And if you remember the stories in your history books, you'll recall that George and his cronies in the kingdom's ruling party did everything in their power to make life miserable for the American colonists. They taxed them, they introduced the awful practice of human slavery, they didn't allow them representation in Parliament, they kept them economically subservient by refusing to let them develop their own industries... they basically turned them into second class citizens, and took away their rights under English law!
After awhile, as these abuses continued, numbers of colonists rebelled against his arbitrary, hard-hearted, authoritarian, profit-centered rule. The Americans refused to buy products from George's kingdom — in fact, they even dumped a boatload of tea into Boston Harbor! When George's minions became even more cruel and unyielding in their oppressive treatment (sending soldiers to enforce the unfair laws, for example, and demanding that colonists give the soldiers free room and board in their homes), the breaking point was reached.
Things came to a head when a group of George's soldiers engaged in an armed confrontation with a colonial militia group in Lexington, Massachusetts — shots were fired ("the shot heard 'round the world") — and soon after that, the American Revolution was underway.
The reason, dear reader, that I am reviewing these critical incidents for you now is that I fear that history is being repeated, in some strange way. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely! And the new political establishment in Washington has been exhibiting the same sort of disdain, scorn, and disrespect for the rights of its citizens that King George III did, over 240 years ago!
I don't need to list the abuses of power that have been occurring — you can read about them all over this modern invention you call the "internet."
But I do urge you all to stand up for your rights. Do not let this mad, deranged tyrant get away with his flagrant violations of constitutional law! Fight him, every day, as we colonists did! Do not for a moment think that "oh, he's targeting such-and-such group, that doesn't affect me." For, in the end, as his dictatorial practices are allowed to become bolder and even more fanatical, you too will find yourselves in the same boat as the others whom he has already started singling out, harassing, and persecuting. In the words that I myself made famous during the Revolution, "If we do not hang together, we will most assuredly hang separately!"
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin