As I discussed last week, I feel there is variability in these types of assessments and if I re-took the assessment a week, a month [etc.] from now, I would score differently. Nevertheless, at this point in time the results are clear, I value people, enjoy pleasing them, and value loyalty among coworkers. From knowing myself better than anyone else, I’d have to agree with the values a high LPC score denotes. However, my competitive side also values completing a task and desires competence in my coworkers. Looking at my satisfaction with types of work I’ve done over the past one and a half years [at State Street], I know I prefer long-term projects over repetitive short-term tasks. In fact, a few months ago I moved over to a processing team, where the tasks are similar, day in and day out, and the volume is high. Although I derived pleasure from finishing a high volume of these tasks, I found myself making mistakes as the tasks require an attention to very minute details. Part of these tasks involves applying tax rates to a client depending on their residency, account structure and other details. I found I would constantly apply the wrong tax rate [luckily, our auditors caught all of these before they went live] or make a small typo. Overall, my quality of work on this task-processing team was good but not exceptional.

Meanwhile, I was working on multiple projects before joining the task processing team, and earned an Outstanding Performance award for my devotion to the project’s goals. On these projects, I would have to build a good working relationship with coworkers in the office and in outside organizations. I excelled at building these relationships, which allowed me to push my coworkers and contacts when necessary without damaging the relationship. I also paid more attention to the details of the project, and made fewer mistakes as I had a commitment to my coworkers and contacts to ensure quality work. Also, the details in the projects were of a much more complex nature and dealt with client and market situations, rather than minute details.

So even though I fight the results of these assessments, it does seem, compared to my actual experiences, that I am a high LPC, at least more than I am a low LPC. Rather than being heavily tilted to one side, I feel that I use aspects of both, depending on the situation and my mood, to accomplish my and the organization’s goals. It also does not surprise me that my LPC shows I am motivated by relationships right now. I work in the typical corporate office setting, where networking plays a much larger role in promotions than performance.

There is a leadership situation in my past, which goes counter to my current LPC score. In this situation, I was the formal and informal leader! A brief background, in the 6th grade, I gained admission into the prestigious Boston Latin School, a public exam school [you must pass a test to enter the school], for the 7th grade. In the 8th grade, I tried out for and made the freshman football team. Although there were tryouts, in essence everyone was able to play for the team who had a modicum of desire or bare minimum of skills. At Latin, our athletic teams are not the focus of the school, and are quite often the last area to receive funding. We still do not have a home football field and instead share White Stadium with the other city schools. The lack of funding and focus on academics has negatively affected the football’s teams performance. The freshman team had a longstanding tradition of winless seasons, a tradition which repeated in my first year on the team. In the 9th grade, I was appointed to one of the two co-captain positions for the freshman team.

Accepting my responsibility as a captain, I was extremely motivated to win at least one game. That was my goal, and I viewed each game as a task with a clear success/failure evaluation. If we won, we succeeded; if we lost, we failed.

Self-Rating of Effectiveness

Score: 5/10

Although the freshmen team did not win a single game under my captaincy, I still feel the group and I had a few moral victories. For one, right from the start we were behind all of our competitors. Rather than playing against other public high schools in the city of Boston, we played in the Dual County League, playing teams from rich suburban neighborhoods, with a lot more resources and focus on their athletic success. Many of the kids on these suburban teams had been playing together since their early youth, so they not only had more experience playing football, but also more experience playing together. There were more than a few games where we were simply blown out.

Another disadvantage which directly affected our group performance was our lack of a home field. Whereas the varsity team played at White Stadium, a shared home stadium among city teams, the freshman team traveled to our competitor’s field for all of our games. Not only did we not have a home field crowd to motivate us, we also experienced biased referees who would clearly make calls to help the home team. If we could have played all of our games under unbiased referees, we definitely would have won at least a couple of games. Even though we failed my goal of winning one game, under the circumstances we performed admirably.

Leader-Member Relations

Score: 19/40

The fact that this was a high school football team helped and hurt leader-member relations. For one, we were all less mature then, and petty differences between people would cause fights between individuals occasionally. I didn’t help matters much either, as I led by a decidedly authoritative style, often yelling at my teammates after we lost games. In particular, a lot of my teammates didn’t seem to care as much about the end result of the game as I did; conversely, I cared too much about the end result in the grand scheme of life. I really wanted our team to break the winless tradition and my teammates understood that no one would blame us for not winning a game. Neither side was right, and a healthy medium existed which would have benefited everyone if both sides drifted more to that healthy middle ground. Hence, even though I led with a strong right hand, I also was friends with many of these people on and off the field, which helped me avoid physical harm from my leadership style. My friends and teammates understood I just wanted us to win, but then and now they think I would have been more effective if I relaxed my style a bit. The other co-captain led more by example and less by actual leadership. He was calm and stayed back often, but at times would also yell and shout at our teammates; the difference is when he yelled our teammates knew he was dead serious and it was time to shape up immediately. He still should have been more vocal, and several of our friend-teammates encouraged him to talk more often. We all had our faults back then, hind-sight is great now but at the time we tried our best and still often failed miserably.

Task Structure

Task Structure Part I: 16/20
Task Structure Part II: (-) 3/9
Task Structure: 13

Any sports team has to be structured to ensure all of the players and coaches are on the same page, hence why every sports team has a playbook. The playbook is the blue-print of the team’s strategy. Plus, the goal is obviously clear, win. The team’s schedule also has to be structured to ensure everyone is at the same place at the same time. If the timing of the players is off, the play usually won’t work and might even result in penalties. On a successful team, everyone knows their role and understands the step they need to take to fulfill that role. In this way, our team was like the majority of teams. Timing and adaptability were the two big shortcomings of our structure. As I said before, we were at a disadvantage since all the other teams had years of experience of playing with each other, and had all of their plays and timing and style down quite well. They were also able to adapt plays to the talents of their players, since the coaches had plenty of time to evaluate their players and adjust their strategy accordingly. On the other hand, our team’s coaches barely had enough time to implement our playbook, yet alone start changing it to fit the unique skills of our players.

I had one year of formal experience and training over the rest of my teammates, so I chose a moderate level of training and experience. I didn’t choose very little because our academic program was much better than any of the other schools and trained me to critically analyze situations, which comes in handy on a football field, where you have to quickly analyze and act on a huge number of factors during every play. My obsession with football also helped analyze game film and adjust my game accordingly.

Position Power

Score: 6/0

As a co-captain I had some power over my teammates, but the coach is the dictator in this situation, and at best I could only offer recommendations on players and strategies.

Did my leadership style fit the situation? At the time, no, if I was in the same situation now, yes. At the time I was much closer to an a low LPC than my current high LPC. A low LPC thrives in situations with high or low control, whereas the co-captain of a high school football team has moderate to low control over the situation, requiring a high LPC for success. My co-captain was closer to a high LPC at the time, but he too struggled with the low control portion of the situation, whereas I was a low LPC at the time, and struggled with the moderate control of the situation.

The results of my low LPC style in this moderate control situation match the predictions of Fiedler’s Contingency Theory on the surface. Below the surface, we had a few moral victories which just do not show up in quantitative analysis of the situation. The next year, our junior varsity team, earned a 4-6 record, and still all of us objectively agreed we should have been 6-4, if a very few factors were flipped. Of course, the opposite is also true and we could have also ended up with only 1-2 wins too. The junior varsity team kept the same two captains from our freshman year and added two additional captains. I also matured greatly and focused much more on relationships, for instance making sure my teammates didn’t play hurt and that everyone got a chance to attempt a position they wanted to play. I also had a lot more input with the coach on how our team should be managed. Although I was still focused on tasks, the fact that we were succeeding at these tasks took the edge of my authoritative style and I gradually moved to the middle of the LPC scale, where expecting competence and loyalty from my teammates greatly improved my leadership effectiveness.

If I knew what I know now, about football and leadership, I am quite confident that if placed in the same position, I could share enough knowledge and help my teammates by leading them on the path to (at least one) victory.

I’m glad that a debate will occur, as I was actually thinking of withdrawing my vote for Nader if he was not able to debate someone, my thinking being that if you can’t get a debate going, how could you ever manage a country? Now, I know this debate is not organized by Mr. Nader and that he has a campaign to run but in my opinion the best thing for Ron Paul and Ralph Nader would have been to spend some of those megabucks raised by money bombs and fundraising on getting a new debate going counter to the mainstream, corporate owned debates.

