I created this in celebration of the 4th of July. The Declaration is a surprisingly quick and simple (and worthwhile) read.

If you’re going to revolt against the government and start a new country, you should tell the world why you’re doing it.

God gave humans certain unalienable rights, for example: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. The purpose of governments is to secure these rights for the people, and the people should consent to the government rather than being ruled by threat of violence. If a government is not securing these rights but violating them, the people can and should overthrow it and start a new one. Now, overthrowing a government is a big deal, so you shouldn’t do it unless the tyranny has become absolutely insufferable. But that’s how bad things have gotten with the King, and here’s why:

⁃ He has purposely screwed up our legislative and judicial systems so that we’d be unable to govern ourselves and he could impose his will.
⁃ He has tried to prevent immigration to the States, cut off our trade with the rest of the world, imposed taxes on us without our consent, kept his armies among us, and denied us of judiciary rights while letting his own agents get away with crimes.
⁃ He has waged war against us, cruelly and deviously, and tried to turn as many people against us as he can.

Many times we asked politely for him to cooperate with us but he just kept doing the same kind of stuff. That makes him a tyrant. We asked for help from British citizens, too, and they didn’t do anything.

So, we’re a country and you have no power over us. We trust God to protect us, and “pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Signatures.

Interesting to note that the founders of this country designed our government, and therefore the everyday operation of our secular society, based on the religious belief that God exists and gave his children unalienable rights. A clear example where rules of society were predicated upon (or at least explicitly justified by) religious ideas.