dissolved from allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;] and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract allies, establish commerce, & do all other acts & 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, & our sacred honor. Source: Boyd, J.P. et al, editors. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950. Volume I page 426.

0 notes

dominatingyourpussy-blog · 7 years ago

Text

A Declaration by the Representatives

of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in

General Congress assembled.

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 & 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.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and* [certain] inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & 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 abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles, & organizing it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light & transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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 & usurpations begun at a distinguished period and 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, & to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to expunge [alter] their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting [repeated] injuries & usurpations, among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest but all have [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 for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.