AASCU's American Democracy Project
By Stephanie South, Program Associate, AASCU
In the 2004 film National Treasure, the hero Ben Gates waxes nostalgic about the Declaration of Independence (as he well should):
Of all the words written here about freedom, there’s a line here that’s at the heart of all the others: ‘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 provide new guards for their future security.’
The heroine of the film and Gates’ soon-to-be-something-or-other, Abigail, assures him that people don’t really talk like that anymore, and Ben comes back with this: “I know, but they think like it.”
However, thanks to the Center for Civic Education and iTunes, those of us who do think like that but a need a little help remembering our lines…
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