The Life in My Years

“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.”

It’s the most quoted sentence from the Declaration of Independence, the document that America celebrates every July fourth.

When he penned those exalted words, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and the idea that “all men are created equal,” Thomas Jefferson didn’t have everyone in mind. Unalienable rights were reserved for free white men. During his lifetime, Jefferson owned over 600 enslaved people, whose “Life,” from cradle to grave, was not their own, who had no “Liberty,” and were given no opportunity for the “pursuit of Happiness.”

And while Jefferson may have put the words “all men are created equal,” to parchment, there’s evidence that Jefferson saw little humanity in the people he enslaved. Eighteen years after the Declaration, in a letter to Madame Plumard de Bellanger, Jefferson imparted some investment advice meant for a family friend, counseling the friend to invest “every farthing in lands and negroes, which besides a present support bring a silent profit of from 5. to 10. per cent in this country by the increase in their value.”

Jefferson’s apologists often turn to his public statements, calling slavery, “against the laws of nature,” “a hideous blot,” and “a moral depravity.” The problem with that is, talking a good game counts for nothing; not for those who lived in servitude nor for the historical record. Slavery may have been against nature’s laws but it certainly fit in nicely with 18th century Virginia’s laws of agrarian economics, and Jefferson was not above taking full advantage of those laws.

The Black man’s humanity didn’t come 11 years later when racism was baked into The Constitution with the three-fifths clause, stipulating that, for the purpose of representation, three out of every five enslaved people were counted towards the population of the slave holding states. It wasn’t lost on the southern states that counting a Black person as three-fifths of a man gave the southern, slave holding states, a huge leg up in the Electoral College (Five of the first seven presidents were southern slavers).

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That was then, and over the course of two and a half centuries since the Declaration was adopted, progress – slow, painful, costly and always grudging – has been made. Through legislation, court decisions, protests, violence, and four years of civil war, Black people and the other marginalized started to see the promises of the Declaration within their grasp. Meanwhile, America was doing the hard thing of acknowledging the shames of the past.

For years, my commemoration of July fourth was an easy, carefree, thing; a day off work to watch baseball, indulge in grilled food and beer, an ice cream sundae for dessert and top it all off with fireworks. It was a day to be proud of America, the day to proudly display the flag and to celebrate those “self-evident” truths.

As the years have stacked up, and I’ve put more thought into the history, the meaning and the intent behind Independence Day, I’ve found myself changing the way I view this day. Considering this nation’s history since July 1776, and the events of recent years, celebration has come harder and harder. Beginning in 2016, and the administration of the 45th president, celebration was coming grudgingly.

In the past I could consider Jeffersonian hypocrisy, slavery, the treatment of Native Americans and all of the other blots as incidents and periods to remember, to learn from and to improve upon. Nothing is perfect and we as a society and a nation can only move forward as best we can. Celebrate the ideals, celebrate the wars won against tyranny, and celebrate America’s leadership in science, the arts and industry. Celebrate the fact that even though America has stumbled, the ideals have been there to inspire other nations. Even if America wasn’t the perfect version of the “shining city on a hill,” the principles certainly could stand as lights, guiding the path up that hill. This year any notion of pride seems delusional and celebration insincere. These sentiments don’t come easy and they sadden me.

We’re in our eighth year of Trumpian purgatory and instead of progressing, America is regressing. I see a segment of the nation repudiating and perverting the ideals that were put forth in The Declaration and The Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence was the rejection of a king and the repudiation of one man rule. And now, over two centuries later, America is experiencing a cult of personality that is anathema to the struggle that commenced in 1776. I recall a time when any candidate who pronounced, “I alone can fix it,” would be dismissed as a pretender and excoriated as a tyrant in waiting. And yet, just this sort of man is the frontrunner to be a nominee for his second term as president. He has been compared by some (himself especially), to Washington, Lincoln and Churchill. He’s even been compared to Jesus — for Chrissake. Is this sort of idolatry in keeping with the Declaration?

