raimius, Glenn:
Those weren't
my examples. They were a simple and clear restatement of the foundational principles which started the American experiment.
Here's what I wrote, that you both objected to: "But when there's a long and ongoing pattern of human rights abuses, and flagrant abuses of power including some people getting into office who aren't even legally qualified to do so or who cheated to get there, and there's so many repeated offenses of this nature that it almost looks like there's a plan to take away all power from the people and put it in the hands of bureaucrats -- well, that's when people have the right and duty to abolish the existing government and found a new one that will be more responsive to their needs and more likely to respect their rights."
Here's the original:
Quote:
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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.
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I took more words to say it, but I said the same thing -- using several dictionaries and the thesaurus as needed.
In context, "a long train of abuses" means
human rights abuses (referencing the earlier portion of the document).
"Usurpations" means the government or people within the government grabbing power that does not rightly belong to them, particularly if they break the law to do so and then use that power in a particularly offensive manner. In a representative democracy, that means people in public office who got there in a fundamentally dishonest or illegal way, such as through vote fraud or breaking the election laws.
"Evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism" means that it looks like there's a
plan to take all power away from the people and concentrate it in the hands of the government.
When those things happen as a long and repeated pattern, said our Founders, people have both the right and the duty to change the government and put in a new one.
pax