Independence Day, revisited

These words are found in the Declaration of Independence, second paragraph, emphasis ours.

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. 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.

Think about it, as today an illegitimate president, installed through the aid and abetting of a foreign adversary of these united States, works to turn a national holiday into a political rally to honor him and to corrupt the ideals articulated in our Declaration of Independence.

how long until the eagle soars again?

Photo by J. Harrington

The first edition of Walt Whitman’s book of poems, Leaves of Grass, was published in New York on July 4, 1855, when Whitman was thirty-six. Sometimes the prescience of poets is unnerving, as shown by Whitman's poem:

Long, too long America

By Walt Whitman

Long, too long America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,

(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

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