Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 16:58:32 -0700
From: John Gear <.-.-.-@pacifier.com>
To: Positive Futures list
Subject: [pf] 
A Declaration of Independence for the 21st Century

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM KING AUTO

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Economic Bands which have connected them with a technology, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the superior 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 people 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, and the right to full participation in civic, social, and economic affairs, regardless of the possession or lack of a personal automobile.--That to secure these Rights, people choose among various technologies, which derive their legitimacy from the Consent of the people those technologies are to serve, that whenever any technology becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to insist on new choices as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that technologies long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, 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 and Usurpations, 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 technologies, and to provide new instruments for their future Security.

Such has been the patient Sufferance of these United States; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their dependence on the automobile. The History of the present King of The Roads is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the people of these United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

HE has refused his Assent to rational taxation Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

HE has forbidden his Governors and the cities and towns to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance to protect the environment and the quality of life, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and 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 transit-dependent People, and has refused those People the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyranny only.

HE has called together Legislative Bodies for fundraising parties at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing the public and bribing politicians into Compliance with his Measures.

HE has bribed and corrupted Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

HE has refused for a long Time, after such corruptions to allow others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have been his to command; the State remaining, in the mean Time, exposed to all the Dangers of bankruptcy and environmental catastrophe.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws to place automobiles on an equal footing before the Law.

HE has made Judges, Legislators, Aides, Newspaper Editors, Television Stations Owners and businesses large and small dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

HE has erected a Multitude of new interchanges and road-widenings and sent hither Swarms of roadcrews to harass our People, and eat out their Substance in the name of "easing congestion."

HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies of Lobbyists, without the Consent of our people to whom our Legislatures are supposedly to serve.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power and to prevent the people from seeing that the $50 billion consumed annually to secure Persian Gulf oil is nothing but a subsidy for his monstrous appetites.

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, such as that weakening the fuel-efficiency standards:

• FOR quartering large Bodies of Sport Utility Vehicles among us:
• FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States (some 40,000 annually):
• FOR cutting off our Trade surplus with all Parts of the World and causing trillion-dollar deficits in our trade payments:
• FOR imposing enormous hidden Taxes on us without our Consent:
• FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury and seeking to avoid liability for the damages so regularly wrought to pedestrians, bicyclists, and the innocents slaughtered daily:
• FOR abolishing the systems of public transit, establishing therein an arbitrary and absolute dependence on the automobile for introducing the same absolute Rule into these all parts of the Colonies:
• FOR taking away our local Charters, tax bases, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments and the quality of our communities:

HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

HE is, at this Time, using large Armies of foreign low-wage workers to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

HE has constrained our Fellow-Citizens, taken Captive in their suburbs to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands, unable to themselves get to work or school without his presence.

HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our highways, the merciless commuters, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions, while communicating via cell phone.

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.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our automakers. We have warned them, from Time to Time, of Attempts by their lobbyist-run Legislatures to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here, when we sought to flee sprawl and pollution. 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 Connexions 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 Separation, and hold them, as we hold the Rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

WE, therefore, the people of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in walking shoes Assembled, 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 Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be,

John Gear

(With reverence for the original work of Jefferson, signed by:
John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr. Thomas Lynch, junr. Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, &c. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.)

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