Was the US correct in declaring independence from the UK?

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I've pasted our declaration of independence below.

Nearly all Americans have been conditioned to believe that our ancestors were 100 percent right to declare independence from the UK. Our ancestors were suffering terrible indignities, such as excessive taxation without representation.

But, I'm sure that another side must exist to the argument.

What say ye?

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 among Men, 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 shewn, 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 [George III] 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 for 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 and 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 attentions 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 the 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.

I think the decision was right (I'm British). What stuck me though, was when I learnt American history in an American school many years ago I was given the impression it was a clear cut us and them from the start, but I later found out that the reality was quite different. It was often brother/sister against brother/sister. It divided whole families.

Nationalists amuse me though. Especially strong ones who like to s**t stir as if I feel a personal grievance for something that happened so long ago. I'm not strongly nationalist at all. As far as it is possible to feel like I being somewhere, it is more the place I'm living i.e. the town, the street, the room, etc

One of the things you can’t do is take the US/UK as it is not and then use that to try to use that to defend or dispute something in the passed as you are missing what would have turned out differently, which you can only speculate on.

I think that the colonial claims against the Brittish were legitimate, and the revolutionary war not only gained American freedom, it made the Brittish behave more equitably to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in order to prevent similar revolts.

It would have been better, though, if the same thing could have been achieved without war - if America could have become a commonwealth. While there are some admirable qualities that have come out in American culture as a result of our having won the Independence war, there are also some incredibly annoying ones. America as a whole still acts like a teenage boy full of his own vigor, sure that he knows better than everyone else, and sure of his own immortality.

Ostensibly it was a magnificent thing. It means very little now (nationhood) as banking families ultimately control us all. Incidentally, the current president has actually knelt before the queen (hardly a staunch assertation of independance!). I wouldnt do that, and im technically one of her subjects*

*only because im dependant on state handouts, otherwise i would resign my citizenship & claim freeman status tomorrow.

I think that American Blacks and American Indians had it a lot worse than the wealthy American Whites who were whining about high taxes. American slaves had no representation at all, and were just property. American blacks would have been much more justified in overthrowing their oppressors.

That was the whole thing about the freedom of religion. It wasn't freedom of all religion and cultures it was freedom to practice the particular religions that happened to be fleeing Europe because of they weren't tolerated there. But you can’t judge them by today standards anyway.

What I always think is silly is how people validate the principles in constitutions and amendments based on how old they are. I.e. it is old so therefore it must be right. That is why I'm against manifesto politics in general. Of course you have to have some form of constitution but any party that bases itself around some manifesto is stagnant, and lacks common sense. You also get arbitrary thrown in policies purely for the purpose of being the opposite of the other party, which have between set in stone from then on. X party is for Y. You can't be an X unless you like Y, because Y is traditionally an X thing.

According to David Icke and others,America is technically still owned by the British Crown
through the Virginia Company.This would explain why the president would bow to the
queen .The Boston Tea Party was partly contrived by Freemasons,both British and colonial,
in order to create the USA as an enhanced version of Britain (which was intended by most
to be a positive step although others may have had their own agenda). It didn't create Utopia but I think it has been a positive step.