When, in the course of ecological events, it becomes necessary for life forms to dissolve the bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all organisms evolved equally, that they are endowed through evolution with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, relationships are instituted among organisms, deriving their just powers form the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of relationship becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of all life forms to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new relationships, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that relationships long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that we are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right ourselves by abolishing the forms to which we are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such relationships, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of all creatures on Earth; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of relationship. The recent history of Humanity is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these organisms. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to nature’s laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of wilderness, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the other Earth inhabitants.
He has endeavored to overpopulate; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization and evolution, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to natural laws for establishing justice.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass organisms, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of other species.
He has tried to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.
For quartering large bodies of armed and ignorant troops among us.
For cutting off energy transfer with all parts of the world.
For imposing over exploitation on us: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of clean air and water.
For transporting us beyond seas to be exploited for pretended offenses.
For taking away our fellow organisms forever (extinction), ignoring our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our relationships.
For suspending our earlier natural order, and declaring themselves invested with power to regulate us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated relationships here, by declaring some of us useless and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our forests, and destroyed the lives of countless species on the scale of a large asteroid impact.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign (genetically engineered) mercenaries and chemical agents to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a intelligent organism.
He has constrained fellow Earth organisms taken captive on the high seas and distant lands to bear arms against other ecosystems, to become the executioners of organisms that have not coevolved.
He has produced domesticates to weaken us.
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 Earth.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Earth brethren. We have warned Humanity from time to time of attempts by their leaders to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our evolution and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the planet Earth, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good life forms of these ecosystems, solemnly publish and declare, that these ecosystems are, and of right ought to be free and dependent environments; that they are absolved from all allegiance to Humanity, and that all connection between them and this Solar System, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and dependent organisms, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish energy transfer, and to do all other acts and things which dependent ecosystems may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Signed Bacteria to Blue Whale
