I posted this last year, but it still holds true today, and while I formulate how I feel about everything this year, I offer this for you to ponder.

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Rep Toby Nixon wrote an essay on the Declaration of Independence which I found interesting.  So in honor of our Country’s Independence day, here it is.  It is followed by a poem I saw on Michelle Malkin.

The 4th of July is a complex holiday for me, full of pride, sorrow and resolve.  This is only one small aspect of it, and I may post more tomorrow.  Then again I may just take the day off with my family and enjoy a rare sunny day in Washington.

Note:  Tomorrow, Stefan Sharkansky will be presenting a virtual reading of the Declaration, featuring people of all ages reading small passages, including me.  I will be adding a post to it tomorrow when he releases it.  Shark also gets the Hat Tip for this essay.

NOTE 2:  Here it is:

The Declaration of Independence as read by your fellow Sound Politics readers is here [audio]. Follow along with the text.

Happy 4th of July to all of you.  Celebrate our country’s heritage proudly.

 Thoughts on Independence Day

    I find too often that when you ask people to enumerate the “self-evident truths” mentioned in our Declaration of Independence that, if they even have a clue what you’re asking, they too often stop at “pursuit of Happiness”. That’s a shame, because it is in the remainder of that paragraph that we find the most important principles — principles which we must be reminded of, since, in the words of Article 1 Section 32 of our Washington State Constitution, “a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is essential to the security of individual right and the perpetuity of free government.” 

     Here’s a slightly edited statement of those self-evident truths, with punctuation and the numbers before each truth inserted to highlight them (the words are all the original):

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

1. that all men are created equal;
2. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness;
3. that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
4. 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 self-evident truths were revolutionary in 1776, and are just as important today. Our founding fathers asserted that we are all equal –- that there is no “elite ruling class” with a divine right to govern that knows better than we do how we should live our lives. Our rights come from God, and existed before the establishment of government rather than being granted to us by the government in the Constitution or otherwise. We created the government for the purpose of helping us to defend our rights, and if the government infringes our rights rather than protecting them, it is not only our right, but our duty, to change or replace the government. 

     Today, our government too often assumes for itself the power to take from us our lives, our liberty, and our property. It may be in the form of a “critical areas ordinance” that takes from each rural landowner the use of 65% of their land, or a U.S. Supreme Court decision that says any local government can take our home from us if they think some other private landowner would pay them more in taxes for it, or a state legislature that says the government should take ownership of a significant part of our assets when we die instead of them being inherited by our children or that uses spurious declarations of “emergency” to eviscerate the people’s right of referendum, or any of a number of other incremental and insidious infringements. Whatever form it takes, we should each be continuously asking ourselves whether government has become destructive of the ends for which we created it. 

     The Declaration goes on to say “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. 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.” In other words, we are a patient people and will put up with a lot of abuse, but eventually enough is enough. 

     Thomas Jefferson also wrote “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. Are we willing to pay that price? Are we willing to step up on this Independence Day and commit, as did our founding fathers, “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to the task of protecting our rights? Will we contribute our time, talents, and money to restoring government to its proper role and place, as a protector rather than a destroyer of our fundamental rights? If we’re not willing, then who will? 

     Many of us have family traditions of reading from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke on Christmas Eve. Would it not be a great tradition to read the Declaration of Independence on July 4th each year? It only takes about 10 minutes to read aloud the entire document. If you can make time on Tuesday to do it, I think you would be blessed for it; here’s a link. Take a few minutes to think about the marvelous creation our Founding Fathers blessed us with 230 years ago, and how our lives would be different if those principles were to be cast on “the ash heap of history” through our own neglect. 

     May we each have a safe and happy Independence Day with our families!

CONCORD HYMN



By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept,

Alike the Conqueror silent sleeps,

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set to-day a votive stone,

That memory may their deed redeem,

When like our sires our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, or leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and Thee.

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