Hopefully Cynthia McKinney is able to show up at the debates tonight too, though Bob Barr has stated numerous times he will not attend due to a prior engagement at Georgia Tech. Honestly, if I was in charge of the Barr event at GT, I’d cancel it and encourage him to attend the debate, but perhaps that’s why I’m not running a campaign…

In either case, tune in tonight to C-SPAN or head on over to Restore the Republic Radio for a live web stream of the event.

10 Reasons I’m Voting for Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez

1. Universal Health Care.

The argument over whether socialism is good or bad does not matter. Our government has already decided it will act as a socialist entity with Medicare, Social Security, bank bailouts and endless other infiltrations into the free market. To not provide universal health care is to openly admit we do not care about the well being of our citizens. This strategy must come to an end. As one of the richest countries in the world, we cannot afford to not provide our citizens guaranteed access to health care.

2. End to all wars.

The money to pay for universal health care and other infrastructure and development projects, within the U.S.A., will come from the savings of bringing every soldier home. Currently, more than half of every discretionary dollar spent by the U.S. government goes to military funding. Simply put, we are spending too much money killing people and not enough helping them.

3. End to corporate personhood.

I have railed against corporate personhood before and truly believe it is one of the reasons we are seeing the manufactured economics crises today. Many people do not realize that corporations are legally viewed as people, just the same as you and me. Corporations twisted the law freeing slaves to force corporate personhood and it’s time we end this disgrace. Corporations are not people.

4. Impeach Bush and Cheney.

Impeachment is simply an analysis of whether the President and Vice-president committed crimes. So far, our politicians will not even debate whether we should debate if crimes were committed, eventhough Bush and Cheney openly and flagrantly admit to committing multiple crimes against our citizens, government and world.

5. National Initiative.

Perhaps the greatest of the Nader – Gonzalez plaform, the National Initiative would allow regular American citizens to petition and demand change from the government easily and reliably. A strong democracy is one where citizens may easily redress the government when it creates laws to benefit the few and harm the many.

6. Energy Policy.

Hands down the best energy policy of any presidential candidate. The Nader platform looks forward to the future to realize that we must act now to invest in and install clean, efficicent renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar power. Doing so will create new manufacturing jobs and break our need for dirty and expensive forms of energy such as nuclear, coal and oil.

7. Fair Tax.

Are you sick of hearing about corporate loop holes that allow big businesses to pay no taxes while half your paycheck goes to Uncle Sam? Me too. Ralph Nader realizes how broken our tax system has become and offers the fair tax which would close corporate loopholes and begin taxing negative things we do not want, such as pollution, to discourage the negative and encourage people to work and earn money.

Makes a lot more sense than our current system.

8. Ballot Access.

Currently each state in the union has their own ballot access laws, creating a stressful and chaotic scene where it is often a battle in and of itself for viable candidates to gain access to the ballot. Nader-Gonzalez propose one standard for all the states to ensure all candidates have fair access to the ballot, thus providing citizens with greater choice and creating greater competition amongst candidates, thus helping our democracy for everyone.

9. Open the debates.

Currently, we allow a private corporation to host debates between two political parties and allow this private corporation to ban other viable candidates from the debate. We cannot say we live in a democracy when we prevent candidates from having a seat at the table.

10. Federal Budget.

The Nader-Gonzalez campaign describes it perfectly:

The United States needs a redirected federal budget that adequately funds crucial priorities like infrastructure, transit and other public works, schools, clinics, libraries, forests, parks, sustainable energy and pollution controls. The budget should move away from the deeply documented and criticized (by the US General Accounting Office, retired Admirals and Generals and others) wasteful, redundant “military industrial complex” as President Eisenhower called it, as well as corporate welfare and tax cuts for the wealthy that expand the divide between the luxuries of the rich and the necessities of the poor and middle class.

Yes, rebuild America!

These are my reason for voting for Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez in the 2008 presidential elections. The points I’ve outlined above are the ten of most important points to the future sustainability of this country and are clearly above and beyond any platform stance of any other presidential candidate. Simply put, the Nader-Gonzalez platform is not only good but also correct.

