Well, howdy there, Internet people. It's Bell again. And welcome to the Roads with Bell. Today is the

Rhodes to the Declaration of Independence. Everybody thinks they know why the colonists declared

independence. Taxes, right? We've all seen the memes. The Declaration of Independence is a 1,300 word document.

It's a giant list of reasons for declaring independence, 27 stated reasons. The word tax appears

once. So that's just an oversimplification. That leaves us with the question, why did we declare independence?

So luckily the Declaration of Independence is like a breakup letter from a nutty X. It lists out everything.

We're going to skip over all of the win in the course of human events stuff and get to the part

where we're trash talking our X. Some of it might not make sense because people think the

declaration came first, but fighting had been going on for a year before the document was signed.

This is why we declared independence. He has refused his

assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. So, the king wouldn't

approve laws the colonists wanted. 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. So, he wouldn't let the the colonies run themselves and he had to approve everything.

Micromanage much? He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people

unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature,

a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. So he wouldn't just let the colonies

set up new jurisdictions unless they gave up representation.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance

with his measures.

I mean, that one is pretty self-explanatory.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the

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