You Say You Want a Revolution...

Tomorrow, the United States celebrates high treason. Yea for those traitors to King and Country! Yea for the slave-owning rich white male power structure! Yea for solving political differences with war instead of diplomacy!

Ok, I got that off my chest, now to move onward…

Two hundred and few years ago, a bunch of radicals got together and decided they wanted a revolution (cue “Revolution #9”). To make their point, they signed a document that, given that there was no e-mail, no fax machine, no text messaging, wouldn’t reach Britain for weeks. Why we don’t celebrate Independence Day on the day King George actually received the declaration (August 10th), I don’t know – I guess that’s a tree falling in the forest question. But it’s July 4th (which is actually about a week after the very first declaration was signed, but I guess they found some typos, then they needed to make copies and there was no Kinko’s back then, ok, I’ll stop) and we’ll just pretend everyone in Britain knew that treachery was in our hearts and minds the moment John Hancock put pen to parchment. That document was an interesting little ditty. It begins like this:

When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

Isn’t that cool? It says people have a natural right to separate themselves from politic associations that no longer fit. It says this is a thing that sometimes happens and sometimes needs to happen. Take, for instance, the two-party, privately financed, election system we have in the United States. It says we have a natural right to separate from it.
A little farther down, it says this:

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.

This is the bit I really like, “it is their duty…to provide new Guards for their future Security.” Duty. Not choice, not decision. If the government is no longer serving the interests of the governed, there is a duty to create change. This isn’t me saying it, this is Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and 50 or so other guys you never really hear about, but whose necks would have stretched just as far had they lost. And do you realize what they aren’t saying? They aren’t saying “stay the course.” They don’t call change “cut and run.” [Sidenote – isn’t interesting how much more eloquent our leaders used to be?]

Okay, just one more tidbit before I leave everybody to their barbecue and beer. After the war, a lot of the same guys who perpetrated the treason, got back together and wrote some more stuff down. This they called The Constitution, and before the ink was even dry, they decided it needed a little extra “oomph.” Well, really there was a great deal of arguing from the new states about how much power they should really allow the new federal government, so for the next few years after they wrote the Constitution, they worked out the language on the real sticking points, and these became the Bill of Rights. Here’s No. 1 on the Bill of Rights Hit Parade:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

People have the right to disagree with the government! What were they thinking? Well, they were thinking how a federal government that exerted too much authority would become tyrannical and we would end up with another King George, another long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, and…Wow! These guys would have made a fortune in the 1-900 psychic phone line business!

So, to those would think Mother hates America and is very unpatriotic for disagreeing with American policies, I say have a safe and happy Fourth, but think about two things:

1) The two documents that best illustrate the ideals of this country say dissent is very patriotic.

2) I’ve actually taken the time to read them.


Special note to Moto: Try not to blow yourself up.