The 2025 Declaration of Independence
August 13, 2025
Introduction
When the original Declaration of Independence was being written in 1776, the soon-to-be nation was already at war with England. The citizens in the colonies had suffered numerous mistreatments by King George III in the preceding decades. Rule by a single and sometimes capricious and poorly informed king, had not gone well. The colonists were fed up with increased oppression and taxation. By July 1776 the king’s army was already actively fighting Americans. There had been battles in Canada, Boston, South Carolina and soon New York. The English had been badly beaten in some engagements and the newly minted Continental army in others. The future was uncertain, but the resolve to govern themselves as a free and independent nation with the assurance of basic rights for everyone and a voice in government was now firmly rooted in America.
The die for independence had been cast with the initial battles and now was the time to make it official. The colonies sent representatives to Philadelphia to enumerate for the colonists and the world their justification for becoming an independent nation. Their list of grievances was extensive. Their document became our country’s Declaration of Independence. Today we need to refresh that claim to independence and update our grievances.
Our current need for independence is not from a foreign sovereign, but from a corrupt government now in power over the nation. Every government since our beginning operated to preserve our Constitutional Republic with its democratic processes. Different political parties and administrations may have had differing views on what it should accomplish and how it should operate, but none sought to dismantle its very nature and foundations. That is no longer true.
No matter the fact that this administration has come into power by democratic means, it has now revealed its true character – that of an autocracy. The president has appointed himself as a defacto king and has been ruling by executive decree (order). He has sufficiently compromised the other two branches of government so as to provide him the unfettered power he seeks to impose his personal desires on an entire nation. Most unfortunately, those desires are both autocratic and ignorant.
We can no longer wait for our nation to heal itself through normal, slow-moving processes. It is our time to step forward, as the founding fathers did in 1776, and declare ourselves free of our tyrant. It is time to demand the restoration of the norms that have sustained our nation for two and a half centuries.
To that end, I submit our renewed Declaration of Independence taken from the text of the original and made current for our situation. You will find it is a mix of the original text with its colonial English and today’s modern circumstances and expressions. Because the colonists had many grievances, and because this parallels many of them, the list is extensive, but not all inclusive. Aside from adjusting the grievances, it is remarkable how much of the original text remains applicable to the present day.
As you read, you will rediscover that a corrupt government, acting against its citizens, has no claim to stay in power. Our officials are elected to protect democracy, not demolish it. When the government acts unconstitutionally, obedience to it is forfeited and opposition is required.
The 2025 Declaration of Independence.
In America, August 13, 2025.
The Declaration of the citizens of these United States of America: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with their government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and 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 their actions.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever our Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments 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 place them under authoritarian Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of our country’s citizens; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their Government. The history of the present President of these United States is a history of repeated crimes and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these citizens. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
• He has defied our courts and refused obedience to our Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
. He has incited and insurrection so he could remain in office.
• He has forbidden his political party to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance.
• He has instructed his political acolytes in state governments to pass measures redistricting representation in a prejudicial fashion to inequitably favor his initiatives and reelection.
• He has refused to provide emergency aid to areas badly stricken by natural disasters because their states’ electoral votes were for his opponent thereby causing prolonged suffering and is also moving to completely remove aid for future disasters.
• He has caused to be fired capable and ethical federal employees for no legitimate reasons and to punish those who have conducted investigations of his conduct and prosecuted his crimes.
• He has been found responsible for the obstruction of justice, for sexual assault, for defamation, for fraud, for racial discrimination, and has been twice impeached for his misconduct in office.
• He has coerced members of his own party in the Congress and incited his followers to threaten them so that they have acquiesced to his every whim and abandoned their Constitutional obligation to serve as an oversight and check on the powers of the Executive.
• He has endeavored to obstruct the Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass laws to manage their migrations hither, and removing them without due process to which they are entitled.
• He has appointed unethical candidates for Judgeships who lied to receive their appointments with the intent to further their careers and assist his usurpation of power and to permit and protect his criminal behavior, not to administer fair and impartial justice.
• He has disrupted and decimated a multitude of Offices, and sent hither swarms of unqualified and unvetted DOGE agents to harass our agencies, carve out their substance, and put at risk the confidential information of every citizen.
• He has placed among us in our public places, in times of peace, units of our Armed Forces without the Consent of our mayors, governors, or legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power and to abuse his office as Commander in Chief to stand them against our people.
• He has combined with others in Congress and the Courts to subject us to an authoritarian jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.
• He has declared non existent emergencies using pretexts in order to claim to himself the arbitrary exercise of authority.
