US Declaration of Independence

I was surprised when I read the US Declaration of Independence for the first time. According to this document, the British king was doing all the following.

• 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 benefit of trial by jury;
• For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;
• 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 excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers.

The great irony is that most of these activities have been done by US Presidents, either at home or abroad. Power does not change.