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> In particular, it absolutely should not make people think "disgruntled militia out for revenge", but instead inspire people to take up the ideal.

This is an impossible goal.

Declarations of independence are written between *countries*: powerful entities that affect every part of their inhabitants' lives, including life and death themselves. People *fight* for their countries, with physical weapons and not angry blog posts, because they value their country over the risk of death.

StackExchange is… a website. The most invested made a career and friends; the majority of users learnt a few interesting things.

Attempting to rouse passion about the ideals of a website, as if it was as important as a country, would look ridiculous. Such a poor sense of proportion would drive away anyone who's not already fully on board, and many who are.

That leaves a few options:

* A light-hearted and fun text, with the name "Declaration of Independence" or references to the US declaration as tongue-in-cheek nods to the silliness of running websites like countries. The message is "We're fun, unlike those corporate killjoys!" A model would be [The Programmer's Bill of Rights](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-programmers-bill-of-rights/).
* A straightforward list of principles and how you intend to implement them. It may or may not explicitly point out differences from StackExchange. The message is "Here's what sort of thing we're making; join if you like that, stay away if you don't." A model would be the [Agile manifesto](https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html).
* A perky marketing brochure of all the advantages this community has. The message is "We're great!" You can model it after any "why <foo> is the bee's knees" article, let's say [this one about Rust](https://www.rowdymehul.com/rust/why-should-i-use-rust/).

You *can* write a good "declaration of independence" by simply listing what the new group is all about; you *cannot* model it after real declarations of independence, because the patriotic fervour just isn't there.