Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Well, What Do You Know
Tonight I am watching television -- The PBS show NOVA. (Pretty good show when they do science and stay away from politics, but that is increasingly rare.) Anyway, tonight's episode concerned the restoration and preservation of the "charter documents of the United States" - the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.
Inspired, I went an picked up a copy of those documents and started reading. I was quickly reminded that the part of the Declaration we all remember ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...) is really the preamble. The Declaration is primarily a list of grievances against the King of England. Quite a list!
As I read through the grievances I ran across this little gem:
Inspired, I went an picked up a copy of those documents and started reading. I was quickly reminded that the part of the Declaration we all remember ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...) is really the preamble. The Declaration is primarily a list of grievances against the King of England. Quite a list!
As I read through the grievances I ran across this little gem:
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."Swarms of Officers," there's an image not hard to imagine, but awful to contemplate. Think about that the next time you are working your way through the alphabet soup that is our government bureaucracy!
