Jesus is my DM.

When the Continental Congress declared independence from Britain, it wasn’t just because they didn’t like the way the King imposed taxes on the colonies. If you read the Declaration you will see there were a good number of reasons as to why the felt that the King was behaving tyrannically towards the colonies.

When laws were submitted for his approval, King George vetoed them, despite the laws being considered necessary and good by the colonists.

Even when the laws were of immediate and pressing importance, the Governors were not allowed to enact those laws until King George approved them, which if he did not veto the laws would frequently just neglect to confirm or veto.

The King disallowed new communities to be established unless the relinquished their right to representation in the colony’s legislature.

The colonial governors of Massachusetts and Virginia, citing safety reasons, declared that the meeting sites of the assemblies should be moved. In both cases the new locations were distant from where their public records were kept, which interfered with them conducting the public business. They believe it was done for the sole reason of wearing the legislative bodies down so they would comply with the King’s measures instead of standing up for the colonists’ rights.

The King had, from time to time, ordered the representative bodies of the colonies be dissolved for various reasons, including when they stood up for the rights of the people that the King and Parliament were infringing.

After dissolving those representative bodies, he would refuse to allow new representatives to be elected. This lead to the colonists convening their own legislative bodies outside the authority of the King, which the writers of the Declaration believed still left the colony exposed to the dangers of invasion and rebellion. 

The King opposed various laws meant to encourage immigration the America, to allow immigrants to become citizens, and to allow the settlement of more land (which was already claimed by the King for the colony.)

The King prevented the administration of justice by refusing to allow the establishment of courts by the colonies, resulting in some states being forced to do without courts of law for a long time.

The King had sole discretion for the tenure, and the amount and payment of the salaries of the Judges, basically requiring them to put the King’s personal will above the law to maintain their positions.

The King, in an effort to enforce the increasingly burdensome trade laws, erected additional courts of admiralty (military, not civil) and sent ‘swarms’ of customs officials, who, by the claim of the Declaration, “harass[ed] our people, and [ate] out their substance.”

The King kept standing armies among the colonists during times of peace and without the consent of the legislatures.

The King rendered the Military independent of and superior to the Civil powers.

The King allowed Parliament to subject the colonies to various legislation which the colonists felt was unjust including:

Quartering large bodies of armed troops among the colonists.

Protecting the troops, by a mock trial, from punishment of any murders which they may have committed against the colonists.

Cutting off trade with all other nations.

Imposing taxes without consent (the infamous Taxation without Representation.)

Depriving some from the benefits of trial by jury.

Transporting colonists to England to be tried for crimes committed in the colonies.

The passing of the Quebec Act which was seen as an example for introducing the same sort of absolute rule on the colonies.

The taking away of Charters, abolition of valuable laws, and fundamental alteration of the colonies’ forms of government.

The suspension of the colonists’ own legislatures and the Parliament declaring themselves invested with the power to legislate for the colonies in all cases.

The King declared that the colonies were out of the King’s protection and waged war against the colonists.

The King, by way of his military, attacked the colonists, including burning down several American towns.

The King hired mercenaries who were at the time of the writing en route to the colonies to help wage war against the colonists.

The King authorized the British navy to capture ships and take colonists and compel the colonists to fight for the British against the colonies or be executed.

The King had encouraged slave and Indian revolts against the colonists.

International tumblr users:

“Brace yourselves”

*boards up windows

Now, you can go to Península Valdés and find that the whale population there is growing year after year, people can see them from their windows. In Iberá, where yaguaretés were extinct for over 70 years, there's now a population of 35 and growing, after being reintroduced just five years ago. As for rainforests?

We've becoming very, very good on restoring them. Natural environments, when given space and time to heal, can return to that they were. And after all, all natural enviroments are managed by human societies. It is up to us to implement a good management, un buen gobierno.

I firmly believe our children and grandchildren will see a restoration of Earth like never before.

Spix's Macaws were extinct in the wild for 70 years, and now captive breeding and conservation groups have reintroduced a small population (with more on the way) and there are babies being successfully raised in the wild again.

And what else is there, but hope? We exist for the grace of hope. Those who have lost all hope don't stay here. If you are here to send an ask like this, it is not because you have given up, it's that you are hoping someone will show you that that hope is worth having.

It is!! It always is!!

The population of an entire island working together to eradicate every last rat and mouse to save the native bird populations. They had to trap a bunch of the birds and keep them in captivity so they wouldn’t be hurt by the rodenticides, and released them after the rodents were gone. Normal residents helped by phoning in tips whenever they saw rodents. And they did it. Lord Howe Island, last I read, remains rodent free, and the native bird populations are rebounding!

Acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer, both of which were terrifying specters of my childhood, have been largely dealt with. Ecosystems devastated by acid rain are also recovering.

In 1991, the first captive-raised condors were re-introduced to Big Sur, Pinnacles, and Bitter Creek.

In 2006, three months before I turned eighteen, the first wild pair of condors was seen nesting in Big Sur in over a hundred years. A hundred years.

We did that. We fixed it.

How about another example.

When my mom was small, in the 1960s, there were many, many days of the year she was not allowed outside. Days and days they had recess indoors, because the air was so poisonous to breathe. Here's an article about it, with some good pictures.

My mom was 13 in the picture on the left. She was 50 in the picture on the right.

In 1987, there were 27 California Condors in the world, all captive.

In 2024, there were 566.

369 of them fly free.

That happened within my lifetime, and I'm not even 40 yet.

When you lose hope, think of our stories we're telling you. Recount them to yourself like a prayer. That's what I do.

There are 369 California Condors flying free in the sky right now.

There is no more acid rain.

There is an ozone.

There are wild tigers.

There are still birds on Lord Howe Island.

By 2013, there were approximately 1,200 living wild, across 18 dens. Their numbers increase regularly, and while the face challenges due to habitat loss, climate change, and their limited genetic diversity, they're in a much better place than they were.

When I was eleven, my mom cried because a pair of bald eagles had made a nest in the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, right near where we were living, two thousand miles from the Rockies.

Spin the wheel to find out in which way your Magic begins to gradually transform your body?