Do yourself and your country a favor and vote for Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalelez in 2008.

Morgan has a broken arm, elbow and has minor shoulder damage but was in good spirits when I spoke with him a short time ago.

As I said in my The Dark Knight review, Morgan Freeman makes any movie he’s in an automatic 3/5 simply because he’s The Man. Good to hear that he’ll be OK. Get well Morgan.

Morgan Freeman photo from David Sifry’s flickr page.

Check it out, here’s me duplicating some of the art on my public web-site, Banksy to prove I am the real Banksy.

See. Clearly I am Banksy as that signature which I just wrote looks exactly like the one on the main Banksy site.

Yup, the whole being British thing and living in the U.K. was just a ploy to throw you off my scent. Though I’ve preferred to perform my art in anonymity, I must now come out and declare myself publicly to prevent that hack Robin Gunningham from getting the credit for my brilliance.

Here’s the me replicating the infamous gorilla from my menu page.

See. Identical.

Even the purple will make sense now. It’s a shout-out to my real public high school, the Boston Latin School, whose fine art department and classic education made me the rebel I am today.

So once again, do not believe the Mail on Sunday when they “report” that Robin Gunningham is Banksy.

No, I am Banksy.

I will now retire to my own personal island for I am rich.

Oh, and here’s one of my favorite Banksy / Adam Pieniazek pieces:

Don’t believe me?

Are you Banksy?

After going around in circles for a few minutes trying to pinpoint the fire sirens (they were on the other side of a hill) I finally found them, over a mile away at Trull Street, off Hancock Street. Loyal readers will recall that Hancock Street was also mentioned in this cycling encounter. No, I don’t know if this house is in anyway related to the driver from that story but even if it was in no way would I wish harm on that person or his family.

The fire must have been huge as there were a half dozen, if not more, fire trucks at the scene. By the time I arrived the firefighters had done an amazing job controlling the fire and had it nearly put out completely within minutes of my arrival. At that point they were mostly searching for anyone left in the house. The word on the street from people watching the scene was that everyone got out and firefighters were merely being cautious. Luckily it seems everyone made it out alive though I’m unsure of their conditions.

Here are a few pictures of the scene. My apologies for the sub-par quality; the pictures were taken with my iPhone which does not have a flash.

A lot of fire trucks were there when I showed up. This photo is from Hancock Street looking down Trull Street.

Here’s a photo closer to the home. The yellow at the top of the photo is a light or lights, not the fire, though there were flames near that light but the trees make it tough to see.

I did not know fire fighters also utilized bicycles but, as this photo shows, they do. Later on as I was leaving I saw a firefighter using the bicycle to get up Trull Street quickly to get to a supply van parked on Hancock Street to get a case of water bottles.

Finally, I saw this doll attached to the front of one of the fire trucks. All I know is I have the utmost respect and admiration for firefighters. Obviously they risk their life day in day out and though there are scandals (Boston recently had a firefighter collect disability pay while also moonlighting as a bodybuilder), the majority of fire fighters are hard working blue collar guys trying to help their communities. I didn’t ask but I’d assume this doll was either from a fire or from a family member for good luck. In either case it was a down to earth sign that firefighters are just regular people yet they constantly perform heroic acts.

There’s a few more pictures from this fire on my flickr page.

My condolences to the families involved in this traumatic event. Hopefully everyone made it out OK.

When the poor need to be stomped on, don’t get your shoes dirty, call Super Bush!

When the middle class starts getting curious, don’t cut and run, call Super Bush!

When we need to demonize socialism for all but demand it for the super-rich, don’t bother calling, he’s already there because he is Super Bush!

Look in the sky, it’s an a-hole, NO, it’s a dictator, NO, it’s Super Bush!

H/T to A Dark Dog for the picture.

What makes little sense is that if Congress believes the President is innocent the absolute best way to show so is to impeach! If there are no crimes, then an impeachment trial would show that. The truth is, they do not want to impeach the Executive branch for fear of dragging their own congressional crimes into the mix.

