A declaration by Aaron Tebrinke, July 4, 2022.
When in the course of a long string of negative events hopelessness can overcome our individual values and make us surrender to the opinions of a small group with beliefs far beyond the mainstream of society.
When we allow them to arbitrarily pull away from the advancements of our progress, fought for by generations of common citizens, we will never achieve peace. The laws of nature entitle humankind, common citizens, decent respect to advance away from their oppressors. The power to live as equal and independent citizens requires them to declare the causes which impel them to fight unwanted changes.
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all humans are created equal from inherent and inalienable rights among which are the preservation of life, the peaceful independence of liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We are all connected to nature and each other. Our interdependence threads us together in invisible ways only made visible in our collective triumphs and failures. The foundation of our principles are organized to steer toward what will most likely ensure our safety and effectively develop our happiness as our ultimate outcome.
All humankind experiences the same internal pain when we see how we are capable of making humans suffer evils—yet we hesitate when we act alone to help. Collectively we right ourselves by abolishing the forms of evil to which our oppressors have become accustomed.
We keep climbing for more without time for reflection. We abuse and are abused by arbitrary power without providing new guards for our future security. We chose the pursuit of productivity, never pausing to learn from our mistakes.
Now is the time to reconnect, for inevitably we will not remain, yet our actions will echo in our contributions, laws, and free expression passed on by those seeking a deeper understanding of freedom.
Now it is necessary to erase the constrains of our former system of government by counting the vote of each individual citizen for a new way of governing the land, and people of this nation.
The history of our present failed government is a history of relentless injuries and infringements of rights, among which not a single fact stands alone to contradict the unpopular rules being thrust upon us, all of which have a direct goal to establish an absolute tyranny over all of us.
To prove this, let facts be submitted to the advocates for freedom that still remain, for the truths of which we pledge our confident trust are still yet untainted by lies:
The former president has incited treasonable insurrections inside our fellow-Americans’ United States Capitol in order to overturn the results of an election proven to be free of any malfeasance by election officials. He urges them to commit crimes against the lives of their fellow-Americans.
The former president’s party has made our judges dependant on his will alone and hurt the administration of justice by refusing the will of the majority of citizens for the benefit of a small minority of extremists. By ending laws that established judiciary protections for women he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty. Removing the liberties of one segment of people by depriving them of making choices over their bodies is inexcusable.
American democracy can only be kept alive by a commitment to ethical values based in liberty with the goal of achieving peace.
American democracy thrives when we have open minds and support a wide array of evolving views.
American democracy is protected by the rule of law: equal justice before the law, equal rights of the individual—especially including civil rights and human rights.
American democracy is transparent with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
American democracy’s purpose is a more just world dependent on the willful consent of her citizens. Her citizens trust they will be governed by representatives free of radical political ambitions or militant theological influence.
American democracy is fueled by a competitive market economy, and secured by ownership of private property.
American democracy depends on equality, individual rights, and protection from poverty from the cradle to the grave.
American democracy is only as healthy as its citizen’s mental and physical health. As long as we have care to thrive, and we do not harm ourselves or others, we can be present for those who need our support.
American democracy depends on visionaries in our working class compelled to create better conditions than we inherited. No human should suffer in a prosperous nation and all citizens are entitled to experience the dignity of work.
To achieve peace as a collective people, we can no longer deny the needs of the less fortunate, the unhoused, and those that struggle to connect to whole of humanity.
To end the cyclical nature of our failings we need to fight against our habitual quest for profit. We need to give to our collective wellbeing wholeheartedly with no guarantee of reward. Following the steady drumbeat that leads us to an endless pursuit of possessions, while denying others the right of employment, health, and housing, is a disgrace we can no longer tolerate.
From the day we begin life by breathing the air we share at the moment of our birth, to the day we cease to be, as long as we have beating hearts we are dependent on one another and mother nature’s resources to live.
When we fail to see ourselves as individual humans—mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers— we fall into the trap of defining ourselves by our careers with a goal to consume, rather than the full possibilities of experiences during our belief mortal stay.
We need to make time to get to know each other again. Our motivation for living can’t come from the threat of poverty, pursuing riches, or being unequally divided by a scarcity mentality.
We are all innately kind and we strive to express a genuinely good nature—especially when times are at their absolute worst. To deny our good nature weakens our very being.
Evil exists within all of us—but to what degree is completely within our control. Tolerance—being truly open-minded—takes a lifetime of examining our individual biases daily. We can only be healed by listening deeply to our neighbors and people we don’t understand. Without the acknowledgment of our partial blame for the spread of hatred, we will never be able to control ourselves for the better. We will never achieve peace as long as we deny humanity the freedom to exist in peace.
All of this, our shared humanity, the land and its resources below our feet, and the clean breathe-able air above us, is dependent on trusting one another.
We, the people, are the temporary tenants of a fragile planet. All the orders of life that inhabit Earth depend on her gifts. The living and the leaders of tomorrow are Earth’s children whose purpose is to explore the possibilities of interdependence as it leads us to everlasting peace.