S/Z
Items & Issues


Proposal for Amendments to Thomas Jefferson's 1776 'Declaration of Independence’



1. This particular body of people, which speaks with the voice of one subject, while assuming a not-necessarily reciprocal position in relation to others (heretofore and hereafter referred to as "this Body") and non- consensual amongst its constituent groups and agents, in which my group and my person are involuntarily included, has refused, or seems to not have been able to express acceptance of negotiations which were initiated by one of the groups of agents included in this Body, whom have cohered in order to initiate the negotiations, which I, and my unnamed peers in this group, see as important in a really serious way.


2. This body has assertively dissuaded the agents, which act on the behalf of this aforementioned particular group which includes myself and unnamed others, from making provisions, in the form of laws, for situations which require exigently the kind of attention that laws are capable of instigating, unless these agents are acting with the knowledge and permission, and within the parameters set by, this body, and, when this kind of attention is solicited form this body, the body does not acknowledge or respond to it intelligibly.


3. This body has also assertively dissuaded these aforementioned agents from making provisions, in the form of laws, to accommodate large groups of unnamed individuals to whom these laws are relevant, although I will not specify in which ways here, unless these agents are to refuse these unnamed individual inclusion in the body for which these laws presumably would apply, such an inclusion being obviously necessary if these laws are to accommodate those people, and such an exclusion is excusable only as the behaviour of a totalitarian government using its power oppressively.


4. This body has organized meetings of agents which act of behalf of this particular group, which includes myself and unnamed others, in locations which are other than what has been standard for where this type of meeting is generally held, which do not accommodate the physical and emotional needs of the participants, and which are not in a desirable proximity to the locations of the places where important and useful documents are housed, and this has been done so for no other apparent reason than that doing so would exhaust the agents to such an extent that they would no longer have the wear withal to assert their convictions or contribute to the meeting whatsoever.


5. This Body has more than once, I would like to claim, ceased to recognize the bonds of what has constituted that which has been understood by myself and this Body (until this cease of recognition), as a group of here-unnamed people who united conduct themselves in relation to this Body, on behalf of, generally speaking, a large group of unnamed and supposedly specifically united people, and this Body claims to have ceased to recognize these bonds specifically in response to an unspecified response emitted by this group at some unspecified meeting, conduct that could be described as masculinely firm in response, which was performed in response to this Body’s apparent disregard for some here-unspecified particular components of the ways in which this Body exercises its assumed position, as one which designates the ways in which this large group of unnamed people may conduct themselves.


6. For amounts of time, which I and other of my colleagues find inordinately long, this body has pointedly not exercised its ability, within the chances it has been given, after its ceasing to recognize the aforementioned assemblies of agents acting on behalf of myself and unnamed others, initiated the constitution of other such assemblies, however these assemblies of agents, apparently indestructible, now consult and are recognized, by means which I will not disclose, by a general population, to whom they respond; this, however, has made this group, comprised of myself and unnamed others, and the space (physical and conceptual) that is inhabited by this group, vulnerable to attack from within and without its parameters.


7. This Body, has proposed a sizable obstacle, in its interest, presumably, to restrict peoples other than myself and unnamed others currently apart of this nebulous population (others being those politically foreign to this population) inhabiting this geopolitical locale, to be recognized by this Body as a member of this nebulous population and as residing in this geopolitical area; this Body has replied negatively to general requests to allow for those politically foreign to this geopolitical area―in which I currently reside―to be made privy to the possibility of becoming members of it, and this Body has also produced conditions by which this geopolitical area cannot expand to include the land on which these politically foreign peoples might currently reside.


8. This body has made it impossible to render consequences for the breaking of laws, by refusing to recognize laws which would establish a system of agents having the authority to do so.


9. This Body has produced circumstances in which unnamed others who hold posts recognised as those who judge in accordance to laws, are, as far as I can tell, coerced to produce their judgement only in direct compliance with this Body’s judgement, specifically when it and in its concerning their length of occupation of such a post, the amount of pay they receive for occupying this post, and the modes by which they receives the appropriate compensation.


10. This body has established, what I consider to be, a great number of new legislating bodies, which organize and facilitate agents to trouble, unprovoked, the people of this geographic locale and to engage in activities which diminish every kind of resource they have.


11. This Body has maintained the presence of inactive yet hostile armies in some ambiguous yet noticeable proximity to myself and other nationals of this geopolitical area, in periods when the presence of these armies is not considered, by myself and unnamed others to be in direct relation to the activities in their surroundings, and possibly during other inappropriate periods, and this Body has done so specifically without the agreement of those over which these armies stand guard.


12. This body has initiated the creation of groups of armed forces which do not respond to, and are stronger and more capable than those groups of instituted by local agents.


Below are the original grievances taken from Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 ‘Declaration of Independence,’ which we would like to propose are amended as shown to the left:


1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.















2. He has forbidden his Governors 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.











3. 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, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.










4. 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.














5. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.




















6. 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.













7. 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.















8. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.




9. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.










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






11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.











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