Looks like these bloggers caught the gist:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident"
Today is July 4, Independence Day.
Every year, I make sure to take 15 minutes out of my barbeque/fireworks/beer time to make sure I read the Declaration of Independence.
It’s a good reminder of who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to believe in about this country.
Unlike the Constitution, which is a working document designed to create and maintain a government that would protect the rights of its people, the Declaration is a statement of Ideals.
It is a philosophical treatise on human rights and government, as well as a point-by-point breakdown of exactly why and how King George was violating those rights.
And I love the simplicity of it: “Hey King George, here’s what we believe and here’s why you’re a jerk. Now piss off, we can take it from here. Love, Thomas Jefferson, et al.”
The very idea that governments draw their power from the consent of the governed and that we elect our leaders to represent us in a larger government was groundbreaking at the time.
America is less a country and more of an idea. We are a nation based not on the divine right of some inbred blueblood (except for the past two elections, of course), but a simple - yet breathtakingly groundbreaking - philosophy. The Declaration is the embodiment of that philosophy.
Written by Jefferson, parts of the declaration are very lyrical, soaring statements on all men being created equal and having the right (among others) to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, while others sections detail nearly 30 specific grievances and reasons for going it on our own. A nation founded on the pursuit of happiness (even if by “all men” he meant “all white, land-owning men”) is and was a truly amazing idea.
What’s even more important is the idea that it is not governments that bestow these rights, that these rights are “unalienable” and bestowed by the Creator. Governments exist simply to “secure these rights.” That is still a pretty radical idea now, let alone in the time of the Divine Right of Kings.
It’s not easy either. We’ve spent the 232 years since then trying to figure out exactly how to live up to such lofty ideals. Well, 225 years anyway. The last seven have been a pretty good exercise in deconstruction of these ideals.
But if we ever have questions about what we are supposed to stand for and why, we need to simply check our founding philosophical document. The philosophy of the nation is right there in the first paragraph.
The Declaration, however, not only separated us from Mother England, but also leaves the door open for future revolutions by laying out the reasons that governments can be overturned: whenever a government fails to secure our rights or ceases to draw its power from the consent of the governed, it is not only our right to overthrow them, but our “duty.”
That’s pretty punk rock when you get right down to it.
So while we all take time today to celebrate our national birthday and pursue our own happiness, be it a barbeque, fireworks or parades, take a few minutes and re-read the Declaration. It’s a quick, inspiring read of just more than 1300 words. Besides, we should all remind ourselves every now and again exactly what we’re doing over here, just to be sure we haven’t lost our way.
Happy 4th.
And this fine blogger even went to the trouble of itemizing King George's transgressions:
"Remembering why we declared independence in the first place"
From the less poetic, often forgotten about, but just as important section of the Declaration of Independence:
- 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 powe r.
- 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.
--MORE--"