• He has protected his accomplices and agents by pardoning them for grievous offenses including insurrection, drug trafficking, financial fraud, and other crimes.
• He has interfered with our Trade with all parts of the world by his imposition of arbitrary and unnecessary tariffs inflicting economic burdens on our people and businesses.
• He has altered our taxes without our Consent to bestow unnecessary and excessive benefits upon the most wealthy while depriving the least capable among us of benefits needed for simple living.
• He has deprived individuals of the benefit of due process guaranteed to them in our Constitution.
• He has seized and imprisoned both illegal and legal immigrants and citizens and confined them in unfit conditions depriving them of adequate space, food, sanitation and access to family and legal representation.
• He has acted in an arbitrary, antagonistic, and capricious fashion with our valued international neighbors and allies jeopardizing our global commerce, reputation, and security.
• He has aligned his interests and posture with other autocratic rulers and seeks to emulate their autocratic practices with us.
• He has called upon our own Legislatures to restrict and impede the ability of citizens to fully and easily participate in free and fair elections in order to prejudice the outcome in his favor.
• He has lied so extensively and caused his staff to echo his falsehoods and reneged on agreements to such a degree that there is no comparison for his perfidity.
• He has polluted Government by characterizing his opponents as enemies and fake news.
• He has used his office as a means to profit by channeling funds from our government and others to his private enterprises and to shamefully denigrate his office through the sale of tasteless merchandise.
• He is establishing a private army of ICE agents, operating outside the command of the Armed Forces, for his personal use to terrorize, abduct, and imprison his perceived enemies with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has reduced and eliminated humanitarian aid to poor nations dependent upon our largess resulting in hunger, illness, and death.
• He has mismanaged a global pandemic by eliminating the group charged with pandemic preparedness, denying its significance, subscribing to unscientific remedies and opposing rational ones, and shifting blame resulting in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of our people.
• He has denied science and facts in the fields of medicine, climate, economics, and commerce and has rescinded programs and research contributing to our national progress in technology and against disease to the detriment of our citizens.
• He has not learned from his experience bankrupting six of his own companies and has enlisted the help of his Congressional lackies to unnecessarily alter the taxation of the nation; in so doing, he has added approximately $6.5 trillion (20%) to the national debt thus endangering the full faith and credit of our government and our monetary dominance in world commerce.
• He has excited domestic disagreements amongst us and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our nation a quarrelsome and angry character that pits neighbor against neighbor and state against state and removes our trust in government.
• He has constrained military aid to the democratic country of Ukraine struggling to save itself from its Russian aggressor and has thus caused continued death and destruction for its people.
• He has been twice impeached and escaped conviction by intimidation of the senators of his political party.
• He has behaved in a most vile and unpresidential manner by mocking, defaming, insulting, and threatening decent people and world leaders.
• He has instructed his agents to rewrite our nation’s history to his liking ignoring the truth, removing the contributions of minorities, and whitewashing its failings.
• He has caused the Dept. of Justice to act as his own imperial prosecutor to falsely accuse, investigate, and prosecute his personal enemies and innocent government employees.
• He has removed traditional protections for past officials to place their lives in danger and to burden them with the costs of their own protection against foreign enemies.
• He has accepted innumerable “gifts” in the forms of crypto currency purchases and uses of his private properties and even a jumbo jet all in violation of the emoluments clause.
• He has attacked universities and media firms with lawsuits and threats to withdraw federal funding for programs in order to interfere with their independent exercise of free speech.
• He has bullied law firms and coerced payments and services from them with the intent of chilling all firms from representing his opponents in legal proceedings.
• He has assembled as his ministers the most unqualified, incompetent, unethical collection of sycophants in the history of the nation whose actions are ruining our national security, public health, education, commerce, climate, and rule of law.
At this stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned our representatives and Protested for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated silence, platitudes, and falsehoods and our protests have failed to have sufficient effect. A President, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the leader of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Legislative brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts to remove hard won protections or extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the history of our nation and the proper functioning of our government. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these deviations from our traditional norms and Constitutional protections. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Friends in the protection of our Constitutional Republic, Enemies as enablers of Autocracy.
We, therefore, the free and independent citizens of the United States of America, in General Agreement, 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 United States, solemnly publish and declare, That all citizens are, and of Right ought to be governed in accordance with our Constitution and its rule of law; that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to a would-be dictator and his enablers, and that all connection between us and their current government, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Citizens, have full Power to ignore, protest, impede, restrain, and oppose with all necessary means their orders; and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Citizens of a Republic may of right do to protect and defend our Constitution and the rights and freedoms it guarantees. 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 and our sacred Honor.
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