Axioms
A straight line may be drawn between any two points
Such a simple truth from which
one can create an entire geometry
Before I became a Founding Father
I was a scholar of Euclid
Mathematics and its incontrovertible truths
Appealed to my sense of order and beauty
I wanted to apply that same certainty
to the founding of the new nation
to draw a straight line from
independence to
a government deriving its just
powers from the consent of the governed
So, I began with this
We hold these truths to be self-evident
They would have to be accepted
as the basis for all that was to follow
that all men are created equal
I wrote this despite the fact that I owned
over 600 enslaved people
I am a flawed author but
they are nevertheless powerful words
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights
The Creator established the order of
the universe and its human morality
Let no mortal attempt to
deny those rights
that among these are Life
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Three simple ideas that express
what we all want from our short time on this earth
I speak to you now
on the 250th anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence
Recommit yourself
to these words
as you resist our current form of tyranny
All men are created equal
was a clarion call
that shook the world
The forces now in power
in our country—
a new Confederacy—
do not accept that as a given
They subscribe to a different geometry
one rooted in circles
of constriction and restraint
leading them to a misshapen
picture of the world