Today is July 4th, Independence Day. And, in the world of the New Normal, maybe that’s something we should all celebrate. The United States of America has become a corrupt Imperial juggernaut, chewing up the world and spitting out bones. We have all seen warmongers and tyrants prop up the corpses of Jefferson and Washington and claim to be their descendants whilst spitting on their legacy.
This makes it easy for us to forget that the idea of America was once something different, & that idea still exists in the wording of the Constitution & the Declaration of Independence. Just as the teachings of Jesus are not marred by every holy warrior who claims to conquer in God’s name, so the sentiments expressed by the founding documents of the United States bear none of the blood so dishonestly shed in theirs.
And in a world of New Normal tyranny these gain newfound relevance.
Here is the preface to the Declaration of Independence, authored by Thomas Jefferson and presented before the Congress of the United States, July 4th 1776:
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.
A lot of our American readers will doubtless be familiar with the text, but I would invite non-Americans to read it for the first time. Consider the poetry of the language, and the revolutionary meaning of the words.
All men created equal, and all have the unalienable right to be free, and to choose those who govern them.
In a world still dominated by hereditary monarchies, these are revolutionary sentiments. And they hold true today, even as the same forces that threatened those rights in 1776 coalesce against them on a global scale.
Tyranny.
That’s what it is. What it was. What it always will be. Tyranny seeking control over people who should be free. Be it the tyranny of the British Empire or the Great Reset. Names change but the spirit remains the same.
The founding fathers may have been crawling out of feudalism, but we are being guided back into it, and it’s the job of those of us who realise this to try and wake up our fellow men, to counter that part of every person disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable.
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.
Then, as now, a major obstacle to liberating people was their own inertia, their own fear of the unknown, their own unwillingness to assert their rights or stand their ground.
We have all seen this as Covid-world has progressed. From masks to social distancing to lockdown, people have adapted to a slew of sufferable evils rather than right themselves.
If you consider the comparison a stretch, consider these examples of “abuses” taken from the declaration…
- [The King has] rendered the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
- [imposed] Taxes on us without our Consent
- Deprived us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
- abolished our most valuable Laws, and altered fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
- Has excited domestic insurrections amongst us
- sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people
…sound familiar? And if the abuses are the same, then isn’t the solution?
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.
We should mark these words. As true today as was when they were written. Maybe more so.
This July 4th, think back on the long train of abuses we have all suffered – and still suffer.
Consider how they all pursue invariably the same Object and evince a design to have us all live under absolute Despotism.
Don’t we all have the right and duty to throw them off and be free again?