Shots Across The Bow

Independence Day

Yeah, I know, it's a small thing. Hardly worth mentioning really. And I know that when I do mention it that many of you out there are going to sigh and say "There goes Rich again, ranting about nothing."

But just out of curiosity, how many times did you hear "Happy 4th of July" and how many times did your hear "Happy Independence Day?" In my case, the ratio is about 50-1 in favor of "4th of July"."

Trivial, right? Nit-picky in the extreme. Not even worth mentioning. A waste of good bandwidth.

Except, damnit, it isn't trivial! Just like Christmas, the reason behind the holiday is what is being trivialized. Yeah, politicians make speeches, but who has time to listen to that happy crap when there're pork butts on the grill and stuff to blow up? Hey. we gotta get the boat in the water before all those damn tourists crowd the ramps and ruin the skiing, and get the jet skis in the water and the kids to the pool and the dog to the kennel before we drive to Grandma's house. We have to leave the house at 6AM to drive the 45 miles to Gatlinburg because the traffic is going to be a monster and we'll sit in front of that damn rotating billboard that is broken and stuck so we see Lousie Mandrell's face and Dolly's...ummm...assets for two and a half freakin' hours while kids that look like they were extras in Deliverence stroll by in the median selling lukewarm tap water for $5 a bottle.

We've got to guzzle cases of beer and soda and eat hot dogs and fried chicken and barbeque and coleslaw and potato salad and egg salad (OK, no egg salad. That stuff is just nasty.) and ham, and potato chips and greasy french fries slathered in ketchup and cheese burgers hot off the grill, and corn on the cob. And let's not forget the 3 flavors of ice cream, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, and brownies for dessert.

We're busy, damnit! The last thing we need on our plate is to think about what this day really means. Save that for the old farts.

I mean, who wants to think about what happened on this day in 1776? It's frightening. These guys who signed the Declaration of Independence were bluntly and directly telling their government to piss off. That's serious stuff friends and neighbors, much too serious to think about on a holiday, right?

Maybe so. But it's not a holiday today, and I’ve been pretty angry for the last couple of weeks, so we're going to take a quick trip through that Declaration, because I've read it through a few times and frankly folks, it embarrasses the hell out of me.

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;

Note carefully the whole "pursuit of happiness" thing. You don't have a right to be happy, coddled, cared for, or comfy. You have the right to try to be those things if that's what you want. The difference is crucial and it's a difference that is lost on modern liberals who think that just because they’ve got a pulse, they have a right to be taken care of. Far be it from me to trample on their little fantasy world, but TANSTAAFL is a natural law every bit as immutable as gravity. The real world, like Col. Nathan R. Jessep, “…doesn’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!”

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.

These guys were saying that if a government interferes with those inalienable rights, then the people have a right to abolish that government. Of course, here's where things start to get a little dicey, because you know that the government isn't going to look kindly on being abolished, particularly if it's the kind of government that requires abolishing. After all, if they’re already acting in a high handed enough manner to provoke the somnambulatory citizenry to actually peel themselves out of their Barca-Loungers and take to the streets, say by demolishing private property rights for example, then I’d be willing to bet that the government in question is not one that would be likely to respond peacefully to the citizens’ attempts to redress their grievances. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that it is axiomatic that any government that acts so as to provoke a popular revolution will by definition be a government that reacts with an extreme use of force to quell said revolution (c.f. War Between the States, circa 1861-65, see also Reconstruction)

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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.

Holy Revolution, Batman! It's not just a right, now it's a freakin' duty to overthrow a government that has callously trod over the rights of its citizens.

So here we have these intelligent, patriotic guys telling their government to go screw itself; that they're tired of being told what to do and how to live their lives by a bunch of guys a couple of thousand miles away, and that they were quite capable of looking out for themselves, thank you very much.

Considering that they were in effect flipping one gigantic bird to the then mightiest nation on the planet, that took some balls.

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

They knew they'd just grabbed the tiger by the tail, and it was going to be a long bloody struggle before they wore it down enough to chance letting go, but they did it anyway. They considered their freedom and their God given rights important enough to sacrifice their lives and their money, to go to war against the biggest baddest army on the planet in some quixotic quest for liberty.

What a bunch of saps, right?

I mean, here we sit, 200 some odd years later, descendents of these men and we piss away the rights they bled for in favor of faux freedoms like 500 channels of mindless pap on the television, and presumed safety against the dreaded al Quaida terrorists. We accept limits on our speech because our Senators tell us that money corrupts politics. I’m not sure how my writing a web log equates to a PAC giving thousands of dollars to a candidate, but maybe that’s because I’m not a Senator and don’t understand these things. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because there is no connection, and McCain Feingold was actually a series of regulations that make it harder to throw the bums in Washington out!

We create new rights out of whole cloth so we don't have to face unpleasant realities while gutting true rights like free speech, the right to assemble, the right to bear arms (or bare breasts for that matter), the right to freely practice your religion, or to just walk about on the streets free from police harassment. If you don't believe me on that last one, stroll down 441 in Gatlinburg after 2AM. I’ll bet you $50 right now that you won't get the length of town without being stopped at least once by the local police. If there’s more than one of you, and if you are laughing or look like you‘re having fun, you won’t even make it a block.

Can anyone deny that the cumulative effects of the last 40 years of government have been nothing less than a “design to reduce us under absolute despotism?” If you think I’m overstating the case, go here and read this quite exhaustive summary for yourself. It’s a damn disgrace, and things will only continue to get worse, folks.

And I’ll tell you another thing. If you went back in time and replaced the list of grievances in the Declaration with the list I just linked, nothing would have changed. The Revolution would have been fought because those men knew that freedom must be guarded jealously. It’s been written by men much smarter than I am that the only people to truly appreciate liberty are those who have had to fight for it. Sadly, we’re seeing that this is a true statement.

You know why we marginalize Independence Day?

As we piss away what those men of 229 years ago fought and died for, we're too damned ashamed of ourselves as we are to remember what we used to be.

Posted by Rich at July 6, 2005 1:30 AM | TrackBack