I wish all a happy July 4th.
Most of us in the US will celebrate by relaxing, enjoying family and friends, overeating, and playing too hard. But while we’re having a good time, I encourage each to reflect on just how fortunate we are to live in a country with the wealth and opportunities the US provides us, to thank those who have sacrificed over the last two hundred years so that we might have the freedom, the resources, and the luxury of spending the day doing nothing, and to maybe even read the Declaration of Independence below and the Constitution (PDF copy attached). Even as we celebrate our freedom there are men and women around the world trying to scratch and claw their way to freedom while others are trying equally hard to enslave them. We should be ever mindful that for the fortune of having been born in a country founded on the concept of personal freedom and the right to choose our own course, we could very well be among those trying desperately to get what we already have. Nevertheless, we must also be ever vigilant, keeping a close eye upon our own government, as there is nothing sacred about our government and it is subject to the same scrutiny and the same consequences as King George’s should it fail the people as did Britain with the American colonies.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
In Congress, July 4, 1776,
THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE
THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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 and of Nature’s God 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 men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted amongMen, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, 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 Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they 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 Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to 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 people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
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.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
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 people.
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration 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. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States 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.
JOHN HANCOCK, President
Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary
New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT
WILLIAM WHIPPLE
MATTHEW THORNTON
Massachusetts-Bay
SAMUEL ADAMS
JOHN ADAMS
ROBERT TREAT PAINE
ELBRIDGE GERRY
Rhode Island
STEPHEN HOPKINS
WILLIAM ELLERY
Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON
WILLIAM WILLIAMS
OLIVER WOLCOTT
Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT
LYMAN HALL
GEO. WALTON
Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE
WILLIAM PACA
THOMAS STONE
CHARLES CARROLL
OF CARROLLTON
Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE
RICHARD HENRY LEE
THOMAS JEFFERSON
BENJAMIN HARRISON
THOMAS NELSON, JR.
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE
CARTER BRAXTON.
New York
WILLIAM FLOYD
PHILIP LIVINGSTON
FRANCIS LEWIS
LEWIS MORRIS
Pennsylvania
ROBERT MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
JOHN MORTON
GEORGE CLYMER
JAMES SMITH
GEORGE TAYLOR
JAMES WILSON
GEORGE ROSS
Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY
GEORGE READ
THOMAS M’KEAN
North Carolina
WILLIAM HOOPER
JOSEPH HEWES
JOHN PENN
South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE
THOMAS HEYWARD, JR.
THOMAS LYNCH, JR.
ARTHUR MIDDLETON
New Jersey
RICHARD STOCKTON
JOHN WITHERSPOON
FRANCIS HOPKINS
JOHN HART
ABRAHAM CLARK
Download PDF copy of US Constitution
Stumble It!
Blog comments, Affiliate Marketing, SPAM Emails, Ethics, and Company Image
Tags: blog comments, business ethics, company reputation, spam, spam blog comments, spam email
If you have a blog you probably have several comment posts to your articles every day from unethical people trying to post trackbacks to the blogs they own or for blogs with whom they have some type of link generation agreement. If you have an email account you undoubtedly get many unsolicited emails everyday trying to sell you software, jewelry, books, and no telling what else.
It used to be that the emails and blog comments I would get would be either obvious scams or totally unreputable companies. Not any more. Now I’m often getting the same type of trackbacks and unsolicited marketing emails touting well-known companies, tourist destinations, and even non-profit organizations.
Almost without exception these comment posts and emails have a false email address attached making it impossible to track down the sender.
There have been many who have predicted dire consequences for the internet if such behavior isn’t stopped. Unfortunately, it isn’t going to stop. Government agencies are impotent to stop it. The scam artists and those getting kickbacks from an affiliate marketing agreement certainly have no interest in stopping it. And those engaged in posting the comments and sending the emails believe they have nothing to fear—what real consequences do they face? Their name and their email address is false–the only thing in the comment that is real is the url of the site they are making money off of.
To some extent we have the joy of knowing that their emails are deleted without ever being looked at, as are their spam blog comments. They invest their time and effort simply to have us click one little button and their work goes straight to the trash.
Some have tried to get a little more sophisticated and actually post what appears to be a legit comment such as “I like your blog. I added your rss feed to my feed reader,” and they then add a link to their site. Somehow, they think the blog owner will be too stupid to recognize the purpose of and worthlessness of the comment.
For sometime, I’ve simply chalked these spam comments and emails up to the cost of doing business. But since they are now featuring some very legit companies who I doubt want to see their reputation tarnished, I’ve decided to make every Saturday’s post a list of the companies I will now avoid because of the spam their affiliate programs are generating. You might consider avoiding them also—especially if you’re getting spam due to their affiliate programs also.
This week’s list of companies (I’m obviously leaving out some of the more unsavory topics and companies):
Tag Heuer
CNN dot com
Xanga dot com
Old School Brands
Artcom dot com
Grab a Forum dot com
Marusyo Sangyo company
The Guysborough Journal
Border Collies dot co dot uk
Trotter Antiques dot com
Kelley’s Kookies dot com
Arkansas Department of Tourism
I certainly won’t be purchasing anything from these companies nor visiting their websites. Of course there were a whole slew of linkbacks to sites I can’t or won’t mention because of the subject matter.
Maybe if enough of us get fed up with this and start highlighting the companies whose sites are being promoted through spam we can put a damper on it anyway.