By LEE HINNANT

I came across an interesting document recently, one that a citizen wrote as a public protest against the actions of a high government official. I edited some of the words, but was careful to retain the writer’s tone and meaning. Check it out:

“He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power … depriving us, in many cases, of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas for pretended offenses:

He has plundered our seas …

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete works of death, desolation and tyranny … unworthy of the head of a civilized nation …

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.”

I shared these words with a couple of friends who are moderates and liberals and asked them who they thought might be the subject of such a harsh rebuke.

“George Bush,” they said.

Well, they were half right.

These words were written about George. King George III. And they come straight from the Declaration of Independence.

Fifty-six brave men signed that landmark document in 1776 and many paid a heavy price for standing up to a government that was headed down the wrong track.

I wish I could say it’s funny that for some people, this protest rings true nearly 230 years later. Instead, it strikes me as sadly ironic.