celebrating our independence

How the USA declaration of independence was based on the Dutch declaration of independence.

When he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson penned words that would live forever in history. But was he the first to write them?
A UW–Madison expert says that Jefferson may have modeled the Declaration after a 16th-century Dutch document.
Stephen Lucas, professor of communication arts, has spent the last 15 years studying the origins of the Declaration, “arguably the most masterful state paper in Western civilization,” he says. He has concluded that Jefferson and his colleagues in the Continental Congress based the Declaration in part on the Dutch Plakkaat (plah-KAT) van Verlatinge (vur-LAT-ing-uh), issued in 1581 to justify the Netherlands’ revolt against Spanish rule.

While very little is known about the Declaration’s true genesis, scholars generally agree that the document was influenced by several British state papers, especially the 1689 Declaration of Rights, which deposed King James II and brought to power William and Mary of Orange ( Dutch king that conquered England). Lucas, however, is the first to point to the Plakkaat, one of the earliest statements of the rights of citizens to combat a tyrannical ruler.

“Of all the models available to Jefferson and the Continental Congress, none provided as precise a template for the Declaration as did the Plakkaat,” says Lucas, an expert on historical rhetoric. “When you look at the two documents side by side, you cannot avoid noticing that the American Declaration more closely resembles its Dutch predecessor than any other possible model.”


Both documents, for example, begin with a preamble that justifies, in remarkably similar fashion, the right of citizens to revolt against tyrannical authority, Lucas notes. British state documents, he says, say nothing about the natural rights of citizens to remove a tyrannical leader.
It is merely the first of many parallels, Lucas says, between the Declaration and the Plakkaat, written to justify the actions of a long-suffering Dutch people to shake off colonial domination and establish a sovereign nation. Further comparison illustrates more similarities:

• Both present a lengthy catalog of grievances as evidence of their king’s tyranny;
• Both document repeated attempts by the authors to seek redress of their complaints through existing legal and civic channels;
• Both conclude that, having repeatedly been rebuffed by despotic authority, the plaintiffs have no alternative but to invoke the right of revolution.

Lucas says it is feasible that Jefferson turned to the Plakkaat in pondering the Declaration. Jefferson used inspirational models in virtually every sphere of his artistic activity, including his design for his home Monticello, which he consciously derived from the great Italian architect Andrea Palladio.
But Lucas stresses that the resemblance between the two papers should not diminish our appreciation of the Declaration.
“Unlike our own age, which prizes originality, the 18th century gave its greatest accolades to those able to master the art of imitation,” Lucas says. If done well, the imitation should surpass the model, and Lucas says our Declaration has served as the gold standard of such documents since 1776.
“The Declaration is a work of consummate artistry that sustains a perfect synthesis of style, form and content,” Lucas says. “There could be no greater literary or rhetorical achievement.”

Congratulations on your country's independence anniversary.

I've never really studied your country beyond what we were taught in school and the occasional documentary over the years since then on cable television. Aside from you I do have one other online friend who lives in your country. Between the two of you it has added to my understanding of Nederland.

I seem to forget Jefferson's main role in the penning of our constitution as I do mostly remember Franklin's role when he met with the Iroquois Confederacy. By our own translation, that's what the Iroquois called themselves, the Iroquois Confederacy. Our culture and treatment of the Natives of America makes it hard for children growing up here to understand and be able to see Native Americans as an advanced culture or an equal culture. To this day they are still maligned as "Woo-Woo Woo-Woo."

The information you posted is interesting and I'd like to know more about it. As you know, we don't understand the definition of socialism in this country and as I was told in 6th grade by my teacher, "Communism and socialism are the same thing except communism is worse."
That's really what she said, word for word. Is it any wonder that so many here are raving lunatics?

For simple minded people it is easy to clobber communism and socialism together.
Has the benefit that you don't have to think.......
By the way, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland…cannot classify as socialist countries at all. Actually, they all belong to the capitalism world.
We just decided to do things differently.

Our EU socialism has no contact with communism, we rather as governments ( see above our declaration of independence) see that the government works FOR the people, not the people serving the government.
That also means all decissions government makes is to the benefits of ALL the people, not only for companies and the rich.
See universal healthcare, unemployment benefits, social housing etc.

As small country we have seen it all, our 80 year war with Spain, wars and occupation from France, our wars and the Dutch occupation of England, our golden age where we ruled the sea's and world, our worse parts like slave trade, occupation of our colonies etc.

Since before Christ was born we fought the Romans and kicked their collective butts, but had to work together to keep our sea defenses in top shape or drown.
That 20 century need for working together for a single goal is ingrained in our lives till today, we still have to defend our country from the sea...

