Declaration of Independence: “Merciless Indian savages” and the creation of empire

 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VNGLwDuWc8g

‘All men are created equal’: America has lost its values. It’s time to go back to the founding text. (The Guardian)

The declaration has been setting off its own fireworks for a long time now, simply by speaking truth to power.

That was certainly the case in 1776, when the declaration launched a new nation with a document listing the 27 defects of a leader who was “unfit to be the ruler of a free people” because he had the character of “a Tyrant”. George III’s catalogue of offenses included “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world”, discouraging immigration, sending “swarms of officers to harass our people” and “transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses”. Ring any bells?

It’s not a perfect fit; at times the declaration does not feel progressive at all, with harsh language about “merciless Indian savages” and a painful reference to “domestic insurrections” – a euphemism for slave rebellions.

But its timeless language about equality, rights and the consent of the governed has served as a check on government overreach ever since it was written. It is the ultimate No Kings statement…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/04/250-years-declaration-of-independence?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Jamelle Bouie: Defending Democracy and Secularism | FFRF Convention 2025

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie accepts the Clarence Darrow Award and delivers a powerful address on America’s secular promise. Bouie traces the nation’s egalitarian ideal from the Declaration of Independence through Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, critiques modern Christian nationalist rhetoric and argues for a pluralist democracy with room for the religious and nonreligious alike.

Watch more from FFRF's 2025 Convention • FFRF Convention 2025

0:00 Introduction 

4:42 Speech 

26:25 Q&A

Learn more about the Freedom From Religion Foundation at https://ffrf.org/

Interview: 

https://youtu.be/slUNxBfmlaE?si=QBs8PlAlzMgKgWtF

Weirdo Kenneth Copeland TELLS INSANE LIES to Justify His White Christian Nationalist worldview

Jesse talks about a bizarre and ahistorical set of lies that Kenneth Copeland told on a Daystar TV program to a group of women on a panel that served to rely on false information to back up the White Christian nationalist worldview of the grifter near-billionaire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EO1GkzGVnY

No, NPR is not trying to start a revolution - CNN.com

NPR calling for listeners to overthrow the government definitely would have made for an interesting Independence Day. But the public radio network wasn't calling for a revolution, and it wasn't calling the President a tyrant. NPR was just doing what it has done for years on the Fourth of July: Reciting the Declaration of Independence....
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/05/us/npr-twitter-declaration-trnd/index.html

David Barton Doesn’t Understand That The Declaration Of Independence And The Constitution Are Two Very Different Documents

Religious Right pseudo-historian David Barton is back with another mind-bogglingly silly argument that the United States is really an officially Christian nation – even though our Constitution doesn’t say that.

Barton’s latest line is that there was no need to mention God in the Constitution because the deity had already been singled out in the Declaration of Independence....
https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/david-barton-doesn-t-understand-that-the-declaration-of-independence-and.