A Long Train of Abuses

Preface: During my innumerable hours spent reading about our Founding Fathers, it was specifically commented by noted historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that the Founders felt the real power of the Declaration of Independence emanated not from the opening thesis on the inherent rights for all of humanity, but the long list of injuries contained within the second portion of the document; which they felt as the intellectual justifications for separation. Thus while many are familiar with the “When in the Course of Human Events” and “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” lines from the opening of the “Declaration of Independence”, few except the major nerds such as myself, have read over the Founding Father’s precisely articulated reasoning for declaring independence from Great Britain.

As such, it occurred to me a few years prior to try and make a video contrasting the reasons stated on July 4th, 1776, with the tumult of our own times. After somewhat gaining the skill set needed to produce a video using today’s video-editing software, my quest in contrast began this past Independence Day whilst conflicted and saddened over the state of our Republic. Unfortunately, the project languished with me suffering a creative block. However, with the publishing of our article reporting on an Army Brigade being activated stateside for their mission of being a “domestic on-call response team”,the aforementioned creative block quickly vanished.

During the past 6 days I immersed myself wholly into completing this project to the detriment of my posting amongst several other areas. Fortunately my fellow contributors more than covered my butt with their eloquent commentary and reporting. I would just like to say thank you both to my partner for putting up with my indulgence and our contributors, I truly appreciate all you do for “The Smoking Argus”.

In closing, my little project finished processing this morning at 5:56 am. I hope you like my first attempt at a video editorial and look forward to any and all feed back. – Alli