The truth is that there is enough potential evidence of war crimes that impeachment is a no brainer. Here’s one clear example of perjury by President George W. Bush. On two occasions Mr. Bush stated under oath that he would “…to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”, yet he also publicly declared that “The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!” Right there Mr. Bush violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and he should at the very least be held accountable for his perjury. Let’s not forget that he also openly admitted to committing war crimes.

At least there is one man doing his constitutional duty to hold Bushco accountable for their crimes against humanity and against the USA. The man’s name is Dennis Kucinich and he’s a true American hero. Here is a video from Representative Kucinich thanking American citizens for signing his impeachment petitions and providing support for justice. Mr. Kucinich will be making the case for impeachment this Friday thanks to all the support.

Perhaps there is some hope for re-legitimizing the government of these United States of America. Perhaps the Democrats will wake up and realize that we Americans do not want “change”, we want a return to a government of the people, by the people, for the people. The elitist corporate lobbies running our congress and executive branch are not the voice of the average American.

Hello Mr. Barr, Green Party Candidate, Mr. Nader, Mr. Paul, and Mr. Kucinich,

I’ve watched some of the mainstream debates on TV but felt they were simply too slanted towards certain candidates and too moderated to truly be called a debate.

An event where you debate Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Bob Barr and the Green Party candidate would provide a truly rational and balanced discussion of how to best shape America going forward. The debate would also draw a lot of attention to 3rd party candidates and hopefully sway more Americans to avoid voting for the Democrats or Republicans.

I’m sending this short e-mail to all of you to gauge your interest in such a debate. If all parties are interested I will start an open-source non-profit organization to raise funds for, market and host the debate.

I truly feel such a debate could be the best in American history and hope you do too.

Regards,

Adam Pieniazek

If all these candidates are interested, I’ll try wicked hard to make it a reality as it’ll give underrepresented political candidates a fair, open, and public forum to discuss their stances and ideas.

What about you? What’s your take on this hypothetical debate? Who do you think would win?

In particular, if we change “King of Great Britain” to “King of the United States of America, George W. Bush” does the document still make sense? Let’s see [note, anything you see in brackets is me adding an incident to support the claim].

“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 Creator 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 effect 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 Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain King of the United States of America, George W. Bush 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 the Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good [Bush vetoes children's health insurance bill].

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 [federal raids on state approved medical marijuana operations in California].

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 [Republicans intimidating voters to stay away from voting booths] .

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 [telecom immunity, commutation of Scooter Libby, continued approval of war spending bills and vetoes of timelines].

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people [Attorneys fired for not agreeing with Bush, the power to declare war lies in the Congress, not the executive branch].

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 [Bush expands immigration checks].

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

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

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. [Patriot Act, warrantless wire-tapping, Department of Homeland Security]

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures [illegal wars].

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power [unconstitutional Guantanamo trials, majority of Americans are opposed to Iraq War].

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us [Department of Homeland Security]:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world [Cuban embargo]:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent [war spending for a war the public does not consent to, the economic stimulus checks which are simply an early refund (so you may owe taxes next year)]:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury [false accusations of terrorism lead to illegal detainment]:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [27,000 people held in secret overseas prisons]:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments [the Dick Cheney branch]:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever [Bush believes he can sidestep wiretapping laws].

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us [Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq which criminalizes anti-war protests.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people [Bush has had a constant negative impact on the environment].

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat 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 [private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq].

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

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 Prince 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 British American brethren. 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.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, 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 Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British American Crown, and that all political connection between them and the Federal State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they 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.”

Nearly every single reason for the original Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom holds true today. There can be only one true patriotic move, declare independence from King George W. Bush and his henchman in the executive branch. Today, as we celebrate this country’s birth we must move forward and yet again renew the Tree of Liberty. The current federal government of these United States of America through its criminal negligence, corrupt conspiracy, and open disregard for the law has rendered itself null and void. The truly patriotic amongst us realize this government is now illegal and an enemy of the people and this country. We all must openly admit and declare that we are no longer part of this criminal, blood-thirsty, tyrannical American empire.

To conclude this post, I will borrow the words of one of our greatest fictional Presidents, the great President Thomas Whitmore from Independence Day. We truly live in a sad state when he is the most inspirational President of my lifetime. Though he spoke of fighting to prevent annihilation from aliens, his inspirational speech holds too true for our modern struggle:

We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!