My Declaration of Independence...

In this first draft, I've remained as close to the original document as possible. It's been a fascinating exercise. And as the original underwent editing, so too will this. But I needed to start somewhere.

MUB – My Unhealthy Behaviors

My Declaration of Independence
My Want, Will and Hope
HERE, JULY 15, 2011

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for a person to dissolve the past habits which have connected them with continuing unhealthy behaviors 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 of myself requires that I should declare the causes which impel me to the separation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that I am endowed by my Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, healthy behaviors are instituted, deriving just powers from the consent of my healthy self, — That whenever any Form of behavior becomes destructive of these ends, it is my Right to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new behaviors, laying their foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to me shall seem most likely to effect my Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that behaviors 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 me under absolute Despotism, it is my right, it is my duty, to throw off such behaviors, and to provide new Guards for my future security. — Such has been my patient sufferance; and such is now the necessity which constrains me to alter the former System of Behaviors. The history of the present unhealthy behaviors is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over me. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

MUB have refused any Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for my good.

MUB have forbidden me to set healthy behaviors of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to attend to them.

MUB have refused to allow behaviors for the accommodation of my health which would support me, unless those behaviors relinquish the right of Representation, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

MUB have called together my healthy behaviors at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures.

MUB have dissolved my healthy behaviors repeatedly, for opposing with any firmness their invasions on my rights as a human being.

MUB have refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause other less healthy behaviors to be chosen, whereby my rights to choose, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the drawing board for their exercise; while I remain, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

MUB have obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing healthy behaviors.

MUB have made themselves Judge and Jury alone for the tenure of their offices, i.e., until further notice.

MUB have erected a multitude of New Rules, and sent hither swarms of Rules to harass me and eat away my sense of self.

MUB have kept, in times of peace, Standing Armies without my Consent for their defense, so I will always be wrong.

MUB have affected to render their Military arsenal independent of and superior to my Power over myself.

MUB have combined with others to subject me to a jurisdiction foreign to my constitution, and unacknowledged by my laws; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Rules:

For blaming me for things that are not my fault or my responsibility:

For protecting my abusers, and willfully handing me over to those abusers:

For teaching me that I was incapable of doing anything of worth:

For imposing arbitrary rules that changed without notice, without my Consent:

For depriving me of the benefit of boundaries that provided safety from abuse:

For transporting me beyond Reason to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing my right to free will, establishing therein an Arbitrary set of rules, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule regarding my person:

For taking away my God-given free will, abolishing God’s most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of God’s Government:

For suspending my rights to choose, and declaring themselves invested with power to dictate for me in all cases whatsoever.

MUB have abdicated responsibility, by declaring me out of their Protection and waging War against me.

MUB have plundered my boundaries, ravaged my sense of self, burnt my values, and destroyed my ability to be truly healthy.

MUB are, at this time, transporting large Armies of pretend offences and “witnesses” 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 residents of a civilized nation.

MUB have constrained and taken Captive anything they can use against me, to become the executioners of my health and hope.

MUB have excited domestic insurrections amongst those with whom I’m acquainted, and have endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of the ruling public, the merciless enablers whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions I have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: My repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. UB, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of me.

Nor have I been wanting in attentions to those who supported or at least did not object to those past unhealthy behaviors. I have warned them from time to time of attempts to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over me. I have reminded them of the circumstances of my creating what I think will be a healthy distance. I have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and I 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. I must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as I hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

I, therefore, the Representative of my healthy self, in General, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good person I am at heart, solemnly publish and declare, That I am, and of Right ought to be a Free and Independent person, that I am Absolved from all Allegiance to the unhealthy behaviors, and that all past connections between me and the unhealthy behaviors, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent Person, I have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which an Independent Person may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I pledge my Life, my Fortune, and my sacred Honor.

— Judy