So you’ve had your long weekend and your fireworks, but now it is time for a Monday morning beat down, USA, courtesy of Jeremy Bentham:

The opinions of the modern Americans on Government, like those of their good ancestors on witchcraft, would be too ridiculous to deserve any notice, if like them too, contemptible and extravagant as they be, they had not led to the most serious evils.

Bentham’s “Short Review of the Declaration” can be read, with a helpful introduction, here.