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By American tradition, we should gather in the town square today for a public reading of the Declaration of Independence, and devote the rest of the day to explosives.
But as we are often reminded, everything changed after 9-11, and a public festival devoted to detonation and the declamation of a revolutionary manifesto might well attract unwanted attention from Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Curious as to how we should now celebrat the Fourth, I called my favorite inside source: Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America. He said there's an updated statement of the American purpose, known as the Declaration of the Incumbency. It is now circulating in draft form among his colleagues at the Committee, and he graciously shared it:
When in the Course of human Events it becomes necessary for one President to assert and establish economic and military Bonds upon Others, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth and the Heavens the absolute Dominance which the Laws of Nature and of the fundamentalist God entitle him, there is no Reason that he and his advisors need to show any Respect to the Opinions of Mankind by declaring the causes which impel them to this Course.
After all, we hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men result from the divine Creation on October 23, 4004 B.C., that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life until Birth, Liberty to choose among gated enclave Communities, and the Pursuit of Profit. And to secure these Rights, Administrations are placed above Men, deriving their powers from a one-vote margin in the Supreme Court of the United States.
To extend these Powers, let these Talking Points be spun to a credulous World:
We claim the right to imprison any person in any place
for any period of time without counsel or outside contact
by declaring that person to be an enemy
noncombatant.
We assert the right to nullify the actions of the voters or judiciary of any State in the Union regarding the medical uses of hemp, the marriage of persons of the same sex, or the voluntary termination of life.
We shall enjoy the power to compile a list of names of persons who are not allowed to board aircraft, without any explanation to those people as to why we have restricted their ability to travel.
We declare it our duty to invade any country at any time for any reason, even if that country is no current threat to our nation, under the doctrine of pre-emptive protection. And we further declare that if our given reason turns out to be false, we were still right to do so.
We affirm that anyone who questions the veracity or intelligence of this Administration is thereby giving aid and comfort to the enemies of Liberty, and thus those persons are Traitors.
We avow that our Homeland Security requires the Collection of Information about all persons in the Homeland, ranging from the Books they read to the Content of their communications and the Names of their Associates, and we retain full confidence that any person who objects deserves further investigation.
Despite our Promises to Reduce the Size and Cost of Government, we maintain our Right to erect a Multitude of new Officers to harass the People, and eat out their Substance.
We, the Members of this Administration, thus pledge the Lives of our military Forces, the Fortunes of those who do not have off-shore corporate headquarters, and the sacred Honor of the billions of dollars we have added to the Deficit despite our campaign promises four years ago, so as to protect the Incumbency.
Signed: Geo. W. Bush, Rich'd Cheney, Don'd Rumsfeld, etc.
I told Ziegler I'd be honored to read this to the public when Salidans gathered at Riverside Park for frolic and fireworks on the Fourth, but he said that wouldn't be a good idea. The new Declaration of the Incumbency was still a draft, he pointed out, and he didn't want to get blamed for leaking it before the official release.
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