We have been betrayed by the institutions that have demanded our trust. They took the goodwill of humans and leveraged it against us for their personal power, wealth, and status. Each abuse and dishonesty was covered up so that no one would realize what was being done with every action. The temptations towards power were too insatiable for the ignoble and the scattered and destroyed lives of the people have littered the proverbial road of the republic.
So, “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 Government and the institutions that have vacated their positions of trust, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of our people.”
It is our duty to ask better questions. To demand that the authority figures earn their positions of authority on a moment-by-moment basis. Lab coats, university degrees, or government seals should not automatically be verification badges of excellence or trustworthiness.
If people who stand to gain from the policies of government are paraded out as a vision of what chosen capitalist winners can do, it’s our responsibility to approach their promises with skepticism and secure assurances that their version of extorting the taxpayer isn’t one we support simply because a politician who we like better than another says we should. If a politician advocates for war and military spending because they say it actually helps American companies, we should raise our voices to demand that economics should never supersede peace or the value of another person’s life. If the government demands that our food supply be managed and controlled by their experts and that shots and vaccines, or culling of livestock supplies be done by force, we should demand data and evidence before they have the right to demand compliance or action simply by the authority of their office. Trusting that my life be placed in the hands of someone else is nothing to take lightly. We should be certain that our autonomy and existence are never placed in a hierarchy of values that is determined by a person whose success and wealth can be extorted from our existence. Each person who accepts the mantle of power does it as a sovereign. The Declaration took the crown off of one king and placed it upon the heads of 350 million people. Each person is responsible for the benevolence of a king to his subjects. Neighborly governance depends upon trust and wise actions. We are the kings over ourselves and the lives of others - that comes with a heavy responsibility to honor your neighbor as yourself and to act justly. We should demand it of anyone who proposes the capacity to govern others.
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