When, in the course of human events, it becomes obvious to all that the current American political system bears little if any resemblance to the values put forward in the 13 colonies’ July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence, it’s time to consider doing away with “Independence Day” as a positive commemoration.
But not, I hold, worthy of cancellation as a holiday altogether.
The Declaration still has some pretty good bones to base a holiday on, and who doesn’t love a day off work for grilling out and playing with explosives?
Instead of celebrating the Big Lie that we live under a government which exists to “secure” our rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” we’d do well to instead turn our attention to a Festivusstyle “airing of the grievances.”
The Declaration is chock-full of such grievances. It includes no fewerthan27ofthem,manyatleast as relevant to today’s “independent” America as they were to Britain’s American colonies.
Let’s try just three of those grievances on for size.
“He [King George III] has endeavored 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 …” Sound familiar? No, America isn’t “full” — it enjoys a lower population density than Manhattan-like urbs such as Afghanistan and Yemen. Yet the US government has imposed a 100-mile wide “constitution-free” zone along the borders to facilitate its abuctions, cagings, and deportations of immigrants.
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”
The federal government currently employs 2.95 million Americans — half a million more than the entire population of the 13 colonies in 1776. Most of them, most of the time, are up to no good.
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.”
The last time the US was legally at war was 1945 … but for some reason the US government keeps more than two million persons under arms, scattered across more than 300 military bases domestically and another thousand or more abroad. All at your expense, of course.
As to the “civil power,” politicians who don’t bow, scrape, and scurry to shovel money and power at the armed forces on demand are rare as hens teeth and ineffectual when they do turn up.
But wait — there’s more! Give the Declaration of Independence a read sometime and ask yourself whether it’s really produced results superior to the situations it decries.
Let’s move Festivus from December 23 to July 4, re-air the Declaration’s grievances … and do something about them.
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@ thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter. org). He lives and works in north central Florida.