The cult of personality has embraced a man who helped to foment an insurrection, promised to pardon insurrectionists, called for termination of sections of the Constitution, railed against a made up deep state, and attempted to overthrow an election. He has openly vowed retribution against those who he believes treated him unjustly. And how does any of that square with the Constitution?

There was a time when a candidate’s admission to grabbing women’s genitals would be a campaign’s death knell. Not only was that excused, but two criminal indictments (with more likely to come) have only strengthened Trump’s standing amongst his followers.

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Say what you will about the founders, they were nothing if not courageous, well educated, intelligent and focused on their task at hand. That’s been true of many of our nation’s leaders, legislators and jurists since the founding. It’s true of the famous and the unsung who had the courage and the selflessness and the patriotism to move America forward and in a direction away from racism and hatred and towards acknowledging the mistakes of the past and working to rectify them while preserving the ideals of democracy and The Constitution.

Where is the courage among Republicans who continue to treat the former president with reverence and, whenever they happen to incur his anger, kneel and grovel for his forgiveness? Is this the repudiation of a monarch?

There was a time when the unqualified were rejected by the electorate, when, regardless of political views, truly competent individuals were elected to office. Now, bush-league assholes, who act like jerks, with no agenda other than to spout nonsense, bigotry and hate are soiling the halls of Congress and state houses across the nation.

The Supreme Court is experiencing its lowest approval rating in fifty years.

The push to bring the Bible and Christianity into schools and government is becoming ever greater. While you, the Christian, may need Jesus in your life, America doesn’t. America needs separation of church and state.

The current Governor of Florida, who is also running for president, has been running roughshod on civil rights. An article in The Berkshire Edge describes him as “the despotic governor of Florida who is determined to stifle all ideas, behaviors, and institutions that he doesn’t particularly like.” The piece continues, “ … the idea of him exporting his vision for a straight, white, science-denying, refugee-hating America to the White House should be profoundly frightening to anyone preferring not to live in an Orwellian dystopia.”

If Florida itself isn’t frightening enough, the fact that other states view a fascist leaning Florida as a great blueprint for their own states is indeed terrifying.

The ideals of the word “liberty” are being perverted by a pernicious group called Moms for Liberty whose leaders suggest that they are “moms on a mission to stoke the fires of liberty.” Sounds very apple pie doesn’t it? What they are on a mission to do is to stoke division, ban books, control thought and stifle debate.

Today the most visible group in the crosshairs of the right wing, the haters and the bigots like DeSantis and Moms for Liberty, is the LGBTQ community. Gay people were coming out of closet in growing numbers when I was in high school. Today whether through legislation or discrimination or outright violence the gay community is being pushed viciously back. Way back when, the term that the bigots used was “recruiting” The term du jour is “grooming,” and it’s used openly and indiscriminately. Not only are DeSantis and the Moms working to curtail LBGTQ rights, they are on a mission to disappear that community.

In November of 2020, I’d hoped that we would be lifted out of purgatory. Clearly I was mistaken. That we’re still in the dark depths is depressing. That the move to the right has not only managed to survive and gain traction, but actually grow like a cancer is frightening. Who would have thought that a sitting member of Congress would call the Ukrainian forces fighting against an invading war criminal, a ‘Nazi army?’ I never imagined that the day would come when the Republican Party would put out the welcome mat for Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian President who just a week earlier said that Europeans “do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”

Leading up to Independence Day, a Gallup poll revealed that only 39 percent of U.S. adults say they are “extremely proud” to be an American.

I want to be proud of my country but it’s become very difficult. Nowadays I settle for being proud of the ideals upon which this country was founded and of the brave people, famous and obscure, who have struggled to secure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” for all.

On this Independence Day celebrate the day by setting aside a few minutes to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Consider whether or not we are truly living up to the ideals set forth in those documents. It won’t take long. You can still grill the burgers, watch the game and take in the fireworks display. This year try having a slice of democracy for dessert.

Links:
Declaration of Independence

Constitution of the United States

For information on Moms for Liberty,
Moms for Liberty, meet John Birch: the roots of US rightwing book bans