Through Trump-hating prejudice, you not only misinterpreted Alan Dershowitz, who was rebutting the premise of the first impeachment, that Trump was making a quid pro quo with Zelensky over military aid to the Nazis in Ukraine in exchange for "dirt on Biden" -- his quid pro quo for firing the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Hunter's Burisma dealings in exchange for Biden's threat to withhold a billion dollars in aid (presumably military) to Ukraine -- which Trump was actually able to express as the quid pro quo it really was (in contradistinction to the failed impeachment's) during the debate. I consider that his number one winning point. But your Trump-hatred makes you oblivious and unfair in scoring this winning point.
As for the Declaration of Independence, I have come to agree with a Boston cleric at the time who was still in opposition to "Independency", although I will admit that warfare with Britain had already begun. Like "Mr. Lincoln's War" I see Virginia's reason to secede as prompted by Lincoln's call-up and transport of the militia, as well as imposition of the blockade, while Virginia had not yet seceded with the deep South over slavery, but was still trying to hold the Union together in April 1861. It was Mr. Lincoln's imposition of martial law in Maryland, after the militia fired into the Baltimore crowd, and before the Maryland state legislature could debate secession, that compelled Virginia to secede. It was war, and not slavery that Virginia seceded for. And the secessionists were only reverting to the Articles of the Confederation, under which we had originally won independence before the creation of the central government under the Constitution. The people had to ratify the Bill of Rights, before they would agree to the Constitution. The Second Right is not the right to bear arms, which already existed from the English common law of self-defense, but gave the states the rights to maintain their own militias, and to prevent Congress from "infringing" on that inherited right of armed self-defense. I still marvel at the lack of guns by the so-called insurrectionists of Jan 6, when the only people with guns and shooting (unarmed Ashley Babbitt) were the Capitol Police inviting the crowd into the Capital and the undercover FBI masquerading as Trump supporters to provoke the crowd.
The Declaration of Independence was a declaration of war. Since it meant killing, a "respect for the opinions of mankind" required justification, which Jefferson, copying Mason, was competent to do. But it still meant violence, so that's why we celebrate it with bombs and rockets. Have you ever read Frederick Douglass' bitter response to the "impudent" Fourth of July?
Through Trump-hating prejudice, you not only misinterpreted Alan Dershowitz, who was rebutting the premise of the first impeachment, that Trump was making a quid pro quo with Zelensky over military aid to the Nazis in Ukraine in exchange for "dirt on Biden" -- his quid pro quo for firing the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Hunter's Burisma dealings in exchange for Biden's threat to withhold a billion dollars in aid (presumably military) to Ukraine -- which Trump was actually able to express as the quid pro quo it really was (in contradistinction to the failed impeachment's) during the debate. I consider that his number one winning point. But your Trump-hatred makes you oblivious and unfair in scoring this winning point.
As for the Declaration of Independence, I have come to agree with a Boston cleric at the time who was still in opposition to "Independency", although I will admit that warfare with Britain had already begun. Like "Mr. Lincoln's War" I see Virginia's reason to secede as prompted by Lincoln's call-up and transport of the militia, as well as imposition of the blockade, while Virginia had not yet seceded with the deep South over slavery, but was still trying to hold the Union together in April 1861. It was Mr. Lincoln's imposition of martial law in Maryland, after the militia fired into the Baltimore crowd, and before the Maryland state legislature could debate secession, that compelled Virginia to secede. It was war, and not slavery that Virginia seceded for. And the secessionists were only reverting to the Articles of the Confederation, under which we had originally won independence before the creation of the central government under the Constitution. The people had to ratify the Bill of Rights, before they would agree to the Constitution. The Second Right is not the right to bear arms, which already existed from the English common law of self-defense, but gave the states the rights to maintain their own militias, and to prevent Congress from "infringing" on that inherited right of armed self-defense. I still marvel at the lack of guns by the so-called insurrectionists of Jan 6, when the only people with guns and shooting (unarmed Ashley Babbitt) were the Capitol Police inviting the crowd into the Capital and the undercover FBI masquerading as Trump supporters to provoke the crowd.
The Declaration of Independence was a declaration of war. Since it meant killing, a "respect for the opinions of mankind" required justification, which Jefferson, copying Mason, was competent to do. But it still meant violence, so that's why we celebrate it with bombs and rockets. Have you ever read Frederick Douglass' bitter response to the "impudent" Fourth of July?