NY-Times - Their George and Ours

————————————————————————

July 4, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Their George and Ours
By BARBARA EHRENREICH

hen they first heard the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776, New
Yorkers were so electrified that they toppled a statue of King George III
and had it melted down to make 42,000 bullets for the war. Two hundred
twenty-eight years later, you can still get a rush from those opening
paragraphs. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." The audacity!

Read a little further to those parts of the declaration we seldom venture
into after ninth-grade civics class, and you may feel something other than
admiration: an icy chill of recognition. The bulk of the declaration is
devoted to a list of charges against George III, several of which bear an
eerie relevance to our own time.

George III is accused, for example, of "depriving us in many cases of the
benefits of Trial by Jury." Our own George II has imprisoned two U.S.
citizens