The time will never be more right to create Pacifica, the seventh largest economy in the world, by disabusing ourselves of the dangerous DSA cultists forever. Just sign your name in the comments and join us.

*DSA stands for the Divided States of America (aka “One Nation, Divisible”). Periodically, I’ll be writing more specific takes on issues that are clearly wrong for this country, using the arts as context. If there are issues you’d like to take up (or that you’d like me to take up), let me know. And again, I’m sorry, Bruce.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, 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 the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

  • That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their very existence 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 any Form of 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 affect 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 reduce them under absolute 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 these regions currently associated with California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawai’i; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present president of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, instead opting to govern by dictum and declamation;

He has forbidden his followers to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, 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 people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature by any means, including gerrymandering and the discount or overcount of votes, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved 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 dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands;

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers; indeed the thirty-four felonies for he has been found guilty have held no consequence for him or his followers;

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries, providing favor for those who transfer their wealth to him;

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance;

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures, using archaic laws with thin credibility or precedence to attack his own people;

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power;

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, as long as its leaders are seen as draconian dictators with megalomaniacal aspirations, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world by his use of arbitrary tariffs, causing prices within the country to soar for his own people;

For Reducing Taxes on the wealthy while Imposing Taxes on the poor;

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to locales such as Guantanamo Bay and foreign prisons in South America to be tried for pretended offences, or, when convenient to him, for no trial at all;

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments;

For suspending our own Congress’ rights and responsibilities toward the public purse, and declaring himself invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people, even those who voted for him. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, particularly on January 6, 2021.

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 Vance, 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 American brethren, even those who attempted to secede the Union in the middle portion of the 19th Century. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. 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 connections 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.

The map of the nation on the left and New Glory with the national mammal, the sea otter, honorably flapping in peace, freedom, and dignity on the right.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Country of Pacifica, in General Congress, 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 aforementioned lands, solemnly publish and declare, That collectively, as the Country of Pacifica, the lands of California (west to the Pacific Ocean, east to the mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevadas that bisect the region), Oregon (west to the Pacific Ocean and east to the Cascades, which bisect the region), Washington (west to the Pacific Ocean and east to the Cascades), and Hawai’i, are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Regions part of a single land; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the poorly-monikered United States of America, and that all political connection between them and the USA, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent Entity, the people shall have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. 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. Further, we support any decision by the state of Hawai’i, formerly an independent country, to choose to revert to that designation at any time its people choose to do so.

Finally, we urge those who believe their heritage was taken from them by the defeat of the Confederacy eight score ago to renew and revive their own path to a new Confederacy whose values more highly reflect their own histories and choices. We truly wish them nothing but success in that endeavor. In so doing, and reflecting the collective adherence to the notion of “Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” we open the borders of Pacifica to anyone who chooses to reside and become citizens therein upon renunciation of citizenship in any other country or regime and the ability to grow the economy and power of this mighty, peaceful land.

Big enough so that Little Donny Dingdong can see it from the golden toilet.

Scene Change, Scene Change 2, and Scene Change 3 - 3 books to improve your arts organization
If you want your nonprofit arts organization to thrive, in whatever country you choose, just pick up this inexpensive trilogy. If not, I can instead show you know how to throw “Going Out Of Business” sales.
I love that you read this column all the way to the end. Could you find it within you to support my caffeine habit, either by clicking the cup or better yet, getting together?
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