As is our custom, we have found ways to convolute, pollute and dilute the significance of important events. Thus, Easter is now about hidden eggs and Thanksgiving is about football and having to buy looser pants. Do we even remember the original meaning of these days? Sure! Maybe. Well, no. Eggs and turkeys, to paraphrase Morpheus, is just the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us to the truth.
And so it is with July 4th, our nation’s birthday. It wasn’t always about eating contests.
There was a time when we were under tyrannical rule, and the people had had enough. Thomas Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, a powerful document full of the things that make America what it is: resolve, defiance, racism.
In the Declaration, Jefferson cited myriad reasons why the old system blew royal chunks and laid out our case for independence. Among the many complaints about the King were that:
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance…
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Yes, TJ called the Native Americans “merciless Indian Savages.” You don’t always see this part quoted anymore. Look, it’s a great country, but let’s not sweep our penchant for racism under the rug. Let’s try to learn from that. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Sergeant Riggs, I’m talking to you!
And speaking of ignoring history, do any of the other points he brings up sound familiar to you?
Right now, the Federal Government is filing a lawsuit against a state for a law the state passed. Right now, Congress holds closed door sessions and leaves us in the dark. Right now, the government is considering throwing out the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners. Right now, the government has become bloated with a multitude of New Offices. Right now, new taxes are heaped upon us without our consent.
There was a time when we were under tyrannical rule, and the people had had enough. Think about that today. Think about what made this country great, and the people that made it possible. Think about the brave people who are thousands of miles away from home today trying to make this country and the world a better place. Then think about what you might do to help.
Or you can take the blue pill. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe, hunting for eggs and getting fatter from turkey dinners.
