On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. It was a bold move that endangered the very lives of the signers. In doing so they were thought to be traitors with potential death by hanging, the usual punishment for such egregious an action. In the estimation of the king and Great Britain these were not heroes but horrific men whose ideas went against everything that citizens were supposed to believe. They were thought to be rebels, not patriots, and many colonists were appalled as well, remaining loyal to the king. Not everyone agreed with the tactics of our Founding Fathers. They began as a minority that would have to prove its mettle. Most people believed that their efforts would fail even after they defeated Great Britain and earned their independence. The bet was that the effort would ultimately fail.
The United States of America has never been perfect. It began with slavery intact even as some of the signers of the Declaration had hoped to outlaw that horrific practice from the start. It took a long time to get past that original sin and even longer to give women the right to vote. Even when slaves were freed it was over a century before the horrors of segregation were overturned. With each move toward a more perfect union brave souls like our Founding Fathers have risked violence and imprisonment and sometimes even death to bring changes that were more just and equitable.
Many of our Founding Fathers were young people in their teens and twenties. Somehow our young people are often more courageous than adults who don’t like to rock the boat. Teens and twenty year olds often endure violence and misunderstanding as they bravely stand up for what they believe to be right. Our national history demonstrates that time and time again they have carried us into a better future even as many mock them and misunderstand their motives. Change is never easy and sometimes truth is difficult to accept.
We are at a tenuous moment in time. Our very democracy seems to be dangling on a precipice. We have elected officials mixing religion with affairs of state, insisting that immigrants must abide by our “national Christianity.” We have those who deride protestors whose opinions are different from theirs. Sadly the racism that bred slavery and Jim Crow policies still lurks under cover and sometimes even in plain sight. There is a push and pull between progress and longing for earlier times when many among us were treated like second class citizens. We too often ignore the effect of nature on all of us and carp about having to make sacrifices to invest in our environment for the sake of its preservation. Our Congress is as fractured as it was just before the Civil War and many ridiculously suggest that maybe it is time for another rupture in our union.
Somehow we have lost our way and can’t seem to work together to bring ourselves back to the idea that all people are created equal and deserve the same opportunities and freedoms. It took us time to reach a close approximation to closing all the gaps and now we seem to be making them open wider again. We cling to guns and religion instead of acknowledging that it is our diversity that makes us strong, not our sameness. We forget how many people came to our shores running from nationalized religions that would have forced them to abandon their personal beliefs. We ignore evidence that differing ways of expressing our sexuality are personal and not indicators of perversion. We judge and foist our ideas on others in the same way that the king of England did in the long ago. We give the wealthy enormous tax breaks and then overburden the middle class with payments to the government. We constantly devalue the ideas of our young forgetting that it was young men who made us free and keep us there to this very day.
I think each of us would do well to consider the long history of our nation as we vote for those who will represent us, judge us, and serve as our chief executive officer. We should ask ourselves if we are voting for freedom for all or freedom for only those who fall in line with our personal philosophies. We should send men and women to Congress who will work together to implement laws not to punish certain groups, Their goals should be to enhance the lives of everyone regardless of religion or race or sexual preferences. We should beware of tyrants who would punish differences and demand a kingly loyalty.
This July 4, 2024 is a time to remember Washington and Lincoln and great heroes who wanted to create and defend an enlightened nation, not one in retrograde. Together we are strong. With truth we become more perfect. Let us work for those things even before we cook the barbecue and light the fireworks. That is what this holiday should be about.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 