Our "welfare state" is based on a simple thought, if the economy works for all spending is good in the economy.
Give billions to corporations and rich we know they just stockpile the wealth, not spend it, reason austerity doesn't work.
Make sure every citizen has a decent income from work or if in need an benefit income, that money gets spend in the economy.

In good times like now our government pays off debt like crazy, and has a positive budget to show as well.
If the next crisis pops up, the government doesn't do austerity to the max, but spends money to lessen the impact for companies and citizens/workers.
Companies get incentives to keep personnel instead of making them unemployed, gives money to retrain them or learn another trade in the company making them more valuable for the company, and saving money on an unemployment benefit salary.

Dutch like to save up money for the proverbial "rainy day" and with the large pension funds have invested a trillion Euro around the world, and became the 3rd largest investor in the USA good for almost a million jobs....

I get my state provided pension where i paid in for 50+ years, and i took personal pension schemes working , to add to that kitty.
The mindset here also takes care for lots of volunteering doing unpaid jobs helping out in social care, sport, healthcare, and all other fields where volunteers can help out.

Have a look at the Dutch from an USA person living here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/m...uropean-t.html

So, we actually are not a socialist country, the Dutch invented capitalism and are still a capitalist economy but with a mindset that it should be for the good of ALL people in the country.

“The Dutch and most EU "socialist" countries model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish,” .

One reason the 28 EU countries can work together in the EU is to share the common goal of preventing more wars, we had enough of them, and working together you have more clout to pursue your goals.
Is it perfect? no, but a work in progress, and i like to live in it and contribute to it.

But then, i'm a simple HAM radio nutter, so what do I know? :mrgreen:

I hear you. Here, capitalism is defined as feed the horses all the food and let the chickens peck out what comes out of their dropping (dung).

Congratulations Cor on your country being able to pull its collective head out and treat people like people. Here we are still working on keeping families together...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WZ7U

Congratulations Cor on your country being able to pull its collective head out and treat people like people. Here we are still working on keeping families together...

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The problem is, compared to other countries and cultures, The United states and it's experiment in Democracy is young, very young when compared to Great Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Japan. We are just babes in the world community but, we just happen to have the biggest arsenal and, our currency is the basis of world monetary exchange.

But nothing last forever; look at the British Empire or all the land claimed by Spain or, the colonization of the African Continent.

We've only had one civil war and we live under the same Constitution that the country was founded upon. That Constitution is a living document can be amended to address ideas and situations that the founding fathers did not imagine.

We are approaching a constitutional crisis in the United States; unfortunately, like the Bible, parts of it can be interpreted to suite the readers purpose.

.

As said, our history is long and tarred as well, we had to learn from our mistakes as well.
It was the Dutch ( and French) that made the USA possible, the Dutch saluting the first USA boat in Eustatius as official ship representing the USA with gun salutes, providing 7 million Dutch guilders as loan and delivering gunpowder, shot and weapons through Eustatius to the rebellious USA to fight the English.
Some wiki:
The U.S. partnership with the Netherlands is one of its oldest continuous relationships and dates back to the American Revolution. Starting in the late 16th century, the Dutch and other Europeans began to colonize the eastern coast of North America. The Dutch named their territory New Netherland, which became a colony of the Dutch Republic in 1624. The Dutch colonial settlement of New Amsterdam later became New York City. The present-day flag of New York City is based on the flag of Republic of the United Netherlands.^[4]
Though the action was disavowed by the government of the Netherlands, on November 16, 1776, the fort at St. Eustatius gave the first formal salute (firing its guns nine times) to a ship flying the American flag.^[5] On 19 April, 1782, John Adams was received by the States General in The Hague and recognized as Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. By doing so, it became the second foreign country to recognize the United States^[6] (after France on February 6, 1778).^[7] The house that Adams purchased in The Hague became the first American embassy in the world.<sup>[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nether...ates_relations


Having a religious country isn't a problem we have that here, though religion here is fastly disappearing and most people now aren't religious outside
our own "bible belt" ( yes we have one too..)
Problem is if people stick to that religion or going to "interpret it" for their own abuse.
Having multiple party governments prevents the switch from one to another party in a 2 party governmnt, we always need coalition governments where extremes are
prevented.

We don't have world domination aspirations, done that, got the T shirt and learned from that

As one of the original founders of NATO and the fore runner of the EU, the EGKS, we look for peace, and prosperity for all people, not the privileged few.
Call us socialists, we don't care ;)</sup>