A Declaration of Resistance

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for citizens to resist the immorality and unjust policies of their elected officials and to assume the responsibility of citizens to insist upon a course in keeping with the spirit and the letter of their founding documents, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the resistance.
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all human beings 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. These Rights include those outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international declarations of rights that belong to human beings not by virtue of citizenship but rather by virtue of their humanity. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among human beings, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–that whenever elected or appointed officials become obstructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to resist and to work to elect new people who will provide policies leading to Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that elected officials ought not to face resistance for light or transient causes, and accordingly all experience has shown that human beings are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by consistent resistance. But when a long train of abuses, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to resist and vote into office different leaders who will Guard their future security in the most expansive sense.
The history of Donald Trump is a history of repeated injuries and lies all having in direct object the weakening of our government and his own advancement at any cost. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He built his political career upon a malignant foundation of a pernicious lie, namely, that President Obama was not born in the United States of America. He lied to the public for years, saying that he had paid investigators to prove that President Obama was not born in the United States. We have neither seen nor heard from any of these investigators.
He ran a fraudulent “university” and conned people out of their hard-earned money.
He is a man who has disrespected women both before, during and after the presidential campaign. He bragged about sexually assaulting women, and when women came forward to say that he had indeed made unwanted physical contact with them, he insulted them personally and threatened law suits. He has called women names, body shaming them, and seems to have an unhealthy obsession with women and blood.
He started his presidential campaign insulting our fellow Mexican American citizens. Throughout the campaign, he has given us a divisive and mendacious discourse. He has debased the public conversation both as a candidate and as president by giving his opponents demeaning names and making fun of them. He called for violence against protestors at his rallies, even at one point offering to pay the legal bills of anyone who was charged with violence against protestors.
He has tried to bully and demean members of the media. Protection of the freedom of the press is enshrined in the first amendment of the United States Constitution. While the Constitution prohibits Congress from making a law that would abridge the freedom of the press, the spirit of the Constitution requires a person who takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution to show respect for members of the media. The media are not the enemy of the people as he has suggested, the media are the people.
He has disrespected judges and the judicial system. As a candidate, he said that a native born judge of Mexican American heritage could not judge his case fairly. Since taking the oath of office, he has continued to speak of the courts with disrespect when they have not agreed with him.
He has continued to try to stoke fear in the American people of Muslims and of immigrants and continues to try to enforce travel restrictions against six majority Muslim countries. He has ignored the compassion of American people who want to sponsor refugees from Syria by banning Syrian immigration to the United States. He has done this while there is no evidence that Syrian refugees have perpetrated any terrorist attacks in the United States.
He has refused to show the public his tax returns, and he has refused to divest himself of his business interests which could be the source of conflicts-of-interests or violations of the emoluments clause of the United States Constitution.
He has appointed members to his cabinet who either have little knowledge of the agency they are tasked to oversee or who are hostile to the mission of the agency.
He has obstructed justice by firing the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to put an end to, or at least to retard, the Bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
He has demeaned the prestige of the office of President of the United States with his inane tweets.
He has run the most fact free, lying campaign and presidency so far in modern American political history. The entire country is diminished when neither citizens nor the world can take what the president says seriously.
A president, whose character is thus marked, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Republican brothers and sisters. We have reminded them of their duty to the Constitution, to take proper care for the justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, the general welfare, including health care for all, and the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. We have appealed to their sense of responsibility to history and to their constituents. Many of them have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We will remember in November 2018.
We, therefore, The People of the United States of America, in the Name, and by the authority of citizenship solemnly publish and declare Resistance. We will write and call our local, state, and federal representatives and give them our opinions. We will not cooperate with unjust requests, such as a bogus commission on election fraud wanting personal information about voters. We will register and vote. We will encourage our friends, enemies, neighbors, coworkers and family to register and vote. We will resist any effort to suppress voting by people who have a legal right to do so. We will inform ourselves about the various pieces of legislation that come before Congress, especially those intended to encroach upon our privacy, harm the environment, sell off our national monuments to the oil and gas industry, or take away our health care coverage. We will not tolerate lies, and we will call them out when we hear them. We will insist that our elected officials who work for us and who are paid with our tax money are transparent, meet with constituents in person, and hold regular televised news conferences.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence and all that one considers transcendent and/or holy, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
 
 
 
 
Valerie Elverton Dixon is founder of JustPeaceTheory.com and author of “Just Peace Theory Book One: Spiritual Morality, Radical Love, and the Public Conversation.”