Independence Day 2019

So, let’s talk about Independence Day!

  It first occurred on an oppressively hot and humid summer day in the city of Philadelphia, in the colony of Pennsylvania.  Within the shuttered confines of the Pennsylvania State House delegates from the 13 English Colonies met to debate the course of action in response to what they saw as an increasingly oppressive English rule.  By the way, oppressive English rule seemed to be the standard of the day.  Just ask the Scots and the Irish if there is a question on this.

Their response turned the world upside down and set the colonies on a path, which would result in the formation of our current form of government some 13-years later.  Even the most visionary of people could not grasp what this small nation of independent thinkers and individualists would grow to become.

It seems to me, each of the following generations has confronted, to one extent or another, the realities of life in a dangerous world.  Their choices shaped the nation, for better or worse, for the subsequent generations.  The question we wrestle with today is not unlike the question before those men who represented their friends, neighbors, and the colonies in 1776.  Simply stated it is “should we continue as we are, or should we change to an unknown?”

Fortunately, the representatives present at the establishment of our current government put in place a vehicle capable of change and adaptation to the needs of subsequent generations, but that is for another day.  Today, I would like to consider the words of our Independence for just a minute.

“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”

Those who believe this nation to be irreparably racist point out even as we said all men were created equal we supported and accepted slavery.  That is absolutely true, but as we talk of the ideal we strive for, does the fact we failed at our initial declaration make the ideal wrong or not self-evident to those who would seek the truth of the nature of man?

The founders shared a reasonably common set of religious beliefs based on their Christianity.  They recognized “unalienable rights” must come from a power greater than the government, for if those rights come only from the government then the government has the ability to take them away.  As we abandon our faith, the question becomes; is any right inalienable?  We see in today’s political debates demands for this or that right from some group, at the same time they oppose other groups seeking their own rights.  If you doubt this – you need only look at the demands of the LGBTQ coalition and their attacks on the organized Christian faiths, or businesses that have publicly stated their support for the faith.

Unfortunately, it appears we are abandoning the ideas of our founders regarding unalienable rights, and now look to the rights we want our government to provide either through taxation or indebtedness.  Along the way we see increasing rejection of some of the safeguards, the original citizens thought to be important.  For example, we see in the censorship of online speech a growing belief by some they have the right to only allow speech they agree with.  This follows the social trend to classify speech we don’t like as “hate” and clearly it is wrong to allow hate, isn’t it?  The larger question for the social media corporations is are they public spaces worthy of government protection, or are they politically aligned corporations subject to government regulation?  There is growing evidence they are the latter, with their corporate political bias forming an inherent sense of entitlement to stop speech they disagree with while fostering ideas they support.  This has long been a position of centralized governments as they controlled the thoughts and ideas of the masses to ensure the stability of the government.

Isn't it humorous for the left to hold as an example of courage a man standing against the overwhelming force of an authoritarian government, as seen in the picture of tanks in Tiananmen Square, when as a group they are more interested in growing the power of the government to limit the freedoms we’ve historically cherished?

In the Congressional hearings on whether to regulate the huge internet companies (6/26/19), Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), notes the hypocrisy of Google® executives in their internal communication released through a Project Veritas exposé.  They are willing to label and censor conservative voices as Nazis without consideration of the hate they are invoking in their own speech.  Of course, in these days where absolutely everything becomes a partisan issue, the Democrats in the hearing are not at all concerned with how the internet is controlled as long as it is controlled by people who agree with their politics.

But let's put that aside for today and ask a more important question.
The social issue, which seems to be at the forefront of today’s celebrations is does this nation have either a right or desire to remain a sovereign nation governed by law or does it wish to open its borders to allow unrestricted access to all the benefits previous administrations had limited to actual citizens?  That is the $64,000 question for this independence day.